Question Windows 11 PC freezes up suddenly ?

[apalace]

PC Specs:
MB: Asus Rog Strix B550-E Gaming
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5900X
Cooler: Noctua NH-D15S
PSU: Corsair RM850 (2021), RM Series, 850 Watt 80 Plus
RAM: Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3200MHz (CMW16GX4M2C3200C16W) /
GPU: ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 3070 TI
SSD1: Crucial P5 Plus CT1000P5PSSD8 1TB (PCIe 4.0, M.2)
SSD2: Fanxiang S500PRO 2TB NVMe SSD (PCIe 3.0 M.2)
OS: Windows 11 Pro Ver. 23H2


I encounter freezing, it happens without any warning, on desktop, in browser, in a game, while my monitor is on sleep, it doesn't matter where, it just happens, with no error messages. I then can't move or open anything, everything is frozen. Even the LED colors on my PC-Case stop looping. I can't use it till I turn it off by pressing the power button (reset button is replaced with LED option-modes).

It sometimes happens after leaving my PC on sleep-mode for 2 or 3 days, then when I start using it, it freezes maybe few hours later. And sometimes it freezes just in the same day (after few hours).
I don't remember exactly when this happened, possibly few months ago, I can't remember when and what did change to cause this problem, because it wasn't there before (I built my PC 2 years ago). But the second 3.0 M.2 SSD drive was installed later, could it cause this issue?

I would appreciate any tip/help. What could cause this issue?

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

Are all your drivers up to date? Bios up to date?

 

[apalace]

Are all your drivers up to date? Bios up to date?

Yes all are up-to-date, I did this a month ago after I realized this freezing is happening frequently.
I lowered the RAM's MHz from 3200 to 3000MHz in Bios, hoping that this will stop this issue. If there is any idea or tips, I am very thankful.

 

[apalace]

After decreasing the MHz of my Rams, I faced a crash with blue screen once, the PC restarted by itself. Yes the freezing isn't there but a crash now.

Any tip/idea?

 

[boohoo2u]

Check your ram by using something like Memtest86.

 

[apalace]

The freezing is back, 2 days after leaving my PC ON/Sleep mode, and only while I was browsing some YT shorts, suddenly frozen.
It drives me crazy, I just want to know what exactly causes this to repair it
Am I the only person on earth who has this issue?

 

[apalace]

PC Specs:
MB: Asus Rog Strix B550-E Gaming
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5900X
Cooler: Noctua NH-D15S
PSU: Corsair RM850 (2021), RM Series, 850 Watt 80 Plus
RAM: Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3200MHz (CMW16GX4M2C3200C16W) /
GPU: ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 3070 TI
SSD1: Crucial P5 Plus CT1000P5PSSD8 1TB (PCIe 4.0, M.2)
SSD2: Fanxiang S500PRO 2TB NVMe SSD (PCIe 3.0 M.2)
OS: Windows 11 Pro Ver. 23H2


I encounter freezing, it happens without any warning, on desktop, in browser, in a game, while my monitor is on sleep, it doesn't matter where, it just happens, with no error messages. I then can't move or open anything, everything is frozen. Even the LED colors on my PC-Case stop looping. I can't use it till I turn it off by pressing the power button (reset button is replaced with LED option-modes).

It sometimes happens after leaving my PC on sleep-mode for 2 or 3 days, then when I start using it, it freezes maybe few hours later. And sometimes it freezes just in the same day (after few hours), once when I entered BIOS it froze 🤔.
I don't remember exactly when this happened, possibly few months ago, I can't remember when and what did change to cause this problem, because it wasn't there before (I built my PC 2 years ago). But the second 3.0 M.2 SSD drive was installed later, could it cause this issue?

I even scanned my PC for Viruses and Trojans, yes there have been 2 Trojans, one in Memory and the other in the HOSTS file, and have been cleaned, but after 2 days my PC got frozen again.

I would appreciate any tip/help. What could cause this issue?

 

[Lutfij]

Please stick to one thread.

 

[Fix_that_Glitch]

PC Specs:
MB: Asus Rog Strix B550-E Gaming
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5900X
Cooler: Noctua NH-D15S
PSU: Corsair RM850 (2021), RM Series, 850 Watt 80 Plus
RAM: Corsair Vengeance RGB PRO 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3200MHz (CMW16GX4M2C3200C16W) /
GPU: ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 3070 TI
SSD1: Crucial P5 Plus CT1000P5PSSD8 1TB (PCIe 4.0, M.2)
SSD2: Fanxiang S500PRO 2TB NVMe SSD (PCIe 3.0 M.2)
OS: Windows 11 Pro Ver. 23H2


I encounter freezing, it happens without any warning, on desktop, in browser, in a game, while my monitor is on sleep, it doesn't matter where, it just happens, with no error messages. I then can't move or open anything, everything is frozen. Even the LED colors on my PC-Case stop looping. I can't use it till I turn it off by pressing the power button (reset button is replaced with LED option-modes).

It sometimes happens after leaving my PC on sleep-mode for 2 or 3 days, then when I start using it, it freezes maybe few hours later. And sometimes it freezes just in the same day (after few hours), once when I entered BIOS it froze 🤔.
I don't remember exactly when this happened, possibly few months ago, I can't remember when and what did change to cause this problem, because it wasn't there before (I built my PC 2 years ago). But the second 3.0 M.2 SSD drive was installed later, could it cause this issue?

I even scanned my PC for Viruses and Trojans, yes there have been 2 Trojans, one in Memory and the other in the HOSTS file, and have been cleaned, but after 2 days my PC got frozen again.

I would appreciate any tip/help. What could cause this issue?

Try using one stick of ram at a time to see if this behavior continues. You can check your Motherboard makers website to see if there are any chipset updates other than bios updates. You can try using another power setting in Windows, say like Hoigh Performance setting to see if this continues. Try running sfc /scannow on your Windows drive.

 

[apalace]

Thank you for your reply.

Beside the BIOS, I did update every single chip that I could think of (AMD Chipsets, drivers etc..).
I performed sfc /scannow as you suggested, and it found no issue.

I even changed yesterday the RAM sticks with brand new 16x2 (32 GB) Crucial Ram sticks, and just today the freeze happened, which means the ram sticks aren't the issue.
The freeze happened once before in BIOS a few days ago when I was trying to tweak something there. Does this give the idea that Windows or any other software don't cause this issue, and it is hardware related?

Now only two things to do after your suggestions:
1- changing to High Performance in the Windows settings
2- Take off one Stick of Ram and see if the issue occurred.

I changed the power settings to “Best Performance” right now and will report back if the freezing stops or not. After that, if the issue happens, I will perform the second solution and see.

Much appreciate your help and time!

 

[apalace]

UPDATE:

Changing the power settings to "High performance" didn't solve the problem. It got frozen just 10 minutes ago.
The only option left from you Fix_that_Glitch is removing one Ram stick and see if the freezing happens.

I will report back for any news.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Changing the power settings to "High performance" didn't solve the problem. It got frozen just before 10 minutes.
The only option left from you Fix_that_Glitch is removing one Ram stick and see if the freezing happens.

What ram settings are you using?
Can you show screenshots from CPU-Z - memory and spd sections?
(upload to imgur.com and post link)

Are you using PCIE riser cable?
You may want to try forcing PCIE slot into PCIE 3.0 mode.

 

[apalace]

What ram settings are you using?
Can you show screenshots from CPU-Z - memory and spd sections?
(upload to imgur.com and post link)

Are you using PCIE riser cable?
You may want to try forcing PCIE slot into PCIE 3.0 mode.

Sure..
Here are the 3 screenshots:

https://imgur.com/a/p3mDlik

View: https://imgur.com/a/p3mDlik


About PCIE riser cable, I really have no idea what cable this is. How can I check and how to force

PCIE slot into PCIE 3.0 mode ?

I appreciate your reply!

 

[SkyNetRising]

Here are the 3 screenshots:
About PCIE riser cable, I really have no idea what cable this is. How can I check and how to force
PCIE slot into PCIE 3.0 mode ?

You may want to increase DDR voltage to 1.35V.
PCIE riser cable is used for vertical mount of graphics cards. If you don't know, what that is, then you probably don't have it.
PCIE slot can be forced into PCIE 3.0 mode in BIOS. This may improve system stability.

 

[apalace]

You may want to increase DDR voltage to 1.35V.
PCIE riser cable is used for vertical mount of graphics cards. If you don't know, what that is, then you probably don't have it.
PCIE slot can be forced into PCIE 3.0 mode in BIOS. This may improve system stability.

Thank you very much for your recommendations!

I went to BIOS and increased the DDR voltage to 1.35 as you suggested, but when I tested it using CPU-Z, it shows the same voltage values as before. Did I do the right thing, or am I messing something?
Here is the link for photo and screenshots:

https://imgur.com/a/Co6FlYT

View: https://imgur.com/a/Co6FlYT


About the PCIE and forcing it to 3.0 I will wait and see if increasing the DDR voltage ends my issue with the freezing.

 

[SkyNetRising]

I went to BIOS and increased the DDR voltage to 1.35 as you suggested, but when I tested it using CPU-Z, it shows the same voltage values as before. Did I do the right thing, or am I messing something?

You did the change correctly.
CPU-Z doesn't show current DDR voltage.
It shows SPD and XMP table values.

 

[apalace]

Thank you very much, I think the problem has been solved by raising the DDR voltage as you mentioned. I have been waiting all these days to see if there will be any freezing after raising the voltage, but not a single one till now. I can't thank you enough, I was struggling for months because of this issue.

But why is the standard voltage of my DDR (1.20 v) causes the freezing? I mean, isn't the lower voltage more stable than higher? And why didn't this happen from the start? It happened like 6 months ago only, but before that (built the PC like 2 years ago) there was no such issue.

 

[SkyNetRising]

I think the problem has been solved by raising the DDR voltage

Great. 👍

But why is the standard voltage of my DDR (1.20 v) causes the freezing? I mean, isn't the lower voltage more stable than higher?

1.2V is standard DDR4 voltage.
1.35V is standard OC voltage for DDR4.
XMP mode usually requires to have increased DDR voltage.
Not sure, why XMP profile on your modules didn't have increased DDR voltage setting by default.

 

[apalace]

XMP mode usually requires to have increased DDR voltage.
Not sure, why XMP profile on your modules didn't have increased DDR voltage setting by default.

My motherboard doesn't have the option XMP in bios, so as I searched there is "AI Overclock Tuner" for AMD which compares to XMP in Intel boards.
It was set on "Auto" and there is an option called "D.O.C.P" , maybe I should have enabled "DOCP" instead of leaving it "Auto" ?

 

[SkyNetRising]

DOCP or A-XMP - is XMP equivalent on AMD systems.
Since it's working stable now, you should not change anything.
If you engage DOCP, then DDR voltage will probably be reset to 1.2V again.

 

[apalace]

Bad news: The PC got frozen again, a few minutes ago.
It is weird, mostly it gets frozen when I leave the PC and go do something, when I come back, I can't move the mouse or restart it with key shortcuts, everything is frozen. This also happens mostly when I leave the PC on sleep mode for 2 days at least, without restarting it, if this gives any more idea.

Any other thought what causes it? Maybe MOBO failure?

 

[SkyNetRising]

Try reducing DRAM frequency to 3000mhz.
And set AI Overclock Tuner to disabled.

 

[apalace]

Try reducing DRAM frequency to 3000mhz.
And set AI Overclock Tuner to disabled.

I will. But there is no "Disabled" in the AOT , only "Automatic", "Manual" and "DOCP".
But I discovered something right now, which may gives more clue about the issue behind all that??
I was watching a video on YT, I pressed Space bar on the KB to pause the video, then the PC froze. This is exactly what happened 3 hours ago, I also was watching a video, I paused using the space key, came back and it was frozen.
But it is not always the case, I am hitting space bar now on a video but no freezing.

 

[SkyNetRising]

I will. But there is no "Disabled" in the AOT , only "Automatic", "Manual" and "DOCP".

Manual then.

 

[apalace]

Sadly it froze even with 3000mhz and in manual, with 1,35v.
I even tried and removed one ram bar, and worked with only 1 16gb bar, and froze.
I don't know what else I can check or do to examine the issue.
The only option left, is to remove the second M.2 hard disk that I installed 1 year after building my PC, it maybe the reason? Perhaps my MoBo has technical issues when installing the second M.2 HDD that affect the DDR slots?
What do you think? Or is there other option or test that I can perform?