Question Screen randomly freezes and PC restarts ?

[odaniboy]

Hi, All,

First: hopefully this is in the right place. If not, I'll move elsewhere.

I'm sort of at the end of my rope with this issue, as it's been going on for months. I've had the computer for around a year or so with no issues, and then a few months back every so often on start up my displayport wouldn't work--just no signal to my screens at all. Then, maybe a week or two into that, my screen started to randomly freeze (often with audio still working in the background) and then the computer would restart itself, with event viewer saying that the computer has restarted after a bugcheck.

The crashes are random. Sometimes I'll be gaming for 4+ hours with no issue, and then try to send an email and it'll crash. Sometimes I'm watching twitch or youtube. Sometimes I'm in a game. Time of day, amount of time on the computer, what I'm doing all vary. When I took it into a shop they couldn't get it to crash for days. The only other consistent symptom on days the computer doesn't crash at all is that it's still a dice roll on whether or not my Displayport would work on startup. Sometimes displayport just doesn't send any signal regardless of monitor used or cable type.

The only way to get any signal to my monitors was to turn off the computer, unplug the cables, wait a few seconds, plug it back in, and see if it worked. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. More recently, since a clean Windows install, I haven't been having this issue, but that could just be random luck and not actually a sign that the clean install did anything. As I said before, this has been going on for months now. I'll list my computer specs, and then all of the steps I've gone through so far, and my two most recent minidumps.

Computer Specs:
OS: Windows 10 x64 bit
1 TB SSD
CPU: Intel Core i7-10700 @ 2.90GHz, 2904 Mhz, 8 Cores, 16 Logical Processors
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060
RAM: 16GB
PSU: EVGA 500 GD

Nothing is overclocked.

I use a Razer Deathadder v2 and Razer Blackshark v2 for mouse/headset and synapse to run it (I don't know if this is useful, I'm just covering my bases)

Two most recent minidumps:
Most recent 7/3/22: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1k7Sv73d9qq3hkh1eu3S-1P5OTQ9zLxXU/view?usp=sharing
Second most recent 6/30/22: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jsC3zgkBQ9XLr5OaBhg5_UHlQSe-R8RD/view?usp=sharing

Things I've already done:

1. Installed a new PSU
2. Taken the computer to be checked by a shop (twice)
3. Had hardware stress tested, and the memory checked with memtest both times--no memory issues, crashes, or overheating.
4. Had a new cooler for the CPU by the shop (the only time they were ever able to get it to crash, they noticed the CPU was hot)
5. Used DDU to uninstall drivers in safemode, and then clean installed new drivers (I have tried the 3 most recent drivers from Nvidia, and the bog standard ones that automatically get installed by windows all of which still produce the issue.)
6. Clean install of Windows

Most everything I can find points to a driver problem, as, more often than not, event viewer points towards nvlddmkm and/or display drivers/GPU, but the aforementioned clean driver installs and clean windows install have done nothing to fix the issue. There's no consistent way to reproduce the crashes, I've tried multiple different drivers--the three most recent ones, and the factory driver. All have produced the same problem. The one change I've noticed is that I haven't recently had the other issue of displayport not working on startup, but that was just as random as the crashes so I don't know if that's dumb luck or progress. Any information or help I could get would be greatly appreciated. It's been months of this and I'm seriously worried about the health of my computer. If the answer is "just buy a new GPU" I'll do that, but I'm worried it won't fix the problem.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

PSU: EVGA 500 GD
+
Installed a new PSU
Did you try the same PSU, only brand new? If so, you're advised to invest a 650W PSU for a build with an RTX3060 in it.

Clean install of Windows
Where did you source the installer for your OS?

What are you using to cool the processor?

 

[odaniboy]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

PSU: EVGA 500 GD
+
Installed a new PSU
Did you try the same PSU, only brand new? If so, you're advised to invest a 650W PSU for a build with an RTX3060 in it.

Clean install of Windows
Where did you source the installer for your OS?

What are you using to cool the processor?

Thank you for the welcome!

PSU: I did, I also received similar feedback from Nvidia help last night, so I'll look at buying a new PSU.

As for the clean install, I'm not sure. The shop I took it to is the one that did it, and so I assume it was from a USB.

Cooling: I've got two cooler fans on the CPU, not sure of the brand.

 

[Colif]

crash on 30th June caused by GPU drivers. Nvidia drivers mentioned in crash.
more recent crash not so obvious

what BIOS version are you on?
look in system information app
it should show next to BIOS version/Date header, underneath description of the processor.
The bios reports the wrong info to the report so I can only see 1.A1 which is a different record.

there is a newer BIOS regardless as yours dated 2020, and newest is last month, June 2022.
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MAG-B460M-MORTAR-WIFI/support
BIOS updates might help as well.

maybe flash bios after getting new PSU.

 

[odaniboy]

crash on 30th June caused by GPU drivers. Nvidia drivers mentioned in crash.
more recent crash not so obvious

what BIOS version are you on?
look in system information app
it should show next to BIOS version/Date header, underneath description of the processor.
The bios reports the wrong info to the report so I can only see 1.A1 which is a different record.

there is a newer BIOS regardless as yours dated 2020, and newest is last month, June 2022.
https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/MAG-B460M-MORTAR-WIFI/support
BIOS updates might help as well.

maybe flash bios after getting new PSU.

Thank you for this! I actually tried to flash the bios on Tuesday, but was having issues, and out of an abundance of caution and not wanting to brick my computer, I contacted my motherboard manufacturer to get a little more help with that.

Also an update: I installed the new PSU, and I have a GPU on standby to test it and see if that improves stability if the PSU doesn't work.

Question: It's a long shot, but I found someone on here with essentially the same problem as me, same symptoms etc. same motherboard and card, and it turned out that the PCIe slot he was using on his motherboard had gone bad. Is there a way to check if that slot is going bad via the BIOS or otherwise?

 

[Colif]

Is there a way to check if that slot is going bad via the BIOS or otherwise?

i don't think there is apart from use another PCIe 16 slot, your board has 2

1x PCIe 3.0 x16 slot (from CPU)
1x PCIe 3.0 x16 slot (from PCH， supports x4 mode)

if it makes no difference, its not the problem.

 

[odaniboy]

Update: It's been about a week since I installed the new GPU and PSU and it looks like it was one of them--my best are on the GPU. Either way, issues are fixed and my PC has been more stable than it has in a while.