windows 10 New PC - strange Windows freezes (probable cause: NZXT CAM)

[MeguBaku]

10 hours ago, SeeNoWeevil said:

Personally I'd recommend using liquidctl (see my post a few pages back for instructions). It's super lightweight, works great and even if NZXT do fix CAM, it's still bloaty and who knows when it will be broken again with users being unable to avoid the forced auto-updates. Do you really want software automatically installed on your system without your say that could break something, by a company that take the best part of a year to even acknowledge a serious problem?

 

I understand why though people would want to not even give their money to such a company and get a refund.

This is a company that will do anything to backstab you at any opportunity. Not only not acknowledging in the main channels the bug properly among others, but in different areas too.

 

See the H1 Case fires with the PCI-E riser for example. After the YT/Press backslash from their non-fix nylon screws, they sent a revised PCI-E riser to those outlets to see that they fixed it. Now they are sending a different version than the ones sent to the press for testing to the customers. Source

[passedpawn]

1 hour ago, MeguBaku said:

This is a company that will do anything to backstab you at any opportunity. Not only not acknowledging in the main channels the bug properly among others, but in different areas too.

 

See the H1 Case fires with the PCI-E riser for example. After the YT/Press backslash from their non-fix nylon screws, they sent a revised PCI-E riser to those outlets to see that they fixed it. Now they are sending a different version than the ones sent to the press for testing to the customers. Source

If you hammer a nail for too long you make a mess of the woodwork.  Perhaps ease up a bit.  I'm not disagreeing with your principle, but your execution.  

[ivan5150]

For me disabling Global C-state from bios it's working, no more freeze atm (crossed fingers)

[TomJohnes]

I submittet a ticket 

They are looking to be investigating the issue, however I see that Jeffs mail is no longer active, as it returns for me each time. I would have wanted to be on that testing list. 

Anyways, can anyone recommend any other cooloers? I was thinking if the cheaper solution like Arctic Liquid Freezer II 360mm would be any good?

So far I have diabled Global C States, like you #ivan5150, and several others have suggested previously and it hasnt froze yet, but I havent used the machine much since. Unfortunately my return windows is gone. 

[ivan5150]

1 hour ago, TomJohnes said:

I submittet a ticket 

They are looking to be investigating the issue, however I see that Jeffs mail is no longer active, as it returns for me each time. I would have wanted to be on that testing list. 

Anyways, can anyone recommend any other cooloers? I was thinking if the cheaper solution like Arctic Liquid Freezer II 360mm would be any good?

So far I have diabled Global C States, like you #ivan5150, and several others have suggested previously and it hasnt froze yet, but I havent used the machine much since. Unfortunately my return windows is gone. 

Yes, Arctic Liquid Freezer is the top choice atm, I can still return my Kraken but i decided to wait for a fix. For a purely aesthetic factor to be honest   

Disabled Gloval C States seem to work pretty well for me, my PC is running 8+ hours consecutively every day and not freeze yet 

@nzxt_jeff maybe can be useful for you guys at NZXT, disabling Gloabal C State in bios seems to mitigate/fix the issue...

[MeguBaku]

1 hour ago, TomJohnes said:

I submittet a ticket 

They are looking to be investigating the issue, however I see that Jeffs mail is no longer active, as it returns for me each time. I would have wanted to be on that testing list. 

Anyways, can anyone recommend any other cooloers? I was thinking if the cheaper solution like Arctic Liquid Freezer II 360mm would be any good?

So far I have diabled Global C States, like you #ivan5150, and several others have suggested previously and it hasnt froze yet, but I havent used the machine much since. Unfortunately my return windows is gone. 

If your return window is gone and if the Global C States doesn't fix the issue, you might want to switch to liquidctl (Free) or Argus Monitor (paid). There's guides on this thread on how to get it working.

 

As for Jeff's email, even if it had worked, only a selected few were replied to, and only another few were selected for the dev build.

[Creativem0nster1]

On 5/3/2021 at 6:31 AM, MeguBaku said:

If your return window is gone and if the Global C States doesn't fix the issue, you might want to switch to liquidctl (Free) or Argus Monitor (paid). There's guides on this thread on how to get it working.

 

As for Jeff's email, even if it had worked, only a selected few were replied to, and only another few were selected for the dev build.

While it might not fix the issue in some setups, it seems to be working relatively okay for me and at least stopping the crashes.  I still get some interactions between CAM and iCUE, but it's not longer system crashing bad.  My corsair fans and lighting will go into Hardware mode and then go back to the custom pattern rather than locking up windows completely.

I believe this is a multilayered issue for some, but due to the lack of error reporting in these software's it's hard to pin point.  At least for AMD, this is what I believe causes issues for my system, not sure for team blue. 

Here is my setup (5800x, Asus Prime MOBO, EVGA 2080, Only CAM and ICUE 4 installed).

• CAM interactions with other applications causing lock ups and slow down depending on the overall system stability.
  • My system is now stable enough that I can close CAM and ICUE and stop my system from crashing.
• AGESA BIOS not being fully updated on Zen 3 systems causing voltage issues at idle levels of CPU usage with PBO enabled or the voltage dropping too low, some people offset stuff to fix this while keeping PBO enabled.
  • Disabling C State, PBO, and DCOP seems to fix the hard crashes temporarily, MOBO manufactures should have this fixed in the next BIOS updates.
• AGESA bug causing USB's to disconnect potentially causing problems for CAM detecting the cooler and fans.
• Asus Armoury Crate trying to access GPU and RAM lighting while other applications are using them.  This was causing lock ups that would make audio and RAM lighting pulse on and off.  The system would be completely locked.
  • Disable plugins on ICUE, only control ram with ICUE, don't use Armoury for this.
  • If you get black screens happening on a multimonitor setup deselect the GPU in Armoury lighting control.  If you have a GPU's software it will not play nice with Armoury and cause black screens when launching at least for me with precision X it did.

I can't speak for everyone's system obviously.  But I just wanted to share my knowledge and discoveries to hopefully help others at least have a stable system until the fixes are out. 

 

I know there is shit talking going on with NZXT, not simp'ing for NZXT, but at least they have let us know they are working on it.  There are companies out there where the users are always wrong and they just tell you too bad.

 

I also got a second response to a previous ticket saying their entire dev team is working on this specifically.

 

Best of luck in the mean time everyone!  

[bunkermagnus]

On 5/5/2021 at 5:48 PM, Creativem0nster1 said:

While it might not fix the issue in some setups, it seems to be working relatively okay for me and at least stopping the crashes.  I still get some interactions between CAM and iCUE, but it's not longer system crashing bad.  My corsair fans and lighting will go into Hardware mode and then go back to the custom pattern rather than locking up windows completely.

I believe this is a multilayered issue for some, but due to the lack of error reporting in these software's it's hard to pin point.  At least for AMD, this is what I believe causes issues for my system, not sure for team blue. 

Here is my setup (5800x, Asus Prime MOBO, EVGA 2080, Only CAM and ICUE 4 installed).

• CAM interactions with other applications causing lock ups and slow down depending on the overall system stability.
  • My system is now stable enough that I can close CAM and ICUE and stop my system from crashing.
• AGESA BIOS not being fully updated on Zen 3 systems causing voltage issues at idle levels of CPU usage with PBO enabled or the voltage dropping too low, some people offset stuff to fix this while keeping PBO enabled.
  • Disabling C State, PBO, and DCOP seems to fix the hard crashes temporarily, MOBO manufactures should have this fixed in the next BIOS updates.
• AGESA bug causing USB's to disconnect potentially causing problems for CAM detecting the cooler and fans.
• Asus Armoury Crate trying to access GPU and RAM lighting while other applications are using them.  This was causing lock ups that would make audio and RAM lighting pulse on and off.  The system would be completely locked.
  • Disable plugins on ICUE, only control ram with ICUE, don't use Armoury for this.
  • If you get black screens happening on a multimonitor setup deselect the GPU in Armoury lighting control.  If you have a GPU's software it will not play nice with Armoury and cause black screens when launching at least for me with precision X it did.

I can't speak for everyone's system obviously.  But I just wanted to share my knowledge and discoveries to hopefully help others at least have a stable system until the fixes are out. 

 

I know there is shit talking going on with NZXT, not simp'ing for NZXT, but at least they have let us know they are working on it.  There are companies out there where the users are always wrong and they just tell you too bad.

 

I also got a second response to a previous ticket saying their entire dev team is working on this specifically.

 

Best of luck in the mean time everyone!  

Your conclusions ring true to my ears.

Early in my error search I decreased the frequency of the crashes by reorganizing my USB connections and supplying my peripherals with USB power through an external USB hub with mains power. While this didn't remove my problems completely it helped a bit.

 

What helped even more was when MSI released the AGESA from AMD that was made to specifically fix the AMD USB issue that AMD acknowledged earlier this year.

I also believe the crashes comes from the NZXT equipment losing connection to the USB connected pump and/or RGB/FAN hub.

 

With that said I haven't seen these problems from Corsair iCUE despite them being wired to the mainboard in the same way as the NZXT AIO's. I have been running 2 Corsair AIOs on my current system with 2 different mainboards, MSI and Gigabyte and also 2 different CPU's Ryzen 3950x and 5800x and iCue gave me zero problems during 10 months while NZXT crashed my windows GUI at least 20 times within a month.

 

On the other hand the Corsair Hardware have been giving me problems and I had to RMA both the H115i Platinum and the H150i Capellix once each for replacements, one with a broken pump and one with broken RGB but that's an entirely different story. I'm more impressed by NZXT's hardware components but they are useless without a working software unfortunately. 

[TomJohnes]

I went with the Artic Liquid Freezer 2 360 instead. Seems to run fine with my allready existing software Fan Expert 4 on ASUS AI suite. 

Hopefully I can get rid of this thing (Z73) quick enough, not to loose to much.  

[Masterhenky]

I gave up on NZXT. Got rid of my H210i and Kraken M22. Got some low profile Noctua and a Razer Tomahawk case. 

[RocketGirl12345]

On 7/20/2020 at 3:51 PM, Korben said:

So after a weekend of running and testing without NZXT CAM: no freezes. Then, this morning, just to give me a more solid argument, I startet NZXT CAM again and let it run in the system tray. After some time the first freeze occured.

So I am now for 90% sure that NZXT CAM is causing this.

Which is sad, because without the software the temperatures on the displkay are not updated. I will put in a nice GIF and see what NZXT has to offer supportwise, although I fear, unless they got more complaints like this, they won't do anything since the connection between the freezes and CAM is not very obvious.

sorry for pinging, but i had same issue today , my screen froze and when i looked at gpu performance it showed (-1%)

i had NZXT CAM installed but i uninstalled it before i saw your message. thank you so much this thread really helped me to calm down , or i would be really nervous for my new pc build.

[Creativem0nster1]

Just a heads up, new beta version of CAM includes additional error reporting.

[passedpawn]

6 hours ago, Creativem0nster1 said:

Just a heads up, new beta version of CAM includes additional error reporting.

 

 

I'll wait for error-fixing.  That'll get me to go back.  

 

Turns out that replacing with liquidctl was pretty easy.  So I'm going to patiently sit on the sidelines and wait for the confirmed fix.  I like the hardware, and with the substitute software I don't see a need to change anything right now. 

[mo44]

On 5/3/2021 at 10:30 PM, ivan5150 said:

Disabled Global C States seem to work pretty well for me, my PC is running 8+ hours consecutively every day

I'm going to try this but for me I would have the PC running for 7 days straight to be sure it doesn't happen anymore since I've been seeing the problem happen after being on for multiple days.

I don't even use CAM but I do usually have HWMonitor running, this whole notion of not running monitoring software to avoid this issue is a bit ridiculous, not only because for some uses it's necessary (fan control) but also so broad it may be impossible to avoid.. for instance, task manage does some of these things now (such as reading GPU temperature) and AMD's Radeon Software even has monitoring as an overlay.. it's hard to know what actually counts towards this

[mo44]

18 hours ago, mo44 said:

I'm going to try this but for me I would have the PC running for 7 days straight to be sure it doesn't happen anymore since I've been seeing the problem happen after being on for multiple days.

Doesn't work, PC froze up after about 18 hours of uptime.

[bunkermagnus]

10 hours ago, mo44 said:

Doesn't work, PC froze up after about 18 hours of uptime.

Just out of curiosity, what system do you have, CPU / Motherboard?

[Nauest]

Hello all!

 

Having the same issues! H510i with a few NZXT fans. Right now I am stuck with setting all the fan speeds and RGB in CAM then uninstalling it (Luckily static RGB is fine for me). Have submitted a ticket to NZXT.

I will also explore using Fan headers on Mobo and Bios fan curves as an alternative to using the CAM device. 

The freezes were driving me nuts but CAM is definatley the only thing that it could be now. 

 

 

[mo44]

15 hours ago, bunkermagnus said:

Just out of curiosity, what system do you have, CPU / Motherboard?

Ryzen 7 3700X + Gigabyte X570 Aorus Master

[passedpawn]

For anyone wanting to install liquidctl, but is not sure how to do it, I wrote some instructions (see PDF below).  I have also attached the files.  You can get these at the liquidctl github site, but the ZIP file below also contains the sample script that I am using.  Just use these and it'll be easy for you.  

 

If anyone gives this a try, let me know your experience and if the instructions have any faults.  Thanks.  I have Windows 10 Pro.  Other operating systems might differ. 

liquidctl.zip Installing and using liquidctl.pdf

[mtlmat]

Following up on my end, I uninstalled iCue completely from my system, only left CAM running and I still get the freezes. 

As for liquidctl, does it support custom curves based on temps ? This is a feature that I really need and why I still need to have CAM running

[passedpawn]

1 hour ago, mtlmat said:

Following up on my end, I uninstalled iCue completely from my system, only left CAM running and I still get the freezes. 

As for liquidctl, does it support custom curves based on temps ? This is a feature that I really need and why I still need to have CAM running

liquidctl absolutely does create a custom curve.  See the PDF I posted above - it explains installation, and at the end of it I go into some detail on how it works.  

 

Below is an example liquidctl command for creating a pump speed curve.  For example, assume the first pair next to fan speed is 30 50.  This means that when the processor temperature is equal or greater than 30°C, the fan speed is 50%.  In this manner, a curve for both fan speed and pump speed is created.  You can change these pairs of numbers to whatever suits you.  You can put as many of these pairs in there as you like, and order doesn’t matter.  Spacing in the command line also doesn’t matter, but I like to add extra spaces between the pairs to make them easier to see.  In the example below, at the end of the command I added a 20/50 pair.  Liquidctl then adds this to the list and interpolates between 20°C and 30°C, creating a pump speed curve between those temperatures. 

[SeeNoWeevil]

On 5/25/2021 at 3:31 PM, passedpawn said:

liquidctl absolutely does create a custom curve.  See the PDF I posted above - it explains installation, and at the end of it I go into some detail on how it works.  

 

Below is an example liquidctl command for creating a pump speed curve.  For example, assume the first pair next to fan speed is 30 50.  This means that when the processor temperature is equal or greater than 30°C, the fan speed is 50%.  In this manner, a curve for both fan speed and pump speed is created.  You can change these pairs of numbers to whatever suits you.  You can put as many of these pairs in there as you like, and order doesn’t matter.  Spacing in the command line also doesn’t matter, but I like to add extra spaces between the pairs to make them easier to see.  In the example below, at the end of the command I added a 20/50 pair.  Liquidctl then adds this to the list and interpolates between 20°C and 30°C, creating a pump speed curve between those temperatures. 

Liquidctl creates curves based on AIO liquid temp, not CPU temp. Not that it really matters, the end result is much the same.

[Dark-vash]

Hey Guys,

 

Just wanted to update. I'm running a test on NZXT CAM version 4.23.0 and I already have 5 days uptime without any issues. Besides CAM update, I've already update AMD AGESA to 1.2.0.2. All BIOS options besides XMP Profiles are Default, so PBO and what not is working with defaults settings.

 

 

[chobocop]

Praise the gods I found this thread I thought I was going insane.  Reinstalled WIndows to troubleshoot and I was still having issues.  Manually set my pump to 75% in CAM then uninstalled it and verified my pump is still running at the increased speed via HWINFO.  I had the latest CAM and I was still having issues.

 

Posting specs just in case it matters:

CPU:    Ryzen 5800X

AIO:      NZXT X63

MOBO: Gigabyte X570I Aorus Pro WIFI F33H BIOS

RAM:    G.Skill F4-3200C14D-32GTZR 3200 CL14

GPU:    ASUS ROG STRIX 3070

SSD:    Samsung 980 PRO 1TB

 

I hate how many different programs I need to install based on what I have in my setup.  Separate programs for AIO, mouse, keyboard, GPU, etc seems a little excessive.

 

[microdot63]

same here, running a kraken M22 120mm cooler for a Ryzen 5800x in a very small case so fan control is a must. running CAM 4.23.0 and kept getting freezes but not on my other pc which has an air cooler...drove me nuts until I saw these posts. considering changing cooler now...anything but Corsair though (iCUE is another heap of trash)