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

[passedpawn]

31 minutes ago, Lemah Lembik said:

Hi, Its game hooking guys. Just disable the game hooking under setting>general>games and it will running fine. 1 month running fine without freezing. I think the cam optimized for Intel only, AMD left behind. This software developer is biased. 

 

Nope. 

 

That is the first thing I tried, after I discovered the memory leak in the app that was sucking 10GB!  Turning the "game hooking" feature off did eliminate the massive memory leak.  But random lockups continued until I abandoned CAM and installed liquidctl.  

 

You're probably right about CAM being optimized for Intel.  However, AMD has been crushing Intel lately in performance/$.  I've built a bunch of high-performance PCs over the years, always with Intel.  This is my first foray into the AMD world.  No complaints (except for the CAM thing  )

[passedpawn]

2 hours ago, NumberYellow said:

Normally, i'd agree with you, however, you seem to have missed where i stated that people are having this issue, and have never even heard of, much less installed, CAM. How can it possibly be CAM, if it's not present?

Well, I can't explain that, but there are a lot of causes for computer issues.  Quite possible people with totally different problems are commenting here.  

 

I used to have an awful lockup ever few days.  This went on for many months after building my PC.  I stopped using CAM and "this issue" completely went away.  100%.  What do you think?  

[NumberYellow]

1 hour ago, passedpawn said:

Well, I can't explain that, but there are a lot of causes for computer issues.  Quite possible people with totally different problems are commenting here.  

 

I used to have an awful lockup ever few days.  This went on for many months after building my PC.  I stopped using CAM and "this issue" completely went away.  100%.  What do you think?  

On the surface, it would appear that CAM was the cause... however, this is surface-level thinking. when you look at the other accounts of people experiencing this problem, and consider all of the evidence, in it's totality, you can't draw the same conclusion. Something else is happening here.

 

Now, i'm at 3 days on the clock, with no creeping death. that's usually an indicator that i've beaten it back. however, i'm not sure if the issue was "solved" by turning off global c-states control, or by the nvidia update that installed yesterday. i can't just say for sure that either one of those was "the fix". I mean, i COULD, but i'd be talking out of my rear. Assumptions, and bad information just make finding the cause, and the solution take longer.

[Korben]

On 8/9/2021 at 1:24 AM, Leot1995 said:

Well . This might not help at all but it's probably worth a shot . What you can try is start event viewer and look at the application logs . See if there are any ESENT warnings . They might be 501 . 508 and a bunch of other ones . If that's the case open up windows updates and see if there are any available . I had these errors for a long time where windows default applications would spazz out trying to write data that it shouldn't be writing . It causes freezing and thawing effects where your windows will lock up for about a minute and then resume working . Sometimes there can be multiple ESENT errors causing a longer lockup . I always thought it was related to cam but it never was . I'm sure in most cases the only way I could fix them was updating windows ... also ESENT errors are inconsistent . It might happen once a day . Sometimes 10 times a day . Hope this helps

Thanks, but did you notice the date I wrote that?

I long ago got rid of the cooler and CAM... and CAM was definitly the source of problems. I'm kind of stomped this thread is still alive and that tells me it was the right decision.

Edited August 15, 2021 by Korben
typo

[Lemah Lembik]

Ahh one more thing forgot to tell. Just look for software which seems to give conflict with NZXT CAM. Mine was due to Razer Cortex. Razer Cortex optimized all the games played. Its read gaming behavior, sames goes to NZXT CAM. So i decided to ditch the Razer Cortex and use only Raze Synapes. It goes well smoothly without freezing. After uninstalling the Razer Cortex, I turned on the games hooking and its working well too. What a relief.

[luckync]

On 8/14/2021 at 6:04 AM, NumberYellow said:

On the surface, it would appear that CAM was the cause... however, this is surface-level thinking. when you look at the other accounts of people experiencing this problem, and consider all of the evidence, in it's totality, you can't draw the same conclusion. Something else is happening here.

 

Now, i'm at 3 days on the clock, with no creeping death. that's usually an indicator that i've beaten it back. however, i'm not sure if the issue was "solved" by turning off global c-states control, or by the nvidia update that installed yesterday. i can't just say for sure that either one of those was "the fix". I mean, i COULD, but i'd be talking out of my rear. Assumptions, and bad information just make finding the cause, and the solution take longer.

I've went though A LOT of rounds uninstalling CAM app and installing it back again, as well as turning C-state off and on and in my case it's FOR SURE combination of those two.

None of the other apps install\uninstall and driver updates didn't saved me from those freezes.

 

It may be the case that CAM just triggers some problem on C-state, but none of other apps does that, so from my perspective it's better to fix CAM app, which didn't gain any trust from me with those amazing memory leaking that they can't fix for years. 

[Daniel24]

1 hour ago, luckync said:

I've went though A LOT of rounds uninstalling CAM app and installing it back again, as well as turning C-state off and on and in my case it's FOR SURE combination of those two.

None of the other apps install\uninstall and driver updates didn't saved me from those freezes.

 

It may be the case that CAM just triggers some problem on C-state, but none of other apps does that, so from my perspective it's better to fix CAM app, which didn't gain any trust from me with those amazing memory leaking that they can't fix for years. 

The same freezing behavior is reported to occur on CPUID's HWMonitor program. I believe CAM uses CPUID's SDK for system monitoring. It seems as though CPUID's software is the culprit as it's attempting to monitor the CPU's low-power states. To my knowledge, C-States throttle down the power supplied to certain, unused portions of the CPU in order to conserve power. There must be some conflict with how their software monitors Ryzen CPUs in particular.

[NumberYellow]

23 hours ago, luckync said:

I've went though A LOT of rounds uninstalling CAM app and installing it back again, as well as turning C-state off and on and in my case it's FOR SURE combination of those two.

None of the other apps install\uninstall and driver updates didn't saved me from those freezes.

 

It may be the case that CAM just triggers some problem on C-state, but none of other apps does that, so from my perspective it's better to fix CAM app, which didn't gain any trust from me with those amazing memory leaking that they can't fix for years. 

Like i KEEP saying, people who have never even HEARD of CAM, much less used it, are reporting this issue. something else is happening here. My money is on a Win10, or video driver issue.

 

I turned off global c-states, and 4 days ago, i had a lockup...though, it wasn't of the "creeping death" variety, the system just stopped. everything locked at once....no mouse, no keyboard response, and hitting the reset button did nothing either. I had to actually power down the system, in order to get it to post, and go back into windows. I was watching a video on youtube at the time this occurred. I was running fine for MONTHS with CAM active, and global c-states turned on. The only things that had recently changed were an update to my Nvidia drivers, and one of those monthly roundup updates for Win10.

[Idk love]

Hi um I have a fairly new pc owner and I have had my pc since July of 2021. Up until quite recently I had no trouble what so ever. Then one day I launch resident evil 8 with no issues with the game at all. But upon closing my game after about 15 seconds my pc freezes. I can move my mouse and here the music in the background but I cannot pause or change it. I can hear my friends on discord but they cannot hear me. I cannot restart or or shut down or task manager anything. It just freezes and stays there and I have to force shut it down. I searched it up and people said it had to do with hdr and I took off the cable and disabled hdr. The games that I open and close even uninstall. Things were okay for a few days then the freezing started again. I uninstalled and reinstalled my graphics driver and no change has happened. I am at a loss for what to do. I have disable the start up for CAM and will see if that works and then if it does not I will uninstall to see if that works as well. I really need help and I would appreciate some help. Here are my specs

 

CPU

-AMD Ryzen 5 5600X

GPU

-NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060

Motherboard

- ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC. TUF GAMING X570-PLUS(WI-FI)

Ram

2- Team Group Inc. TEAMGROUP-UD4-3200 DDR4

Storage

- WDC WDS250G2B0A-00SM50

  ST2000DM008-2FR102

Audio

-4- High Definition Audio Device

NVIDIA High Definition Audio

Network

-wifi

ethernet 

wifi 2

 

[mo44]

On 8/21/2021 at 12:13 AM, NumberYellow said:

Like i KEEP saying, people who have never even HEARD of CAM, much less used it, are reporting this issue. something else is happening here. My money is on a Win10, or video driver issue.

 

I turned off global c-states, and 4 days ago, i had a lockup...though, it wasn't of the "creeping death" variety, the system just stopped. everything locked at once....no mouse, no keyboard response, and hitting the reset button did nothing either. I had to actually power down the system, in order to get it to post, and go back into windows. I was watching a video on youtube at the time this occurred. I was running fine for MONTHS with CAM active, and global c-states turned on. The only things that had recently changed were an update to my Nvidia drivers, and one of those monthly roundup updates for Win10.

Can you do me a favour and look up your PCI Bus driver in the device manager? I'm particularly curious of the provider (I suspect nVidia have provided a driver) and the date.

[xelfin__]

I created an account to help up on this thread , here is how i temporary fix this issue while having cam installed 
my issue:

1.cpu temp at 70+ degree celsius while doing nothing

2. low fps while gaming with r7 5800x and rtx 3070ti

So werid i discovered having task manager running in the background weirdly fix all this issues. I also think this might just be Ryzen's mobo usb issue as my GPU has an LCD screen that displays temps ,ect. Even the gpu temps were not accurate until i have task manager running in the background. 

I hope this might help some of you guys. 

[NumberYellow]

On 8/22/2021 at 10:27 PM, mo44 said:

Can you do me a favour and look up your PCI Bus driver in the device manager? I'm particularly curious of the provider (I suspect nVidia have provided a driver) and the date.

Didn't snag dates, but all the PCI-related drivers are provided by Microsoft and AMD

[Robioto]

On 8/14/2021 at 1:45 AM, Lemah Lembik said:

Hi, Its game hooking guys. Just disable the game hooking under setting>general>games and it will running fine. 1 month running fine without freezing. I think the cam optimized for Intel only, AMD left behind. This software developer is biased. 

I disabled game hooking in Feburary and had several freezes since.

[Robioto]

I've whinged a lot in this thread and justifiably so.

 

But NZXT has gone from one of my favourite PC part companies to never buy from them again. The radio silence and inability to fix this issue is an absolute disgrace.

 

Gutter tier customer service.

 

EDIT: Sent in my 3rd ticket on this, one every 3 months, I've not been quite so polite in this one. I've had enough.

[Einulfr]

On 8/19/2021 at 7:35 AM, luckync said:

I've went though A LOT of rounds uninstalling CAM app and installing it back again, as well as turning C-state off and on and in my case it's FOR SURE combination of those two.

None of the other apps install\uninstall and driver updates didn't saved me from those freezes.

 

It may be the case that CAM just triggers some problem on C-state, but none of other apps does that, so from my perspective it's better to fix CAM app, which didn't gain any trust from me with those amazing memory leaking that they can't fix for years. 

Same. The weird thing is, CAM was fine with C-States on and I never had an issue with it before this latest release (4.25.0)

 

3 months later with no way to manually roll back and a release so busted (4.26.0) that we were rolled back to 4.25.0... sigh.

[Dark-vash]

So this is still on... I've shared a video with this specific issue. I have CAM disabled for months and no issues at all with my machine. The thing is, I'm using CAM only to control Case fans and the case LED strip, so it's not a big deal. My BIOS has default settings, only XMP setted for RAM. So those C-State options and what not are setted to on by default.

 

Here's the video again: 

 

 

[Klyster]

I just signed up just to comment on this subject.

Initially, I thought Steam was the culprit, but I got rid of my Kraken and NZXT fans, got a Lian Li Galahad cooler and UNI SL120 fans, ditched CAM and no longer have issues.

 

My issues stemmed from trying to exit games and my system hanging, cannot close most programs, try and close from the task bar and having ghost elements left floating on my desktop.

 

Game hooking made no difference for me, I couldn't even shut down or logout, bleh!

I trawled through this thread looking for the magic bullet after suspecting CAM was the issue.

 

Anyway, no more NZXT for me. It's a shame really as I really liked the Cam aesthetic, especially in dark mode, and the monitoring was pretty damned good.

I personally think it looks the best, but I really can't be bothered with instability.

 

My older system was 3700X, Aorus Wifi Pro, GTX 1080, 32GB DDR4 3200

My current system is 5600X, Taichi Razer edition, RX 6700XT, 32GB DDR4 3200

This was happening on Win 10 and 11.

 

 

Both had identical issues, but ditching CAM has sorted this.

 

In my opinion,  NZXT owes me hours upon hours  of my life, reinstall drivers, windows, steam, hours spent searching for solutions etc....

[Einulfr]

4.30.0 beta is out.

 

Bug Fixes:

• Implemented a potential fix to the CAM freezing issues related to AMD CPUs being reported by many users involving a conflict with other running apps.
• Fixed a potential memory leak.
• Fixed an issue with high storage drive usage.

Adjustments:

• Added functionality to gracefully handle errors during the auto-update process. This should address the issue some users were experiencing with freezing during the updating process. Added status messaging during the auto-updating process.
• Functionality was improved to check for CAM process conflicts. If detected, CAM will show a dialog asking users to close the process. This should help mitigate the “Failed to communicate to device” status message that users sometimes encounter.
• Added a potential fix to some of the freezing issues users are reporting. We do not expect this to resolve every user’s issue, but we’re confident it helps most. We will continue to work to find the full resolution to this issue.

[luckync]

8 hours ago, Einulfr said:

4.30.0 beta is out.

 

Bug Fixes:

• Implemented a potential fix to the CAM freezing issues related to AMD CPUs being reported by many users involving a conflict with other running apps.
• Fixed a potential memory leak.
• Fixed an issue with high storage drive usage.

Adjustments:

• Added functionality to gracefully handle errors during the auto-update process. This should address the issue some users were experiencing with freezing during the updating process. Added status messaging during the auto-updating process.
• Functionality was improved to check for CAM process conflicts. If detected, CAM will show a dialog asking users to close the process. This should help mitigate the “Failed to communicate to device” status message that users sometimes encounter.
• Added a potential fix to some of the freezing issues users are reporting. We do not expect this to resolve every user’s issue, but we’re confident it helps most. We will continue to work to find the full resolution to this issue.

"potential memory leak" HAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

their release docs are funny )))

 

[passedpawn]

^^ Yep.  My "potential leak" potentially hit 10GB.  

 

[are512]

Given the comment above "your feedback helped us fix these issues" makes it sound like they think this is the end of our issues?

[Einulfr]

I think my worst memory leak with CAM was a little over 1GB; I usually killed and restarted it before it ever got too bad.

 

Turned Global C-States back on (Auto), almost 14 hours uptime so far. Hopefully this is the fix that most of us have been waiting for.

[Arnau]

1 hour ago, Einulfr said:

I think my worst memory leak with CAM was a little over 1GB; I usually killed and restarted it before it ever got too bad.

 

Turned Global C-States back on (Auto), almost 14 hours uptime so far. Hopefully this is the fix that most of us have been waiting for.

let's see I just updated.. I'll leave it on the wole night. I usually got a crash every 5-6h aprox

 

[Arnau]

22 hours ago, Arnau said:

let's see I just updated.. I'll leave it on the wole night. I usually got a crash every 5-6h aprox

 

24h so far, 0 crashes, guys 4.30.0 beta seems to FINALLY solve the problem. I think I'm not celebrating too early... will keep you updated.  

[Arnau]

yes, so 50h so far without crashes, also tried to wake it up from suspension or hibernation and it still no crashing. Also tested some games and video editors... So, going throug all scenarios where it used to easy crash... still no crashes by now. Looks solved, almos a year late but solved.