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

[passedpawn]

On 2/16/2021 at 4:59 PM, passedpawn said:

Well, I installed CAM beta on Feb 3 and no issues since (13 days  ).  I made sure to turn off the "Game Hooking" option in Settings | General, as I verified that was the source of the horrible memory leak I was seeing.  I don't need that feature, I'm not turning it back on, but I suppose it's possible that late versions have fixed this.  

 

Went golfing this afternoon, returned to a dead PC.  Even iCue, the Corsair app that runs my fans, was dead (I could tell because the fans weren't changing colors).  Back to turning off CAM.  

[passedpawn]

8 hours ago, jakecar91 said:

I have deleted every prior file, installed the new software. The "update" says it has fixed all the problems that I was having. I had the software running, started playing something simple like, star wars fallen jedi, immediate freeze, had to hard reset, tried it with black ops cold war, immediate freeze, had to hard reset. So far, this new software update has fixed nothing. I am running MSI B550 Gaming Plus, Ryzen 7 3700x, Radeon 6800, Corsair Fans with iCue, razer keyboard and the NZXT Z63 280mm AIO. Hopefully this helps other people. *update* can play games, wont load out to absolute full screen, but as soon as you close the application, thats when it freezes. 

So for people like you that can quickly reproduce a freeze, IF YOU CLOSE CAM does the problem go away?

[Robioto]

35 minutes ago, passedpawn said:

So for people like you that can quickly reproduce a freeze, IF YOU CLOSE CAM does the problem go away?

Yes. Let CAM boot up when you start the PC. It will load the fan & pump curves and RGB settings, then exit in the system tray, sorted until you next turn the PC off/on. No crashes then.

[MelissaGT]

1 hour ago, Robioto said:

Yes. Let CAM boot up when you start the PC. It will load the fan & pump curves and RGB settings, then exit in the system tray, sorted until you next turn the PC off/on. No crashes then.

But will the pump react to increased CPU usage...like if I were to boot up a game, or would it continue chugging along at whatever it was at when I closed CAM?

 

As a side note, I've been working with 3D rendering software for the past few hours without issue, so there definitely is no correlation to load and the random freezes. More often than not, they seem to happen when I'm away from my computer...at least for me. 

[woahwotsdis]

Hi all. I reached out to NZXT with similar issues, showed them this forum, & got a response. They took my ticket and passed it along to the appropriate channels so possibly there will be some bug-fixes in the future.

 

If anyone is still having issues, I highly recommend you make an account & leave a ticket as this will resolve all of our issues faster. Lets gang up on them and get them to fix this pile of cold spaghetti, lol

 

[m.a.d.m.a.x]

12 hours ago, Robioto said:

Yes. Let CAM boot up when you start the PC. It will load the fan & pump curves and RGB settings, then exit in the system tray, sorted until you next turn the PC off/on. No crashes then.

How?
When I exit CAM, only the RGB stays but the fans turn up and go in standard mode. 

[Charlie_xd]

Hi! Am I glad I found this thread. I also have a brand new PC with NZXT fans and kraken. For me I the problem is the same. Weird freeze, still can move the mouse but nothing works. It started couple of days after I've build it. Then after about a month (of haveing about 1-2 freezes a day) after yet another freeze my M.2 just died. So I thought the faulty M.2 drive was an issue. I've sent the M.2 back on warranty and used SATA SSD (from my old PC, SSD had old Windows on) it didn't freeze even once for about 2-3 weeks. After I got a new m.2, freezing came back the same day I installed it. I found reddit post where the guy had a similar issue but he apparently resolved it by removing PSU cable extentions. I don't have PSU extentions so it can't be the cause for me. I'll submit a ticket to NZXT too and try to turn of CAM after boot. May also try running my PC from the old SSD. Can you guys tell me what boot drives you use, SSD or M.2? And did any of you had the same situation where your drive died because of those freezes?

[Coltonw023456]

my system has been locking up with NZXT cam as well

[Masterhenky]

Hi,

 

I also registered here to report having the same issue. 

 

Ryzen 3600x

X570 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3

NZXT h210i case & NZXT Kraken M22

 

After uninstalling CAM software, no more weird freezes that shows the same behavior as described by others in this thread. 

 

Also really glad to have found this thread!!

[jakecar91]

15 hours ago, Robioto said:

Yes. Let CAM boot up when you start the PC. It will load the fan & pump curves and RGB settings, then exit in the system tray, sorted until you next turn the PC off/on. No crashes then.

 

[jakecar91]

16 hours ago, passedpawn said:

So for people like you that can quickly reproduce a freeze, IF YOU CLOSE CAM does the problem go away?

Naturally. But the problem lies within me wanting to use my hardware to it's fullest and most accurate description given by NZXT the manufacturer. The LCD will freeze on whatever temperature was recorded right at the close, and not show any indication for overheating along with reverting all setting to normal besides the fans. So, exiting the CAM does not fully fix the problem, but it does allow the computer to run functional, until the hardware heats up without notice, and sets on fire. 

[Charlie_xd]

2 minutes ago, jakecar91 said:

exiting the CAM does not fully fix the problem

Yup, it's a band-aid. At least we can use our PC without fear that it can freeze at any given moment. With all of us writing to NZXT's support, hopefully the problem will be resolved soon. In the meantime I recommend you download some temp-monitoring software.

[Arnau]

On 2/10/2021 at 12:32 PM, Propain76 said:

ahh too bad i hoped the beta was the solution but guess we have to wait still.

The shutdown cam after boot is still the best option for me 

 

yes, sorry, definetly I celebrated too early..

[Arnau]

On 2/19/2021 at 12:17 AM, m.a.d.m.a.x said:

3 freezes in one day

Highscore I would say

[MelissaGT]

Well, it's day 4 for me and I rendered overnight last night and all was fine. But then today, while browsing social media, my system just up and rebooted out of nowhere. That's never happened before. But it didn't freeze, so maybe that's better? LOL. I dunno. I'm not sure if it's related to the same issue or not. I went ahead and updated the BIOS today to the most recent version as well as the chipset drivers (MSI had the most recent chipset version, so I don't know if it was good or bad to go with those or if I should have gone with the much older ones from AMD's site). 

 

The one thing I was able to see in the Event Log after the reboot was a WHEA Logger Event ID 18 which is something I've never seen before. It's the only one of those listed in the entire log. I have no idea what that error means, if it's really bad, or if it was a fluke since it's only happened once (so far). (I should probably add that the BIOS and chipset driver updates were done after the odd reboot and concurrent error.)

[HuudsonW]

I had this issue for the longest time until I found this thread. It was the NZXT CAM software causing the issue. I just close it completely after boot. Its been about a month since i started doing that and no issues whatsoever. I will probably set up liquidctl until NZXT fixes this. 

[adamshumpisxxx]

On 2/19/2021 at 2:53 AM, woahwotsdis said:

Hi all. I reached out to NZXT with similar issues, showed them this forum, & got a response. They took my ticket and passed it along to the appropriate channels so possibly there will be some bug-fixes in the future.

 

If anyone is still having issues, I highly recommend you make an account & leave a ticket as this will resolve all of our issues faster. Lets gang up on them and get them to fix this pile of cold spaghetti, lol

 

I'm glad this worked for you but in my experience I opened a ticket shortly after posting here for the first time. My first response was in January suggesting I try everything I've already tried, to which I responded and linked here. The second response was the beginning of February asking me for logs for a program I no longer have installed on my system (NZXT CAM). Had they gotten back to me in a reasonable amount of time I would have sent them what they asked for but two months after the fact is ridiculous. This is what they asked for in case anyone wants to cut to the chase with them:

 

-cam.log
-cam_elevation_helper.log
-cam_exclusive_access.log
-cam_helper.log
-cam_volatile_helper.log
-main.log
-renderer.log

[adamshumpisxxx]

On 2/18/2021 at 9:37 PM, MelissaGT said:

But will the pump react to increased CPU usage...like if I were to boot up a game, or would it continue chugging along at whatever it was at when I closed CAM?

 

As a side note, I've been working with 3D rendering software for the past few hours without issue, so there definitely is no correlation to load and the random freezes. More often than not, they seem to happen when I'm away from my computer...at least for me. 

Once you close NZXT CAM the profile you selected is ignored shortly thereafter and defaults back to "something". The temperatures for me were reasonable with whatever built-in standard profile lives on the device when gaming. I doubt it's very dynamic, if at all, based on the fan and pump noise. I swapped the given fans from my X52 for Noctua AF-12X25's FYI.

[MelissaGT]

5 hours ago, adamshumpisxxx said:

Once you close NZXT CAM the profile you selected is ignored shortly thereafter and defaults back to "something". The temperatures for me were reasonable with whatever built-in standard profile lives on the device when gaming. I doubt it's very dynamic, if at all, based on the fan and pump noise. I swapped the given fans from my X52 for Noctua AF-12X25's FYI.

That's what worries me. I do a lot of 3D rendering, which ideally uses the GPU and not so much the CPU...but if the GPU for whatever reason kicks it back to the CPU, then I could end up in trouble because then CPU usage would sit at 100%. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen from time to time. 

[are512]

On 2/19/2021 at 1:08 PM, Charlie_xd said:

Hi! Am I glad I found this thread. I also have a brand new PC with NZXT fans and kraken. For me I the problem is the same. Weird freeze, still can move the mouse but nothing works. It started couple of days after I've build it. Then after about a month (of haveing about 1-2 freezes a day) after yet another freeze my M.2 just died. So I thought the faulty M.2 drive was an issue. I've sent the M.2 back on warranty and used SATA SSD (from my old PC, SSD had old Windows on) it didn't freeze even once for about 2-3 weeks. After I got a new m.2, freezing came back the same day I installed it. I found reddit post where the guy had a similar issue but he apparently resolved it by removing PSU cable extentions. I don't have PSU extentions so it can't be the cause for me. I'll submit a ticket to NZXT too and try to turn of CAM after boot. May also try running my PC from the old SSD. Can you guys tell me what boot drives you use, SSD or M.2? And did any of you had the same situation where your drive died because of those freezes?

I use an M.2 as boot, but nothing bad like it breaking

[adamshumpisxxx]

9 hours ago, MelissaGT said:

That's what worries me. I do a lot of 3D rendering, which ideally uses the GPU and not so much the CPU...but if the GPU for whatever reason kicks it back to the CPU, then I could end up in trouble because then CPU usage would sit at 100%. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen from time to time. 

I could do like a 30m Prime95 test while I monitor with Ryzen Master and see what MY X52's internal "something" profile does for CPU temperatures if it concerns you that much. I would think my setup would be a more airflow strict scenario as well because I built ITX into an Ncase M1. Not only that my 3700X CPU is PBO'd 4x Scalar PPT - 300 TDC - 230 EDC - 230. You can check my profile for my exact hardware setup for reference. My next post will be results.

[adamshumpisxxx]

My results were:

 

All Cores @ 4.3GHz +/-

CPU Power @ 97-100W +/-

SOC Power @ 12-13W +/-

Temperature @ 70-72C +/-

 

The fan speed and pump noise "seem" to have changed albeit very slightly (if at all) during the test. I don't know if that's comforting or not but there it is. My suggestion is look into liquidctl if you'd prefer an active profile / monitor.

[passedpawn]

On 2/19/2021 at 8:08 AM, Charlie_xd said:

Hi! Am I glad I found this thread. I also have a brand new PC with NZXT fans and kraken. For me I the problem is the same. Weird freeze, still can move the mouse but nothing works. It started couple of days after I've build it. Then after about a month (of haveing about 1-2 freezes a day) after yet another freeze my M.2 just died. So I thought the faulty M.2 drive was an issue. I've sent the M.2 back on warranty and used SATA SSD (from my old PC, SSD had old Windows on) it didn't freeze even once for about 2-3 weeks. After I got a new m.2, freezing came back the same day I installed it. I found reddit post where the guy had a similar issue but he apparently resolved it by removing PSU cable extentions. I don't have PSU extentions so it can't be the cause for me. I'll submit a ticket to NZXT too and try to turn of CAM after boot. May also try running my PC from the old SSD. Can you guys tell me what boot drives you use, SSD or M.2? And did any of you had the same situation where your drive died because of those freezes?

I boot from a 2TB M.2 drive, and have a second one for a working drive.  I also have a 50TB RAID in there.  No problems with any of that.

[jakecar91]

1 hour ago, passedpawn said:

I boot from a 2TB M.2 drive, and have a second one for a working drive.  I also have a 50TB RAID in there.  No problems with any of that.

A 50 TB RAID? Like a RAID 10? thats a lot of memory. off topic, but wow.

[MelissaGT]

Day 6 without any freezes. CAM version 4.20.0, iCUE version 3.37.140. Windows 10 20H2 (up to date). I uninstalled MSI Afterburner 6 days ago...so I'm not sure if Afterburner was the issue, or the update to CAM 4.20.0 is what did it. I know Afterburner is a great program and I've used it for years, but I imagine it's very easy for all these monitoring programs to not want to play nice with each other. Thankfully the 1080TI FTW 3 seems to have a stock fan profile that does just fine without the help of a custom curve when gaming or rendering. 

 

*edit* Spoke too soon. Freeze today after shutting down Photoshop. Not sure if Photoshop was the issue or if it would have gone regardless of what I was doing. Nothing in the event log short of just the normal "improper shutdown" message when I had to do a hard reset. 

 

I'm going to try the CAM Beta.