[SOLVED] Random & Brief PC Lag/Freezing

May 19, 2020
10
0
10
Apologies in advance if this is the wrong category. It seems to fit best for the problem I am having.

The following is a post I have made to answers.microsoft seeking help with a problem I have been having and unable to find a solution for...
So for a while now, I have been having problems in applications such as games and in web browsers where what I am doing seemingly freezes for around a second before rapidly catching up.

For example, it did it as I was wiring this very message. I typed in ar then everything seemingly stopped doing anything. After about a second, ound then appeared on the screen in a sort of delay. The blinking cursor to denote where I am typing also continued to blink like I was not typing at all, until the freeze stopped and the delated text was entered.

If I am playing a video game, say Overwatch. I will be running down a hallway when everything seems to lock up for a second. Once it unlocks, I find myself further along said hallway like the game had continued to act on the instruction I gave it until the freeze stopped. What doesn't happen is I come back and find that I have not moved (unless I stopped giving instructions to move).

I have had this issue for quite some time now. It is an issue that has carried over to my new PC which is completely new parts. The only two components that have come from the old machine are the SSD and the HDD. It is also worth mentioning that the PC doesn't freeze indefinitely either. It happens for but a second and then resumes normal functionality. No restart is required as nothing has crashed.

The PC is a brand new build with a fresh copy of windows on the SSD. The HDD was also wiped and everything reinstalled fresh onto the new computer.

I have tried looking online for a solution, but everything I seem to find comes back to fixing full-on crashes.

Edit: I posted this late at night local time. If I do not respond right away, I am likely asleep. Though your quick feedback is appreciated nonetheless.

The steps taken so far to resolve this can be found here... But it seems that the kind person helping me can't seem to narrow the problem down either. I was hoping if anyone else has experienced this problem and been able to fix it.
 
Solution
When you try to find the problem, you should use the minimum hardware or software, like just use the SSD, not HDD. And don't install the ASUS utility software you don't use. And try to backup the steam games, then reinstall the steam.

How to backup the games: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8794-yphv-2033

One more if you had the any games ( like your Overwatch ) lag, the problem related to the network or the games servers, not relate to your PC hardware. Only you have the lower FPS, that will be your hardware problem.
May 19, 2020
10
0
10
Can you post your PC specifications? including the model and brand, that will help a lots.

Apologies, and yes.

Drive (Boot): SanDisk SDSSDA240G
Drive (Storage): TOSHIBA HDWD120
GPU: Nvidea GeForce RTX 2080 TI
CPU: Intel i7-9700K 3.60GHz
Motherboard: ROG STRIX Z390-F GAMING
RAM: Team Group Night Hawk RGB 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit
Wireless: ASUS PCE-N15 300Mbps Wireless N PCI-E Adapter
PSU: Kolink Classic Power 600W 80 Plus Bronze Power Supply

Thank you for your reply. I hope I can be of further help in the morning (3am here).
 
May 19, 2020
10
0
10
I think your problem maybe from the PSU, you can try to remove the rtx 2080ti, use onboard iGPU or other low power consumption GPU to test.
Also run the " reliability monitor tool " to see you will get something or not. https://www.howtogeek.com/166911/re...windows-troubleshooting-tool-you-arent-using/

Thank you for the suggestion. I will give it a try.

It might be worth noting that the problem doesn't seem to be as bad after a restart. When the PC is freshly booted I hardly notice the freeze at all (if it even happens). As the day goes on however, or as I run a game, the freeze seems to get worse.

The problem also seems identical to what I was having on an old machine. I don't remember when it started on that machine, but it wasn't always the case. This PC was built with:

Seagate BarraCuda 1TB 7200RPM SATA 64MB Cache Hard Drive - System Stock

Which I replaced with the devices I already mentioned.

Reliability Monitor
View: https://imgur.com/Q3z8epb
 
It might be worth noting that the problem doesn't seem to be as bad after a restart. When the PC is freshly booted I hardly notice the freeze at all (if it even happens). As the day goes on however, or as I run a game, the freeze seems to get worse.
That may relate to the temp, like the cpu/gpu, also the PSU too.

Use the software, like MSI afterburner, HWinfo to monitor the cpu/gpu temps. Also try use the intel onboard UHD 630 with lower game setting to test.
HWinfo https://www.hwinfo.com/download/

And, did you have any RGB device? because you use the ROG live service. If you don't have any, may uninstall it, sometime these asus utility software is buggy. But if you have to use it, try to uninstall it, also do the same for asus armoury crate too.
More info: https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1041654/

One more, I don't know you did or did not disable the page file size for the SSD. If you did, try to enable it, because the disabling PFS can cause instability and crashes within Windows.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ukpezzzz
May 19, 2020
10
0
10
That may relate to the temp, like the cpu/gpu, also the PSU too.

Use the software, like MSI afterburner, HWinfo to monitor the cpu/gpu temps. Also try use the intel onboard UHD 630 with lower game setting to test.
HWinfo https://www.hwinfo.com/download/

And, did you have any RGB device? because you use the ROG live service. If you don't have any, may uninstall it, sometime these asus utility software is buggy. But if you have to use it, try to uninstall it, also do the same for asus armoury crate too.
More info: https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1041654/

One more, I don't know you did or did not disable the page file size for the SSD. If you did, try to enable it, because the disabling PFS can cause instability and crashes within Windows.

I have GPU-Z and Asus GPU to monitor the GPU and CPU temperatures. The PC itself is just pushing a week old from out the box now so I expect to have good circulation. The CPU is also water-cooled.

The temperature for both CPU and GPU I see typically around the 30-50 Celcius range, usually on the lower end of that range and near the 50's on a more intensive game.

The machine has RGB within the case that the software interacts with.

As for changes to the storage side of things, I did follow this post (https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/random-freezing-of-system-for-a-few-seconds.3594000/), but undid the changes when I noticed it did not get rid of the periodic freezes.

Under System Properties > Performance Options (Advanced) > Virtual Memory... It is set to automatically manage paging file sizes.

Min Allowed: 16mb
Recomm: 4972mb
Current Alloc: 4864mb

The GPU is currently out of the machine also whilst I test your previous suggestion of removing it and seeing how performance changes.
 
May 19, 2020
10
0
10
I think your problem maybe from the PSU, you can try to remove the rtx 2080ti, use onboard iGPU or other low power consumption GPU to test.
Also run the " reliability monitor tool " to see you will get something or not. https://www.howtogeek.com/166911/re...windows-troubleshooting-tool-you-arent-using/

The GPU has been out all day now. I have been running my normal activities through the iGPU and I noticed that over the course of the day of normal activities, the same lag problems eventually started to set in.

With the GPU reinstalled and the PC restarted, these issues seem to have gone quiet again.

The current GPU temperature is 42'c and CPU 37'c

In regards to faulty software. The software in question was not present on my old PC where the same issue was also present.

The PC build I am using now was also tested by a technician before shipment from Overclockers UK
 
1) Go into the BIOS to check the +3.3V, +5V, and +12V, that maybe in the pc health monitor or hardware monitor section, or check the MB manual> You want to see these voltage are within +/- 5% range, like the +3.3V, you should see it is within +3.13--+3.46V. If they are within the +/- 5%, the PSU is fine. If they are not, you need the new PSU.

2) Can you check the SSD to see it is full or not? When you use SSD, it should have about 10% free space, like 24GB for your 240GB SSD.

3) You got the RGB device(s), which RGB software did you use? asus one or other one for the case fan? If you had both of them, may uninstall one, because they will interfere each other sometime, if you have more one RGB software.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ukpezzzz
May 19, 2020
10
0
10
1) Go into the BIOS to check the +3.3V, +5V, and +12V, that maybe in the pc health monitor or hardware monitor section, or check the MB manual> You want to see these voltage are within +/- 5% range, like the +3.3V, you should see it is within +3.13--+3.46V. If they are within the +/- 5%, the PSU is fine. If they are not, you need the new PSU.

2) Can you check the SSD to see it is full or not? When you use SSD, it should have about 10% free space, like 24GB for your 240GB SSD.

3) You got the RGB device(s), which RGB software did you use? asus one or other one for the case fan? If you had both of them, may uninstall one, because they will interfere each other sometime, if you have more one RGB software.

View: https://imgur.com/H6DuutX


View: https://imgur.com/4YRiyOe


The software I use is Armoury Crate. I was prompted to install it when I launched the PC for the first time last week.

I have also been sent this by a friend as a possible option to consider https://www.partitionwizard.com/clone-disk/ssd-freeze-up.html
 
May 19, 2020
10
0
10
You can try that, and when you used the Sandisk SSD Dashboard, did you check the SSD or HDD S.M.A.R.T. You said you can't find find anything wrong about the SSD.
Info: https://www.howtogeek.com/134735/how-to-see-if-your-hard-drive-is-dying/

I did the extended SMART test and it came back saying it didn't find anything.

View: https://imgur.com/Y6ZfWjc


I will give that link you posted and the one above a try and then feedback if anything changes. I think my next line of testing is to transfer the OS onto the harddrive and see if the problem persists when I remove the SSD. If it does, do the opposite and move some of my things onto the SSD and remove the HDD. Given the problem is identical across two different PCs and they are the only components they have in common, I am almost tempted to just replace them both with the HDD that came with the new build a t this point and see what happens.
 
May 19, 2020
10
0
10
So after a few days of messing with different software and services running, I couldn't narrow down any specific software fault that was causing the freezing issues.
What I then did was take the 1TB HDD that came with the new PC and refit it back into it and install all the same software that was on the SSD+2TB HDD. I spent a few hours in Overwatch which is where I notice the worst of the lag and everything seems fine.
I have refitted just the SSD now and am in the process of installing Overwatch to run off of this. I am unsure but I think I already saw some stutters so my faith isn't very high. But if the lag comes back, I am going to write it off as something wrong with the SDD and get a replacement.
If nothing seems to be wrong, then I am going to do the same on the 2TB HDD and replace that if the problem reoccurs.
If I can't deduce where the fault is happening at this point then I guess I am just going to cry (sarcasm).
 
May 19, 2020
10
0
10
Right, so an update to the investigation into this problem.
I have purchased a new SSD card because I decided I wanted one anyway and spent the morning putting an OS on it and all of the programs I normally use. I then put the HDD back into the PC with all of my files on and spend the remainder of the morning telling all my software where all of its stuff is on the new drive.
This new SDD didn't seem to solve the problem. The lag was back and relatively strong in Overwatch and typing in general afterward.
This tells me that my other SSD is fine. This is alright given that it sits comfortably in my old machine, so I take assurance from knowing there is a stable drive in that machine.

Getting back to the point, I set my eyes on my harddisk. At this point, the lag was strong and I didn't restart because I was in the process of cloning the drive I have plugged in onto a spare 2TB drive I had lying around because I replaced it a few years back for acting funny. I forgot to dismount the drive in the PC when cloning it. When I did, all of the lag disappeared. I am typing this message with no intrusive text delay and everything is feeling nice from the new SSD.

What I will do now is swap out the drive in the machine with the drive which is a clone of it and see what happens. Rather it is going to be a problem with HDD's in general...? Which doesn't make sense to me, or there is something wrong with the HDD plugged in and changing it out with a clone should prove this.
 
When you try to find the problem, you should use the minimum hardware or software, like just use the SSD, not HDD. And don't install the ASUS utility software you don't use. And try to backup the steam games, then reinstall the steam.

How to backup the games: https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8794-yphv-2033

One more if you had the any games ( like your Overwatch ) lag, the problem related to the network or the games servers, not relate to your PC hardware. Only you have the lower FPS, that will be your hardware problem.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ukpezzzz
Solution
May 19, 2020
10
0
10
Right so after nearly having an aneurysm, I finally discovered what the problem was.

Desktop (Rightclick) > Personalization > Colours > Automatically pick an accent colour from my background (Unckeck)

What was happening was, there was a brief lag when the desktop would rotate, and this was reflected within games and also when I am typing in browsers. Unchecking this, the lag cannot happen and everything runs fine.

This was such a pain in the ass. But I would like to thank cin19 for trying to help me along this frustrating process. Your efforts were most appreciated.