Question Windows Freezes strangely requiring forced shutdown

[mitgobla]

Hi, my girlfriend's PC has been freezing up with no errors, seemingly only when playing ARK: Survival Evolved, with no clear reproducible steps.
She can sometimes play the game for hours, with no issues, or sometimes only a few minutes, before Windows acts strangely before entirely freezing.

By acting strangely I mean:

• Keyboard becomes unresponsive, the mouse still works, her fans RGB resets to hardware colour (Corsair iCUE fans and peripherals, so it seems background programs just crash).
• Windows taskbar (so explorer.exe) acts frozen but she can still click buttons on the taskbar, they just don't visually look like they are being clicked on.
• Can't close programs or the game.
• Can't shutdown or restart the computer.
• Task manager doesn't load when running it or clicking on it in Ctrl+Alt+Delete
• Audio can still be heard, and sometimes the game is still playable (not crashed, but can look around with mouse)

Shortly after this the entire computer then freezes requiring a hard shut down by the button. Event viewer has no logs other than "System shutdown unexpectedly". No BSOD happens even when leaving the computer in the frozen state for a while.

I've monitored temperatures during idle and while the game is running and they seem normal; CPU 35-45C, GPU 60-70C; CPU load 20-40%, GPU load 60-80%
I thought maybe her PSU was on the way out so I replaced it with my working one and it made no difference. Replaced RAM with tested working pair and no difference. No overclocking being used.

Solutions I have tried so far:

• Updated all drivers, and BIOS
• Run DISM and SFC commands
• Uninstalled any potentially conflicting software like iCUE, AI Suite and ASUS Armoury Crate

Specs:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 2600X
• AIO: NZXT Kraken X53
• GPU: AMD Radeon RX580
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 16GB (2x8GB)
• MB: ASUS ROG Strix B450-E Gaming
• PSU: Corsair CX650 (hers, originally in PC); Corsair HX750i (mine, currently in her PC)

I am potentially looking at testing her SSD that has windows on it or doing a full reinstall of Windows, but I'd rather know if there was a way to diagnose this without just jumping to doing a full reset.
Any help would be appreciated, it's frustrating that there is no clear error as to why this is happening making it hard for me to fix it 🙁

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

Can you check and see which BIOS version you're on at the moment? You might want to also see if you can remain in BIOS without incurring a reboot or a freeze. If you can boot into OS GUI, check and see which version of Windows 10 you're on(assuming you're on Windows 10).

You forgot to mention the make and model of the SSD(and her storage drives). Got a link to the rams used in your build? If not, can you parse an image of the stickered information on the sticks? If not, can you mention what you see on teh sticker?

How old is the CX unit? Is it the unit with the green label? How old is your PSU?

 

[mitgobla]

Thank you for the welcome, sorry I forgot some important details.
She's been playing Warframe and Jurassic Park Evolution for some hours and there's not been an issue - all on high settings; wanted to see if any other games would cause a crash or freeze but no luck. She also can go about normal tasks like browsing for hours with no crash at all.

BIOS Version is 3004 x64. The BIOS seems stable, no crashes are happening while in it.
She is using Windows 10 Home 20H2 OS Build 19042.746

Note this crash was happening before and after updating both Windows and the BIOS.

Her SSD with the OS on is an ADATA SU630 (256GB)
The only other drive is a Seagate Barracuda 2TB st2000dm008-2fr102

Link to the RAM: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07D1XCKWW

Her CX power supply unit is 1 year and 5 months old, I don't see a green label on it, the model is Corsair CX650 RPS0065
My HXi power supply unit is about 2 years old. It works completely fine on my computer that is higher spec than hers.

Thank you so much for the help.

 

[mitgobla]

Just an update, we left her PC idle on the lock screen, display turned off normally after a few minutes. After about 30 minutes the computer crashed. It went into a restart loop where the fans kept going fast, it would not POST, so it was like it was turning on and restarting really quickly. Had to force turn it off with the power button.

Now I believe it is more than just ARK causing the issues here :/