Windows 7 freezing issues

[Leanardoe]

For context, I recently build a new gaming rig for a friend using almost entirely salvage parts from used machines. The ssd boot drive and the memory are both brand new, and I stress tested the GPU and CPU. The thermals are really good and the system is not overheating.

The issue is that the system is frequently freezing up. Not hanging, the system completely freezes and does not recovery until you do a hard reset. There is no BSOD, and reliability monitor / event monitor shows no obvious issue.

I've tried using msconfig to play with startup services and haven't found luck yet. Booting in safe-mode hasn't frozen the system so far, so I suspect it is a software or driver issue. Everything is up to date. Some windows updates won't install, or cause issues that I had to downgrade from. It's also possible my usb3.0 addon card and front panel are causing issues, but I also don't know how to fix those because all the drivers are updated if so. I did have to install drivers manually, so perhaps there is an issue there.

Is there a way to check what's causing the freezing? (tried reliability monitor) Do any of you have ideas for things I can check?

Specs:
Windows 7 OEM home premium
Intel i5 4590
PNY gtx 1060
GA-H81M-S1 mobo
Single stick of Vulcan 8gb ram
One brand new 250gb SSD, and an older 500gb HDD
An added in USB pci expansion card, which has an internal header that connects to front panel USB. The driver for this card may be what I updated above.

 

[popatim]

Check the Windows Event Viewer for any clues.

I would also check the HDD's SMART for Reallocated & Uncorrectable sectors. The sata controller gives the HDD all the time in the world to recover from en error, even if it never can. There are several good free utilities to do this with.

 

[Leanardoe]

Check the Windows Event Viewer for any clues.

I would also check the HDD's SMART for Reallocated & Uncorrectable sectors. The sata controller gives the HDD all the time in the world to recover from en error, even if it never can. There are several good free utilities to do this with.

I'm actually using a brand new 250gb SSD for the boot disk. I was using an HDD that had some bad sectors, but I changed to the SSD to try and fix it. The 500gb one has no bad sectors. I checked it with crystal disk

 

[smorizio]

make sure the mb has the newest bios file. try hardware info see if the power supply is dropping. if it not a power or cap issue try running the intel cpu test make sure the cpu cache is good. if there nothing on the other older hard drive see if it locks up with windows 10 newer drivers. use windows media creation tool. you wont have to register or update your old windows 7 if you unplug the ssd.