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New PC - strange Windows freezes (probable cause: NZXT CAM)

Korben

Hi all - we're now investigating a theory that the issue *can* occur with CAM alone on systems with AMD CPUs (potentially particularly Ryzen), but is exacerbated when running iCue, Razer, or another program that may query CPU statistics. Our engineering team is going to build a version of CAM that removes some CPU monitoring aspects in order to test this theory. Once I get the build, I'll distribute it to people who have emailed me already. If you would like to receive this build as well to help us test the theory, please email me at jeff.gorndt@nzxt.com.

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1 hour ago, nzxt_jeff said:

Hi all - we're now investigating a theory that the issue *can* occur with CAM alone on systems with AMD CPUs (potentially particularly Ryzen), but is exacerbated when running iCue, Razer, or another program that may query CPU statistics. Our engineering team is going to build a version of CAM that removes some CPU monitoring aspects in order to test this theory. Once I get the build, I'll distribute it to people who have emailed me already. If you would like to receive this build as well to help us test the theory, please email me at jeff.gorndt@nzxt.com.

Jeff - Thanks to you and the NZXT for keeping us updated on the testing.  I am willing to test as needed.  I sent you an email as well.  Thanks - James (DrKappy)  P.S. Day 2 no freezes with just Synapse and NZXT running (Cortex is disabled).

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12 hours ago, nzxt_jeff said:

Hi all - we're now investigating a theory that the issue *can* occur with CAM alone on systems with AMD CPUs (potentially particularly Ryzen), but is exacerbated when running iCue, Razer, or another program that may query CPU statistics. Our engineering team is going to build a version of CAM that removes some CPU monitoring aspects in order to test this theory. Once I get the build, I'll distribute it to people who have emailed me already. If you would like to receive this build as well to help us test the theory, please email me at jeff.gorndt@nzxt.com.

I had this problem for the past few weeks, I mostly kept it Uninstalled but yesterday I decided to try and troubleshoot, the problem seemed to go away after restating my bios, the only things I have changed in my bios were overclocking ram and my cpu, so I belive that turning off my cpus overclocking fixed my issue, I am running a r3 3300x.

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On 3/5/2021 at 11:33 AM, nzxt_jeff said:

Hi all - we're now investigating a theory that the issue *can* occur with CAM alone on systems with AMD CPUs (potentially particularly Ryzen), but is exacerbated when running iCue, Razer, or another program that may query CPU statistics. Our engineering team is going to build a version of CAM that removes some CPU monitoring aspects in order to test this theory. Once I get the build, I'll distribute it to people who have emailed me already. If you would like to receive this build as well to help us test the theory, please email me at jeff.gorndt@nzxt.com.

Bummer if that's the source of the problem. I am using no NZXT products on my build (Ryzen 5 3600 CPU, and I am using Razer Synapse and MSI Afterburner), but I really liked the look of the monitoring display on CAM. I can't find any other product that gave me all the monitoring options I wanted but was unobtrusive when left on-screen (I'm referring to the mini-view here, which I typically always had displayed).

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Good that a representative of NZXT is aware of the issue now... and in direct contact here, that's awesome!

Hope we can get a solution soon.

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Hi,

Guys, for those who have a MSI B550 Mortar, there's a new BIOS update that seems to solve the issue with USB 2.0 Headers.

 

image.png.3d263384c733849e6d1cbfa74f0a1db2.png

 

I was having issues with the Smart Device ( disconnecting issues) and new with the Update it seems that it stopped. Will require more time and some real usage testing. For now it seems OK, with the PCIe at auto (4.0).

 

I'll keep NZXT CAM Opened to see if it still hangs Windows, those issues might be related, so I'll keep updating. 

 

EDIT: Other models from MSI seem to have Updates for AGESA too, check them out. 

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Just had another lockup.  I had iCue off (well, I think it was off, but there might have been some process running).  CAM was running.  

 

I'm done screwing with CAM.  I'm just turning it off for good now.  Hopefully something gets fixed sometime.  If I get bored, I'll buy another cooler from a diff manuf, but man I like this Kraken.  

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On 3/3/2021 at 11:05 PM, DrKappy said:

Jeff - Some more testing I did.  I rebooted with only CortexLauncher.exe enabled on startup, ran NZXT CAM - and I had a freeze multiple times I tried it.  But, when I tried just "Razer Synapse 3" enabled on bootup and ran NZXT CAM, I had no lockups on multiple tries.  So from a comparability perspective with RAZER, it appears, at least on my system, to be limited to the "CortexLauncher.exe" - which is great news for me.  I can now run all the Synapse profiles for RGB alongside the NZXT CAM Z73 Gif display.

 

Thanks!

 

James

6 Days solid no freeze.  From my side it appears to have been the solution of not running CortexLauncher.exe - which I did not use anyways.  Will update if anything changes.

 

James

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10 hours ago, DrKappy said:

6 Days solid no freeze.  From my side it appears to have been the solution of not running CortexLauncher.exe - which I did not use anyways.  Will update if anything changes.

 

James

They did release a stable release of 4.21 but didn’t know if it changes anything under the hood. CortexLauncher is it the Razer software? 

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2 hours ago, RxNOOB said:

They did release a stable release of 4.21 but didn’t know if it changes anything under the hood. CortexLauncher is it the Razer software? 

Yes CAM installed the latest 4.21 tonight on my system.  Did not see anything in release notes related to the freezing.  And yes, Cortex is part of the Razer suite of software that is suppose to boost your system performance for game play.

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Hi - 4.21 is part of our regularly-scheduled deploys and does not contain any fixes related to this issue. We are still investigating this issue internally.

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Hi guys! I have the same problem. I'm 3D sculptor and use Zbrush, Maya, Substance Painter and some programs for 3D printing and have random freezes. The event viewer show me NZXT CAM errors. I have this problem since 2020 february and I'm crazy with this. I can't work relaxed and think that in a random moment I'll lose all the work. I save my work continiously but sometimes I lost two or three minutes and, for example, in a 3D printing app that don't have recovery files this is a lot of work. Now, I have clean installation of Windows 100 without CAM and all it's fine.

 

My system specs are:

Motherboard: Gygabyte B450 I Aourus Pro WIFI
Ram: Corsair 16GB x 2
CPU: Ryzen 7 2700
GPU: Gigabyte RTX 2060 Super 8GB (MSI Afterburner, I need it for set the graphic fan curves)
NZXT Case H200i
Cooling: NZXT Kraken X52 + 2 fans attached with the case
PSU: 750W
SSD: Corsair NMVe 480GB + Kingstong 480GB"

 

 

Please @nzxt_jeff, I wrote you a mail, can you send me the CAM version without CPU monitoring? Thanks in advance and I hope this can be solved as soon as possible! I have NZXT products for years. Regards!

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7 minutes ago, ddpatron said:

Hi guys! I have the same problem. I'm 3D sculptor and use Zbrush, Maya, Substance Painter and some programs for 3D printing and have random freezes. The event viewer show me NZXT CAM errors. I have this problem since 2020 february and I'm crazy with this. I can't work relaxed and think that in a random moment I'll lose all the work. I save my work continiously but sometimes I lost two or three minutes and, for example, in a 3D printing app that don't have recovery files this is a lot of work. Now, I have clean installation of Windows 100 without CAM and all it's fine.

 

My system specs are:

Motherboard: Gygabyte B450 I Aourus Pro WIFI
Ram: Corsair 16GB x 2
CPU: Ryzen 7 2700
GPU: Gigabyte RTX 2060 Super 8GB (MSI Afterburner, I need it for set the graphic fan curves)
NZXT Case H200i
Cooling: NZXT Kraken X52 + 2 fans attached with the case
PSU: 750W
SSD: Corsair NMVe 480GB + Kingstong 480GB"

 

 

Please @nzxt_jeff, I wrote you a mail, can you send me the CAM version without CPU monitoring? Thanks in advance and I hope this can be solved as soon as possible! I have NZXT products for years. Regards!

I thought i had an issue with my newly built PC haha but after removing NZXT CAM, the freeze just stopped. 

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On 3/7/2021 at 9:51 PM, Dark-vash said:

Hi,

Guys, for those who have a MSI B550 Mortar, there's a new BIOS update that seems to solve the issue with USB 2.0 Headers.

 

image.png.3d263384c733849e6d1cbfa74f0a1db2.png

 

I was having issues with the Smart Device ( disconnecting issues) and new with the Update it seems that it stopped. Will require more time and some real usage testing. For now it seems OK, with the PCIe at auto (4.0).

 

I'll keep NZXT CAM Opened to see if it still hangs Windows, those issues might be related, so I'll keep updating. 

 

EDIT: Other models from MSI seem to have Updates for AGESA too, check them out. 

OK, issues with PCIe 4.0 seems to be solved and the smart device works fine with USB 2.0 Headers. NZXT CAM is still hanging my computer. @nzxt_jeff I can't replicate de crash, it just happens when scrolling facebook or browsing wtv on the internet, but if any information is needed, feel free to ask for. 

 

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On 3/5/2021 at 4:33 PM, nzxt_jeff said:

Hi all - we're now investigating a theory that the issue *can* occur with CAM alone on systems with AMD CPUs (potentially particularly Ryzen), but is exacerbated when running iCue, Razer, or another program that may query CPU statistics. Our engineering team is going to build a version of CAM that removes some CPU monitoring aspects in order to test this theory. Once I get the build, I'll distribute it to people who have emailed me already. If you would like to receive this build as well to help us test the theory, please email me at jeff.gorndt@nzxt.com.

Just an update from me, I've had 5 days with no crashes with MSI Dragon Centre and Corsair iCue off and my PC crashed today. Typically it was right in the middle of writing script for work, which I've now lost 15 minutes of and will have to redo.

 

So it seems having conflicting Apps closed still does not prevent crashes, for me at least. But I am on a Ryzen 7 5800x, so that is probably the cause going by the quoted post. I also emailed you regarding the new build to test. Thanks.

 

Support Ticket: 822824

 

 

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In my case, the PC only froze when I used Google Chrome (uninstalled, now I'm using Edge) with some tab (music on Youtube, for example) and other programs like Zbrush or Chitubox for 3D printing. The PC never froze when I've played games. I did a clean installation of Windows 10 and downgraded it from v. 20H2 to v. 2004 compilation 19041.804.

 

Some of you have experienced freezes when CAM is turned off? Regards!

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2 minutes ago, ddpatron said:

In my case, the PC only froze when I used Google Chrome (uninstalled, now I'm using Edge) with some tab (music on Youtube, for example) and other programs like Zbrush or Chitubox for 3D printing. The PC never froze when I've played games. I did a clean installation of Windows 10 and downgraded it from v. 20H2 to v. 2004 compilation 19041.804.

 

Some of you have experienced freezes when CAM is turned off? Regards!

 

My freezes have always been when CAM is on. I built my PC in early January and diagnosed the issue as CAM about 2 weeks later after several lockups. From then until last week I turned CAM off and did not have a freeze again until I turned it back on to help test theories in response NZXT Jeff's posts.

 

All mine have been totally random, but never while gaming. Today's freeze was while watching a YouTube video and doing some work in Rstudio and Excel.

 

It is worth mentioning that if game hooking is on, some games like Monster Hunter World and Cold War just flat out will not launch, but I think that is a another separate, pretty significant issue with this software.

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4 hours ago, Robioto said:

 

My freezes have always been when CAM is on. I built my PC in early January and diagnosed the issue as CAM about 2 weeks later after several lockups. From then until last week I turned CAM off and did not have a freeze again until I turned it back on to help test theories in response NZXT Jeff's posts.

 

All mine have been totally random, but never while gaming. Today's freeze was while watching a YouTube video and doing some work in Rstudio and Excel.

 

It is worth mentioning that if game hooking is on, some games like Monster Hunter World and Cold War just flat out will not launch, but I think that is a another separate, pretty significant issue with this software.

I absolutely determined that the "game hooking" feature is related to a memory leak.  It must be the worst memory leak in the history of man, haha.  10GB over a period of a few days.  That is just ASTOUNDING.  (I remember DOS and himem and coaxing that last bit of ram above 540k).

 

I kept seeing this huge use of RAM from CAM until I turned that feature off.  Look at the image below.  CAM was using 10GB!!!  Think about that.  10GB, to turn the pump on and off on my cooler.  

 

image.thumb.png.5b00232042969661c5785af997c64de7.png

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Things had been going well for me...hadn't had a freeze in a couple weeks. However, this morning Windows 20H2 decided to install update KB5000802 and not 30min later I got a freeze. Coincidence? We'll see if it happens again today. If it does, I'm going to uninstall the update. 

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On 3/4/2021 at 3:01 PM, DrKappy said:

What is your setting in NZXT for "Cooling"?  Mine is set to "Fixed".   That is the only thing I changed on NZXT.  I have NZXT and Synapse running together with no freeze while running games on steam on now.  I was getting freeze consistently on one game that I was playing.  I have tried the game multiple times now and no freeze.

 

I am on:

Product Name:                               NZXT KrakenZ Device (Z73)

CPU Brand Name:                         AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 12-Core Processor

Motherboard Model:                      ASUS ROG STRIX B550-F GAMING (WI-FI)

BIOS Version:                               1804

Memory:                                         DDR4 3200 MHz G-Skill F4-3200C16-16GTRS (4x16 64GBytes)

Device Name:                                EVGA GTX 770 Dual Classified ACX 4GB (ugh...trying to buy new card!!!!)

Drive Model:                                  Samsung SSD 980 PRO 2TB

 

 

 

I was using performance mode. 

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18 hours ago, MelissaGT said:

Things had been going well for me...hadn't had a freeze in a couple weeks. However, this morning Windows 20H2 decided to install update KB5000802 and not 30min later I got a freeze. Coincidence? We'll see if it happens again today. If it does, I'm going to uninstall the update. 

Your using it with CAM or without CAM or with the version that Jeff sent? 

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On 3/11/2021 at 1:36 AM, passedpawn said:

I absolutely determined that the "game hooking" feature is related to a memory leak.  It must be the worst memory leak in the history of man, haha.  10GB over a period of a few days.  That is just ASTOUNDING.  (I remember DOS and himem and coaxing that last bit of ram above 540k).

 

I kept seeing this huge use of RAM from CAM until I turned that feature off.  Look at the image below.  CAM was using 10GB!!!  Think about that.  10GB, to turn the pump on and off on my cooler.  

 

image.thumb.png.5b00232042969661c5785af997c64de7.png

Crazy stuff there! I'd not noticed this myself before, but I shutdown each day.

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10 hours ago, RxNOOB said:

Your using it with CAM or without CAM or with the version that Jeff sent? 

CAM 4.21.0

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Well, 2nd freeze since the Windows 20H2 update yesterday. Uninstalled the update and hit the snooze button on any further updates...can snooze for 28 days. 

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Running Windows latest update, still no freeze for 10 days now...running CAM 4.21.0

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