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

[itsbesty]

Hi all,

 

I am a new user here, signed up to post in this thread.

 

I have been having the same issues for months, only recently realised it was due to twitch/youtube and stumbled across this post.

 

i see everyone mentioning its due to CAM issues, however, i do not use a webcam and do not stream. Thought this might be valuable input into finding the resolution as I would also like to fix it.

 

Can confirm it is not a GPU issue as I have played tarkov on high settings for more than 10 hours straight and not had any issues.

 

Hope to see a fix soon.

[doomst4]

Hello everyone.

I just wanted to add on the pile in saying that I too have this problem for months, never found the reason until today.

 

My pc will gradually freeze while the mouse is still moving but nothing is clickable. 

 

I want to add that i also have Corsair's ICUE installed for my keyboard and mouse, while CAM is controlling my Kraken Z63 AIO. It seems ICUE has similar issues (as seen on their forum and reddit) so i can't be 100% positive that the issue is solely with CAM or a combination of both. 

 

My system specs are :

- CPU AMD ryzen 5 5600x

- GPU Asus tuf 3080

- MOBO Asus rog strix x570 e-gaming

- RAM Crucial ballistix 3600Mhx 32gb

- PSU Corsair RM 850x

 

I am using the latest version of NZXT CAM v 5.7. 

[Fatal Fighter]

3 hours ago, itsbesty said:

Hi all,

 

I am a new user here, signed up to post in this thread.

 

I have been having the same issues for months, only recently realised it was due to twitch/youtube and stumbled across this post.

 

i see everyone mentioning its due to CAM issues, however, i do not use a webcam and do not stream. Thought this might be valuable input into finding the resolution as I would also like to fix it.

 

Can confirm it is not a GPU issue as I have played tarkov on high settings for more than 10 hours straight and not had any issues.

 

Hope to see a fix soon.

Hopefully you are kidding
NZXT CAM is a software name, which is being used to control NZXT's AIOs.

I had the same issue with, it drove me crazy, I swapped everything before finding this topic: replaced RAM, CPU, GPU, SSD, clean windows installation and I believe many more.

 

SOLUTION: sold my Kraken Z73 and going for custom loop

 

[itsbesty]

2 hours ago, Fatal Fighter said:

Hopefully you are kidding
NZXT CAM is a software name, which is being used to control NZXT's AIOs.

I had the same issue with, it drove me crazy, I swapped everything before finding this topic: replaced RAM, CPU, GPU, SSD, clean windows installation and I believe many more.

 

SOLUTION: sold my Kraken Z73 and going for custom loop

 

Hi,

 

Not joking about anything..

 

I can confirm never had any of that software and i still have the same issue as you all

[mo44]

3 hours ago, itsbesty said:

Hi,

 

Not joking about anything..

 

I can confirm never had any of that software and i still have the same issue as you all

I'm curious what your specs are and whether you use any monitoring software of any kind.

I'm pretty sure that CAM is just a trigger for some issue with Windows drivers but it's hard to figure out.

[Generic626]

Hooray! It's been exactly one year since this threads creation and the issues still hasn't been resolve. Thanks @nzxt_jeff NZXT for giving us misery, dread and overall such a crappy experience to us.

[itsbesty]

On 7/15/2021 at 10:10 PM, mo44 said:

I'm curious what your specs are and whether you use any monitoring software of any kind.

I'm pretty sure that CAM is just a trigger for some issue with Windows drivers but it's hard to figure out.

[mo44]

15 hours ago, itsbesty said:

What's the video card in your system?

[Monkas]

I finally solved this problem.

 

I sold all my NZXT stuff and now i'm happy Corsair-only products owner. No more problems.

 

I suggest all of you do the same and get rid off your NZXT stuff and never buy their products again.

 

 

[mo44]

Been able to get my PC back to where the freezes don't happen (having HWMonitor running with a full week uptime). I had to go back to Radeon Software version 21.3.1 but rather than the problem being with the display driver itself I suspect the accompanying PCI Bus driver which gets roped in with versions after that one.

The next thing for me to test would be to update drivers but then rollback the PCI Bus driver specifically.

UPDATE: Turns out I can't even do that as the newer versions of Radeon Software it will just automatically reinstall this newer PCI Bus driver.

 

The same freeze was happening with my 1070 last year so maybe nVidia has had this problem for longer but I don't recall if the GeForce drivers come with a PCI Bus driver. I'm also starting to suspect that the reason the fix of disabling Global C State Control did not work for me is because this might only work for nVidia video cards for some reason.

 

Edited July 25, 2021 by mo44

[Zarahar]

Also like so many others just made me account to comment on this. This has been driving me insane for months after a new build end of last year with all brand new parts minus the graphics card for obvious reasons. Tonight was especially bad, every 30 minutes or so it was crashing until I found this thread about 3 hours ago and all is good so far since I nuked it from my PC. After talking with multiple people in PC repair and my class mates from my schooling and even my teacher, no one had any idea what could have been causing it that I hadn't already checked off. Over the last month I have replaced everything single aspect of my computer minus the CPU, GPU and case (which is a 710i). How I missed that it could have been this issue before I spent all that money replacing and reinstalling windows 3 times just to be sure irritates me to no belief. Well at least now I can sell the old parts in good faith that it wasn't them in any way causing the issue. I guess I can chalk it up to the fact that the crash is so odd. Even posted videos of the crash online with CAM open showing that temps and utilization were fine... Guess I'll be buying a new case and hopefully putting this company permanently in my rearview. They need to do something about it or at least admit it and make a statement so no one goes through this headache like the rest of us.
 

 

UPDATE: Still no crashes since I nuked it off my PC Saturday night. Seems to be working so far and reaffirms that its the trash software.
Specs:

Ryzen 7 3700X
Noctua NH-D15

EVGA FTW 1080
32 gb G.Skill Trident Z 3600

1tb WD Black M.2

850 Watt EVGA Supernova

Edited July 28, 2021 by Zarahar

[geonator]

Same problem here what a joke - using a Z53. The fancy LED is nice but whats the point if CAM freezes your whole PC.

I got the Z53 to cool my 5800x in January, then I started mining with my 3080. I've must have missed out on hundreds because of this shitty software - sometimes I would go work and come home and the PC is locked up for the past 8 hours or so and it stops mining!

At first I thought my 3080 or 5800x was unstable, spent hours tinkering and uninstalling programs until I found this thread. Stopped CAM about 2 weeks ago and guess what not one lockup.

 

Liquidctl seems a bit confusing but I will give it a go tomorrow - as the moment I have just been using a set pump/fan speed and closing CAM which is not ideal as I cant use the LED in the PC to view temps or put a gif on. What a mess my next build will not have NZXT.

[Aemsii]

Ladies and Gentlemen - so happy I found this post last night. 

 

Built a brand new machine, 5950x, RTX 3090, really wanted to go for the best. Playing COD Warzone for hours without any problems. As soon as I quit the game and back to windows after about 15-20 seconds Windows freezes. Mouse still moves, can still click but nothing happens. 

 

Assumed it could be NVMe overheating or Chipset, bought new Mainboard and many other things. Fresh Windows install, event logger does not give me anything. 

 

And today - deinstalled CAM and everything fine. Setting up liquidctl was OK for me. Solution for now. I'll never buy a NZXT product again. 

[Mikam0815]

Let me join this club here - have also build up a PC with following specs:

 

Ryzen 7 5800x

Asus Rog Strix B550-E

Palit 2070 Super

2x16GB Corsair Vengeance Pro 3600

1TB WD SN850 Black M.2

1TB WD Sn750 Black M.2

Asus 850W PSU

NZXT Kraken Z73

 

Also here the situation that the PC freezes occasionaly in such a way that task bar is not reacting, some apps can still be opened but not used and a shutdown will not work, only by doing it the hard way. Never had the issue when the PC was under load, it happened almost every time when PC was idle for some time.

 

Since liqiudctl is not (yet) supporting the LCD display of the Kraken Z73 it is not really an option for me.

 

Will also raise a ticket at NZXT - but at the end I should have fount this thread before I went for the Z73

 

Update: Received a feedback from NZXT support that I shopuld try to deactivate any other RGB software. Trying this now by using my Corsair fans in hardware lightning mode without ICUE running. For some reason it really seem to happen when PC is running on idle,

[SirGr3mlin]

I'll join the club too!

It also blocks the com port for programming Arduino's. actually that's how i found it.
I was trying to program an Arduino up and it was saying com port busy. eventually i tried with the NZXT Cam software shutdown and it started working.

so i left it shut down and no crashes. started it back up crashed within the hour.

every ticket i open that suggests an issue with the software is closed with no explanation why.

[Aemsii]

For everyones entertainment:

 

NZXT support email:

Hey,

Thanks for reaching out to us.

Do you happen to have any Software from Razer, Corsair, Asus, Alienware or Gigabyte isntalled ?

If so, could you try to disable /uninstall those to see if the crashes persist ?

Best Regards 

 

So in other words: they are asking me to disable/uninstall the software that is monitoring/managing my CPU, Temps, Fans, etc. so I would be able to manage my pump and the 4 fans attached to the X52...

 

[g3_angold]

9 hours ago, Aemsii said:

they are asking me to disable/uninstall the software that is monitoring/managing my CPU, Temps, Fans, etc.

I've done this and spent about 3 weeks without freezes, but now I face them every 2 or 3 days

[NumberYellow]

Oh yeah.... this is an ANNOYING problem. I had it for a while, and then it stopped for like 2-3 months, and now it's happening again. It takes about 30 minutes for the system to freeze entirely, with it steadily getting worse over the course of that time. the first clue you've got an issue is when the clock freezes. I run a rainmeter clock on my desktop, with a seconds counter, so it's pretty obvious for me, when the clock has frozen. If you catch it early enough, you can actually initiate a proper restart, before everything completely craps out.

 

Had the system freeze while i was watching a video, the other day.. had to do a hard reset, everything was fine.. i go to unlock the computer today, around noon, and the clock on the lock screen is frozen at about 0830 this morning, and the system is entirely unresponsive. I do use the CAM software for temperature monitoring, though, i don't use any NZXT hardware (can't stand their hardware or cases), but i find the software to be very convenient for monitoring, and it's mini-mode integrates nicely with my other desktop gauges. I really hope it's not the true cause of this.

[j1404]

Wow... This Thread.

 

This is all great. As I upgraded my PC about two months ago to this:

Ryzen 7 5800X

32GB Corsair RGB PRO

NZXT Kraken Z73

 

I was experiencing 1 or 2 crashes in about a 4 hour gaming period windows would freeze. The start menu would work on the first click but I then couldn't use the shut down button. Only way I could reboot was physically pulling the power.

 

I thought it might be temps or something with Windows (It was also a clean install when I upgraded) but logged the temps and it got to about 71C whilst gaming. Then beginning of this week I stopped CAM starting up and just left it off. My PC has been crash free. After reading this I am also going to log a ticket.

[NumberYellow]

Something i've noticed about this thread, or at least about the recent posts.. people say that they've stopped letting CAM start up, or outright uninstalled it, and that seems to have fixed the problem.. As i stated before, i had the problem, it stopped for a couple of months, and now it's back.. the latest update to the CAM software was on the 1st of june.. that's nearly 2 months ago. One thing i forgot to mention in my last post was that i installed the latest Nvidia driver a few days ago.. i started having the slow freeze problem again a few days ago. Might be a coincidence, or maybe it's a video driver issue? maybe it's video driver AND CAM, or some other weird combination.. all i know is that CAM hasn't updated in 2 months, but my nvidia driver updated a few days ago.

[mo44]

31 minutes ago, NumberYellow said:

Something i've noticed about this thread, or at least about the recent posts.. people say that they've stopped letting CAM start up, or outright uninstalled it, and that seems to have fixed the problem.. As i stated before, i had the problem, it stopped for a couple of months, and now it's back.. the latest update to the CAM software was on the 1st of june.. that's nearly 2 months ago. One thing i forgot to mention in my last post was that i installed the latest Nvidia driver a few days ago.. i started having the slow freeze problem again a few days ago. Might be a coincidence, or maybe it's a video driver issue? maybe it's video driver AND CAM, or some other weird combination.. all i know is that CAM hasn't updated in 2 months, but my nvidia driver updated a few days ago.

For me the issue started with specific display drivers but on AMD (Radeon Software version 21.4.1) so there is some connection but not sure exactly how.

[NumberYellow]

31 minutes ago, mo44 said:

For me the issue started with specific display drivers but on AMD (Radeon Software version 21.4.1) so there is some connection but not sure exactly how.

none of this makes sense.. i've seen accounts of this issue occurring in systems that aren't even using the CAM software. Some are using Nvidia, some are using AMD, There doesn't seem to be any common denominator, other than Win10. very irritating to try and troubleshoot.

[ivan5150]

For all the new post here

Disabling Global C State in your bios might fix this issue

For me its 4 moths without any crash

Of course, log a ticket with NZXT might be useful just to put some pressure on these guys...

 

 

[TheHaezaert]

Damn, i've had the same issue for about a year now. I'm also running nzxt cam. Did you get any freeze after the update to 4.10.1?

 

[luckync]

So I also have those freeze problem. Usually it happens when PC in idle, almost never when I'm using it.

Uninstalling CAM app helps, uptime was more than a week, but of course it's not a proper solution.

Using CAM beta 4.26.0-b1, gives about two days before first freeze.

Disabling Global C-State in bios fixed problem for me, it's about 3 weeks uptime with no problems. Drawback is CPU temps bumped up in average on 4-7 C degrees.

 

PC:

Ryzen 5900x

Gigabyte B550

GTX 1080

64 Gb GSkill Ram

Kraken Z73