Question Weird Light Artifact + Full System Freeze While Gaming/Streaming

[ItsRafiki__]

Hi there,

I built a new PC about six months back, and over the last month and half I've been noticing some issues happening on and off. Recently, they have been more prominent after a two week break. My system specs are as follows:

CPU: Ryzen 7 2700X @ 3.7GHz
GPU: Zotac RTX 2070 AMP Extreme Edition
Motherboard: ASUS ROG Strix B450-F Gaming
RAM: G.Skill Trident Z RGB @ 3200 MHz
CPU Cooler: Deepcool Captain 240EX
Power Supply: EVGA 600B

There have been two concerning issues that have been occuring:

The first is that I often have many games freeze without warning, but my whole system also seems to freeze as well. There is very little to no control left and the only solution as of right now is to restart my PC. It happens in games such as Witcher 3, Watch Dogs 2, Need For Speed: Payback, and occasionally GTA V (single playing and online). It used to happen while playing Metro Exodus as well, however that some how managed to fix itself. I do not have the graphics settings in these games cranked all the way up, they are a step below the highest preset. I have also noticed it starting to happen while I am streaming Overwatch, a game that I play on all low settings. I have been watching my temperatures while playing and they do not seem to be getting into any risky areas, staying below 60C for both GPU and CPU. Is this a possible issue of not having enough power for the system? I used this power supply from my previous build as I had put in the EVGA 600B about two years prior.

The second being that there is a weird "flashing light" artifact (?) that has been happening. It's very subtle at first, but eventually it picks up, especially in graphically intensive games. I do believe this issue alone may be enough to look into an RMA with Zotac however I would like to know if there may be any possible fix that may be known before I take that step. The video in this thread is exactly what is happening to me, in fact the same GPU. It can also be seen happening here, on stream.

Thank you for your help. I really appreciate it

Rafiki

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

let's break this down into different things here.

To address the flashing colored lights, that to my knowledge and experience is an issue with VRAM.

I personally have ever only seen this happen to my when overclocking my VRAM too far which makes it unstable, and for a card that I assume is running at stock values this doesn't bode well.

Secondly, the crashing can be a few things, but based on the exact games you've listed, I am going to think that it has something to do with the CPU, especially when you say the entire system freezes and not just the games.

However, the artifacting could be a result of a CPU issue.

Let's run down some things you can do first to check on things.

Think back to when you built the system, when you put the CPU in, did you make sure that you properly seated it?
Because an improperly seated CPU can sometimes still boot and run things, but will have issues when put under a load.

If you have thermal paste lying around that you can use, then I would suggest removing the CPU cooler and then removing the CPU and then carefully putting it back in and making sure it's properly and fully seated, then clean the paste from the CPU and the cooler and repaste it and see if that helps.

Before doing that though, we can try to test to see if it's the CPU with a CPU stress test using AIDA64.

If your CPU passes a stress test on the CPU then it could be something else like system memory causing the entire system crash.

You can also use AIDA64 to perform a memory stress test.
Can also use MEMTest.

If after all that nothing is fixed, then it could be a GPU issue, but to test just the GPU would require some extra hardware and at which point you would probably just RMA the card.

Alternatively, assuming it's not a hardware issue at all and possibly software, I would suggest backing up important data, then doing a clean wipe of the drive and doing a clean install of Windows and then installing drivers and stuff.

 

[ItsRafiki__]

let's break this down into different things here.

To address the flashing colored lights, that to my knowledge and experience is an issue with VRAM.

I personally have ever only seen this happen to my when overclocking my VRAM too far which makes it unstable, and for a card that I assume is running at stock values this doesn't bode well.

Secondly, the crashing can be a few things, but based on the exact games you've listed, I am going to think that it has something to do with the CPU, especially when you say the entire system freezes and not just the games.

However, the artifacting could be a result of a CPU issue.

Let's run down some things you can do first to check on things.

Think back to when you built the system, when you put the CPU in, did you make sure that you properly seated it?
Because an improperly seated CPU can sometimes still boot and run things, but will have issues when put under a load.

If you have thermal paste lying around that you can use, then I would suggest removing the CPU cooler and then removing the CPU and then carefully putting it back in and making sure it's properly and fully seated, then clean the paste from the CPU and the cooler and repaste it and see if that helps.

Before doing that though, we can try to test to see if it's the CPU with a CPU stress test using AIDA64.

If your CPU passes a stress test on the CPU then it could be something else like system memory causing the entire system crash.

You can also use AIDA64 to perform a memory stress test.
Can also use MEMTest.

If after all that nothing is fixed, then it could be a GPU issue, but to test just the GPU would require some extra hardware and at which point you would probably just RMA the card.

Alternatively, assuming it's not a hardware issue at all and possibly software, I would suggest backing up important data, then doing a clean wipe of the drive and doing a clean install of Windows and then installing drivers and stuff.

I ran a AIDA64 test as you suggested. I ran it for 30 minutes, and had no issues appear, no freezing or crashing of the whole system. I am not sure if the trial version would be any different from the full, but I hope this still does its part.

With that said, would it now be safe to rule out the CPU and move on to other potential factors? Would it still be worth to check the CPU seating?

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

Check memory now to see if it's the RAM

 

[ItsRafiki__]

Check memory now to see if it's the RAM

Apologies for the late reply. I ran a test using Prime95 using the "Large FFTs" Preset, running the test overnight for approximately 10 hours. When I stopped the test, each of the 16 workers said that there had been no errors or warnings that had occurred during the torture test. I did however notice that workers 9, 10, 11, 12, and 13 were significantly behind in terms of tests completed. The other workers managed to complete around 90 tests (+/- 5) and those particular workers only between 60-70. Is this normal or a sign of an issue? Is Prime95 saying that there were zero errors or warnings enough to dismiss the RAM?

Additionally, I ran a "Blend" test for approximately one hour, and that also showed no issues. This test I probably should have run for an extended period, so I will run it one more time tonight to check. This "blend" test also showed the same pattern noticed above with the workers. except this time it was worker 14 rather than 13 that was slower.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

Ok, so you stress test and nothing happens... But when you game you said sometimes your system crashes? I'm not talking about a game crashing, I'm talking about the operating system crashing which would force you to have to do a hard shut down and turn it back on.

It's this the case?

 

[ItsRafiki__]

Ok, so you stress test and nothing happens... But when you game you said sometimes your system crashes? I'm not talking about a game crashing, I'm talking about the operating system crashing which would force you to have to do a hard shut down and turn it back on.

It's this the case?

Correct. Something happens which causes the system to freeze. I missed mentioning this however it some cases, the system simply slows down to a very very very slow pace, after the game has crashed. The system responsiveness becomes very slow, to the point where simply attempting to tab out and open task manager can take upward of 45 seconds, at which point a hard shut down is simply the better option in my eyes.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

And does this only happen when gaming or does it happen randomly when doing anything?

 

[ItsRafiki__]

And does this only happen when gaming or does it happen randomly when doing anything?

Only while gaming and streaming. or just gaming by itself.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

Try bread bording your system and run some simple games using the iGPU and then do the proper procedure of shutting down and flipping the switch on the PSU then holding the power button on the case for 10 seconds to drain residual electricity then add in a single additional part other than the GPU and test again repeating this process until you encounter the issue.

Depending on which component ends up causing the issue after adding it in will help us to narrow down how to fix it.

How To - Breadboarding, stripping it down to the basics for troubleshooting

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