[SOLVED] System keeps freezing when gaming and I have to hard restart

[tarogmats]

I've seen a couple other threads on this, (a few got suggested) but I just want another opinion, I'm planning to replace the RAM and Power Supply next week (the RAM was always giving me problems - imo - and the power supply is definitely old)

The system specs:

Ryzen 5 2600x
Corsair Vengeance Pro RGB 16 GB
ASUS Rog B450-f Strix
3 x 1tb HDDs, 1 Kingston 120 SSD
GTX 1060 6GB that I'm holding for dear life because buying a GPU in these times is scary.

So it doesn't happen always, it happened just now and the system had been on for 70+ hours so far, but no crashes. Windows pushed through an update that's about it.
I've gamed a bit during the time, mostly been a lot of Crusader Kings, and I noticed epic had 2K21 free so I picked it up and was playing that a bit. Got no freezes over the weekend, but this morning I was playing 2K again, and got up to go do something, came back, and the entire system had frozen and I had to hard restart it.

I'm willing to bet it's the RAM or the PSU, because the PSU is an old 450 (I literally don't even know the name or anything, but it's not a "known brand" he told me) I'd bummed from a friend a few years ago and I never bothered to replace it because it kept ticking, and RAM because I have absolutely horrible luck with RAM. This batch refuses to clock to anything above 2133 on the XMP profile. Even if I do it manually, just doesn't boot.
My temps are still good, the inside of the case isn't overly dusty, it has some dust was gonna wait until I get the new PSU to clean it out and just rebuild from scratch.

Also, why I'm thinking it's the PSU or at the very least hoping it is. When I turned it on Friday night, it would load through the bios well enough but as soon as it got to windows the signal died. I waited but it never recovered and I ended up hard restarting twice before it actually came on, and I never turned it off since until it crashed this afternoon, and it booted right back up.

So I'm leaning towards those two components and I'm gonna change them out ASAP, just wondering if anyone has any other thoughts. Nothing shows up in the event viewer when it freezes, most I got was some information panels telling me that the

Processor (#) in group 0 exposes the following power management capabilities:

Idle state type: ACPI Idle (C) States (2 state(s))

Performance state type: ACPI Performance (P) / Throttle (T) States
Nominal Frequency (MHz): 3600
Maximum performance percentage: 100
Minimum performance percentage: 61
Minimum throttle percentage: 61

Any other opinions would be greatly appreciated, and I am hoping very much that it's not the GPU lol.

 

[Vic 40]

You have the latest bios? This might help with ram issues.

Looking at what you say about the psu would upgrading that indeed be a good idea.

 

[tarogmats]

yeah I have the latest bios, RAM might just be busted. When i shipped it, it'd gotten stuck in customs for almost two months. Lord knows what happened there.
So i couldn't return it to amazon by then, and I Couldn't say "hey you guys sold me busted RAM."

Gonna replace the PSU for sure though, and the RAM.

 

[Vic 40]

yeah I have the latest bios, RAM might just be busted. When i shipped it, it'd gotten stuck in customs for almost two months. Lord knows what happened there.
So i couldn't return it to amazon by then, and I Couldn't say "hey you guys sold me busted RAM."

Gonna replace the PSU for sure though, and the RAM.

The manufacturer has his own warranty, talk to them directly for an RMA if you find out it's the ram. Usually does ram have a "lifetime" warranty. Just open a support ticket on Corsair's site->support and see what it brings.

The 120gb ssd has windows? How full is it?

 

[tarogmats]

The manufacturer has his own warranty, talk to them directly for an RMA if you find out it's the ram. Usually does ram have a "lifetime" warranty. Just open a support ticket on Corsair's site->support and see what it brings.

The 120gb ssd has windows? How full is it?

That, is actually pretty full. Like, some days it fluctuates between 15GB and 10GB free. I usually keep it around 18 - 21 when I get around to cleaning out temp files.

You think that could be a potential issue? I never actually even considered it.

Also, yeah I know about the manufacturer's RMA process just hadn't started it because our local post system wasn't shipping items out of the country, and the only option was Fedex, but their terms were a ridiculous to me. I've got the Corsair and some older G.Skill Trident Z RAM to RMA.

 

[Vic 40]

Yeah an almost full ssd when in use might not have enough space left to swap files around and that might stall things. Especially if you have the pagefile on it as well. Can try and swap that pagefile to one of the hdd's that is pretty empty, see if that helps.

Think by now the minimum for a ssd as C drive is ~250gb. All other files like video/music/pictures etc. are on the hdd's? Even games like to use the C drive for some files so swapping those to a more empty hdd might help.

 

[tarogmats]

Ah damn, I was planning to get a M.2 stick next month, will see if I can bump it up, or at the very least free up some space.

The page file? I'll look it up, is this something Ramcache would take care of? Because I was running RAMcache II after the first freeze and I'd set it to auto.

Also I moved everything off of the main drive, music/docs/downloads, changed the folder locations to other drives in the system. So honestly, I just could never figure out what temp files were taking up so much space, and after a while I gave up.

Will definitely clean it up though, probably wipe it and do a fresh install or something.

 

[Vic 40]

About the pagefile,

What Is the Windows Page File, and How Do You Configure It?

Windows uses a page file to store data that can’t be held by your computer’s random-access memory when it fills up. While you can tweak the page file settings, Windows 10 and Windows 11 can manage the page file just fine on their own.

www.howtogeek.com

i agree with them that the pagefile should be on the fastest drive, but maybe for the time that you have it might be good to swap it to another drive as described in the link. If it doesn't help can you switch it back as well.

Can use hwinfo to see how much of the pagefile really is used, maybe with 16gb in your system it doesn't use alot,

download hwinfo64,
install and open it,
check "sensors-only",
click "run".

you will find it at the top of the sensors window.

 

[tarogmats]

Alright thanks, I'll do it as soon as I get in this evening.
In terms of the signal dying when I got to windows though, (I don't think it would be related to the pagefile issue, but I'm not 100% sure, I had fastboot enabled, so I dunno) but, does that throw out any other flags to you?

I'll still try what you recommended, just curious about your take on that.

 

[Vic 40]

Might be good to disable fast boot, see if it helps..

 

[tarogmats]

Might be good to disable fast boot, see if it helps..

So quick update, got in, haven't disabled fast boot as yet, but the system came right on, no issues. Checked the page file stuff, and it's only on the C: drive and it says 8gigs are allocated, so I'm figuring that had some sort of impact on things. Wipe and give it a clean run, see how it goes. Just backing up some stuff before I do.

 

[Windows22]

That, is actually pretty full. Like, some days it fluctuates between 15GB and 10GB free. I usually keep it around 18 - 21 when I get around to cleaning out temp files.

You think that could be a potential issue? I never actually even considered it.

Also, yeah I know about the manufacturer's RMA process just hadn't started it because our local post system wasn't shipping items out of the country, and the only option was Fedex, but their terms were a ridiculous to me. I've got the Corsair and some older G.Skill Trident Z RAM to RMA.

Do you think the fluctuations can be managed when your new PSU and RAM are acquired. As in considering alternate external storage?

 

[tarogmats]

Do you think the fluctuations can be managed when your new PSU and RAM are acquired. As in considering alternate external storage?

Well I did a completely clean install yesterday, and I'm hovering at 65 gigs free, probably gonna spring for a 500GB SSD to use for the boot drive [the prices actually aren't too bad]. In the mean time though I'll monitor how the space decreases.

 

[Vic 40]

That at least looks better. hope windows and it's updates don't ruin too much. Make sure whatever or most you install you use an hdd. Hope it will help. At least for now.

 

[tarogmats]

yeah, I will. It's up to date with the 21H1 update or whatever right now. So I'll try to keep an eye on it.
I'll update the post when I get the new parts to close it out, I don't want to do too much testing at the moment to potentially make the situation worse, and then not have the parts to hand.

Still it's odd, because there's absolutely no instability, no crashes, nothing. The temps seemed pretty fine too. So I'll update and test when i get the GPU and RAM.

 

[Vic 40]

So I'll update and test when i get the GPU and RAM.

You do that, we'd like to know. 👍

 

[tarogmats]

Well just an update @Vic 40 @Windows22 I didn't get to swap out the parts just yet, but I booted up outriders got to the lobby screen and the entire game froze.
What is interesting though, is that I could still hear the audio, but the game screen just stuck. Also, Outriders has razer chroma implementation, so the colors sync to the game, but as soon as the freeze happened, they reverted back to the original profile.
The PS4 controller I had connected suddenly started flashing like it'd lost connection (via bluetooth and DS4) but nothing would respond, and upon hard rebooting, no issues if I don't a game I guess.

So I can leave the system running for days with no issues what so ever, no freezes nothing of the sort and it'd be fine. I can play low impact games like Crusader Kings II. I can still watch 4K videos, whatever else I want to do. Just when I try to game the system freezes and it requires a hard restart.
Like I'd mentioned in the previous post's comments I was able to notice the extent that it happened this evening when I launched Outriders, because outriders has chroma rgb integration it syncs my keyboard and mouse to the games RGB, but when the system froze the keyboard and mouse went back to the profile I'd set, rather than just reverting to the default like there'd be a complete system crash.
Also, it freezes but the display remains on, just stuck and I can't CTRL + ALT + DELETE or anything, but I can hear the audio still, it doesn't stop, be it when I'm watching a movie or anything.
To be honest I haven't cleaned the system in a few months like, literally clean and dust it out it's just been a little hectic, but even so the temps don't seem to bad, I was monitoring them during the last crash, the CPU was running at 68 (currently at 56 idle) and the GPU was at 76 (currently at 57 idle) so I don't think it could be the components overheating hopefully.

I'm leaning towards RAM or the PSU being the culprit, but now I'm reluctantly considering the GPU and I just want some additional opinions. Also, I had turned on RAM caching prior to wiping my system and I'm not 100% sure if that had an impact but I was gaming a bit with it, mainly modern warfare and 2k21 so I don't know if that helps any.

Recap of components:

Ryzen 5 2600x
16GB CORSAIR RAM (I believe this is faulty because it refuses to clock above 2133 no matter what I do, xmp profiles, manually setting it, nothing works. It just black screens the systems and kicks my fans up to max I have to pop out the cmos battery and hope the bios resets)
very old 450W power suppy, no idea the brand, bummed it off of a friend almost 6 - 7 years ago, meant to change it out, and here we are.
GTX 1060 6GB (has more dust than I'd like)
120GB kingston SSD.
3 x 1 terabyte WD HDDs

Couple of case fans, none RGB, three have leds, I think?r. Dunno if that counts.

 

[tarogmats]

That at least looks better. hope windows and it's updates don't ruin too much. Make sure whatever or most you install you use an hdd. Hope it will help. At least for now.

Hi closing this thread, I think I'm into new territory at this point. Started a new thread if you ever want to chime in: here

I really chose the best answer cause you actually taught me something I didn't know. In terms of the page file and how it works.
So thanks for the new knowledge, and all the best.