My dads machine freezes every 5 days and I am baffled by why

[MadmanRB]

Okay so now I actually need hardware help as i am at a impasse.

My fathers computer is actually my old computer and for the hardware:

Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 1700 with the stock cooler

Ram: Corsair Vengeance 16GB of ram DDR4 3000

Motherboard: Asrock AB450 Pro 4

Graphics Card: Asus Dual GTX 1060 6 GB

Monitor: A LG Monitor, I dont recall the model number but I dont think its the issue anyhow.

PSU: EVGA 650 GQ

Case: Rosewill Gungnir

Keyboard: Cooler masterkeys L Lite

SSD: Sandisk 250GB

Hard drive: a Seagate 1TB HDD

Mouse: A cheap mouse he got from amazon but it seems to work fine

 

Now so far I have:

Checked every cable and every connection

Checked the integrity of both the SSD and the HDD, both pass SMART tests easily

I just cleaned it of dust and debris

The fans work perfectly

I changed the thermal paste on the CPU and I get no high temps or anything

The power supply is still brand new and barely a year old

I even re installed both linux and windows.....

 

I have no idea I have checked every angle i can do

This is not a OS issue as both windows and Linux have a clean bill of health, no viruses, no malware on the windows end and i even make sure the linux end was nice and safe.

So I am at a wits end here.

I dont want to buy another part just yet.

The first idea I have is to replace the motherboard but its very hard to tell if this is a hardware issue or not as i do all the right things with this machine.

The machine is not overclocked and the only thing BIOS wise i changed is enable legacy boot for linux and set the ram speed to 2666 as the motherboard doesnt like it when I set the speed higher than that.

And yes I did a ram test too, checks out fine.

 

 

UGH!

[Bananasplit_00]

is it every five days even with a reboot? or does a reboot reset the counter? if it does a dirty fix would be to have the computer reboot every night or something like that instead of fixing anything 

[j9n]

You say that it happens every 5 days, which I find as interesting. I'm not sure that I can tell you what exactly is wrong as of now, but if you narrow it down a bit then the people here may be able to figure it out.

 

Does it just happen once every five days? Are you sure that there isn't something that you are doing that may be causing it? (over-stressing the VRMs, opening a specific file, etc)

[MadmanRB]

The machine freezes every five days, reboot or no reboot

The system is not being over stressed as the only thing my dad does is play facebook games on chrome.

Its not like this machine is being used for extreme number crunching or anything crazy, the most intense thing that happens here is the games on steam but nothing seems out of the ordinary when playing stem games.

I have some overlays for the games and temps seem fine during gaming, both the GPU and the CPU are all well within their tolerances with no obvious signs of thermal throttling.

Now yes the GPU i have in there is not top of the line for overclocking but thermals check out during game play and no signs of it needing a thermal paste change.

There are no graphical glitches, all drivers are up to date.

 

This is why this is baffling me so much, i did all the right things and there so far seems to be no obvious cause right now.

[Faisal A]

Try using a different PSU. That seemed to be the issue with me

[MadmanRB]

2 minutes ago, Faisal A said:

Try using a different PSU. That seemed to be the issue with me

But that makes little sense as like i said the power supply is barely a year old and i dont have another one to spare.

As far as i am aware it was a good power supply and was on decent standing on the PSU tier list

I will consider the power supply as an issue as a last resort.

[Faisal A]

@MadmanRB Just because it is a tear old doesn't mean it can't be faulty. It can be faulty straight out of the box or develop a problem later. It might not have enough power capacity, or the voltage may be significantly lowering under load. In my instance, the 12V rail was lowering to 6V

[MadmanRB]

I mean its worth considering but i cannot properly say at this point in time its the cause of the issue.

But out of curiosity was your issue like mine or similar?

If it is the power supply i can send it to EVGA as its under their warranty, but again i will consider that last resort.

[Faisal A]

@MadmanRB My PC kept freezing and had to be restarted when overlcocked so I attatched my multimeter to the power rails and investigated the issue. Turned out to be the PSU

[MadmanRB]

The thing is the hardware is not overclocked at all as i mentioned above.

What was your intervals between freezes?

Out of curiosity

[Bananasplit_00]

You got any OCs BTW? Get rid of any of those and any XMP

[Faisal A]

The hard ware is not overclocked but the point is that the PSU could not handle the power draw. Download AIDIA64 trial and stress your GPU and |CPU and see what happens to the voltage. Anything under 8V is considered a fail for me (on the 12V rail)

[Faisal A]

@Bananasplit_00

1 minute ago, MadmanRB said:

The thing is the hardware is not overclocked at all as i mentioned above

 

[paddy-stone]

What I would do here is:-

1. Try setting the voltage, even if you don't want to OC the CPU itself... Set like 1.3v and see how it goes. My 1700 OCed to 3.9 is only set at 1.325 IIRC... you can obviously reduce it much more than that with the CPU not Oced though, so play around. At worst all it will do is freeze or bluescreen, you won't kill it or reduce it's life.
2. Try another SSD... I have seen reviews from people about some of these cheaper SSDs that when the write cache gets full, the performance drops off like a cliff. It's also a cheaper option to try, and one that you can still use the SSD for that rig or something else if it turns out to not have fixed the problem.
3. The PSU.. not a great unit in any way. I never skimp on the PSU, Better to pay $40 more for something that has a 5/7/10 year warranty IMO.

[MadmanRB]

11 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

The PSU.. not a great unit in any way. I never skimp on the PSU, Better to pay $40 more for something that has a 5/7/10 year warranty IMO.

Well at the time the psu on the Tier list was a tier B on the old PSU tier list.

And most reviews of it from the community were positive.

I mean granted bad units happen but like i said if it is the PSU I do have a warranty on it (a 5 year one from EVGA)

[MadmanRB]

OOkay I justy got done running a stress test on Aida64....

 

Checks out fine there.

The 12V rail is solid, no dips and rock solid

 

So maybe not PSU

[paddy-stone]

35 minutes ago, MadmanRB said:

Well at the time the psu on the Tier list was a tier B on the old PSU tier list.

And most reviews of it from the community were positive.

I mean granted bad units happen but like i said if it is the PSU I do have a warranty on it (a 5 year one from EVGA)

Yeah, sorry I meant "not great" as not "great"... not the British usage of it, which means meh! basically

 

I pretty much always buy "great" units nowadays, the price difference isn't huge at around $30 more on average, especially considering it's a very important part, and how much people usually spend on other computer parts these days.

If it was a potato/or low power PC, then yeah I might buy a $50 PSU, but otherwise I stick with the $80-$120 PSUs that come with good components and warranty, plus modular cables.

[MadmanRB]

12 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

Yeah, sorry I meant "not great" as not "great"... not the British usage of it, which means meh! basically

 

I pretty much always buy "great" units nowadays, the price difference isn't huge at around $30 more on average, especially considering it's a very important part, and how much people usually spend on other computer parts these days.

If it was a potato/or low power PC, then yeah I might buy a $50 PSU, but otherwise I stick with the $80-$120 PSUs that come with good components and warranty, plus modular cables.

Well this PSU sure as heck wasnt cheap in its MSRP of $90 USD

Yes i got it on sale for $60 but just because it goes on sale doent magically do this as far as i am aware of.

Unless you know any wizards of course.

 

So after several runs of aida64...... nothing.

Everything works as it should

I really dont have many other ways to test the power supply here but since things seem to run fine under the stress test..... no idea

 

I am going to see if this is an issue with the power strip next, I mean i already thrown almost anything else at the wall here so far and there are loads of noodles on my floor now for some reason.... wonder why?

 

[paddy-stone]

Well, there are lots of PSUs between $90-$120 that I would consider for a build.. but just a quick look brings up these... it's not an exhaustive list, just a quick 30 second browse.

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/2HbwrH/corsair-rmx-2018-650w-80-gold-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-cp-9020178-na

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/WrNypg/seasonic-focus-plus-gold-650w-80-gold-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-ssr-650fx

https://pcpartpicker.com/product/sYyxFT/seasonic-focus-plus-platinum-550w-80-platinum-certified-fully-modular-atx-power-supply-ssr-550px

 

I'm not saying you're wrong, just that for a little bit more money you get way better quality and assurance/warranty.

[MadmanRB]

I will consider it but do keep in mind the people here are recommending to not buy the seasonic focus gold

Heck by this logic it is me who should have these issues as i have the seasonic focus G and I overclock my GPU and CPU and nothing.

 

In any case i change the power strip on my fathers machine, the old one was not the best so yes its a potential issue.

The other one i have is of a higher compliance, the  old strip was fine for my fathers older setup as he only ran laptops.

But again this doesnt make much sense either as the issue here is very recent only a month or so.

The hardware has been used for a bit before then but the power strip is something i did not eliminate..... yet.

 

 

Well theres only one way to find out, see you guys in five days in this topic.

Its like one of those ring movies here but without the little ghost girl coming out of the computer screen to kill me.

If only if it was that pleasant.

[MCalladine]

It could be an insufficient amount of power and like you said no major graphical processors are being used on the PC you could try taking 1 of the 1060's out of the pc if these are gaming grade cards they are usually factory OC'd and may draw spikes in the PSU.

 

With the description of the usage a single GTX 1060 should be more than sufficient.

 

as for myself if i run a dual GPU setup I usually go with a 800w power supply as a minimum.

[MadmanRB]

Yeah this is only a single GPU setup, after all the GTX 1060 has no SLI support and this is not a mining rig.

[MadmanRB]

Okay I am beyond frustrated by this, I did everything under the sun for this machine so far but no obvious culprit still!

I am at my wits end with this issue and about ready to throw in the towel with this hardware.

Perhaps something went sour but i cannot fathom what as every test I did suggests this machine should run as it has.

I checked the motherboard, no leaking caps

Nothing is shorting the motherboard

No overheating or damage to parts detected!

I connected, disconnected all the wires inside.

I dont know what to do as i am afraid that even if i replaced the motherboard or processor it will still do this.

I am at the end of my rope here.... ARGH!!!!!!!!!!