help PC Randomly Freezes

[Madog24]

OK, I think of myself as being pretty knowledgeable with windows and tech in general, obviously not nearly as much as others, but this has me completely stumped.

 

Please also let me know if I am posting in the wrong section, I am assuming it's a Windows/software issue, and not a hardware issue. I have no real way of texting a hardware issue.

 

I have been having a strange issue with my PC for the past 1-2 months or so. Occasionally, Randomly, my PC will freeze for 1-2 seconds and then resume as normal. Sometimes, different things happen during the freeze:

 * Entire PC will freeze for 1-2 seconds.
 * Both Monitors will go black for 1-2 seconds then come back. (crashed graphics driver)
 * Videos will stop, but audio will still play for 1-2 seconds then audio will stop until video catches up. (in web browsers)
 * Mouse will still work but everything else will be frozen for 1-2 seconds.

Or random combinations of those. Attached is a small image gallery of Task Manager just after the freeze. It seems to randomly hit different things with no relation to anything. Sometimes it's all CPU cores and all my SSDs/HDD. Sometimes, it's some CPU cores. Sometimes it random GPU elements and my HDD. Seemingly Random.

This issue happens about 5-10 times per day, when playing games, when idle, when watching videos or browsing the web. I also leaves no issues in event viewer, except for the occasional time my graphics driver will also crash and restart.

 

 

Things I have done:

* Updated GPU/Video Drivers (through Geforce)
* Display Driver Uninstaller while in Safe Mode (no networking)
* Updated Windows to version 20H2
* Ran Virus/Malware Scans (nothing found)
* Disabled Superfetch

 

 

PC Specs:

* Windows 10 Pro
* i7-8700K stock
* Asus Z370-P Motherboard
* 32GB Corsair Vengence rgb Pro 3200MHz
* Zotac 2080 AMP (Triple Fan)

 

 

Please let me know if I need to provide more info.

Also, Re-installing windows is not really an option for me, I have too many programs and such to lose. Thanks.

[Madog24]

Not sure if it's really worth mentioning or not, but My GPU is also randomly being very loud. The middle fan randomly starts rattling. If I press in on the center of the fan a bit, it usually stops. I'm pretty sure it's unrelated, because it doesn't ever happen at the same time.
What does happen EVERY TIME the freeze occurs is my HDD winds up during the freeze, Very Audibly.

[apexcrisis]

Have you tried taking the GPU out and just running the PC for a bit using integrated graphics to see if it still freezes?

[Madog24]

1 minute ago, apexcrisis said:

Have you tried taking the GPU out and just running the PC for a bit using integrated graphics to see if it still freezes?

I have not. You think it's a GPU issue? The GPU doesn't really seem to spike at all during the freeze, except for the Video decode and only when watching youtube or twitch.

[Soloq]

hi, I'm not sure this will fix the problem, but you can try this

I see that there is a spike on some of the pictures in the HDD. So maybe the 1-2 sec freeze is the result of the HDD being saturated. SO normally you should find the process that causes that 100% spike. if you can find that, then I think that might solve the issue

You can also check if virtual memory is not activated on HDD. It should rather be activated on the ssd side.

do the following to check if it's not on the hdd 

1. Go to the Start Menu and click on Settings.
2. Type performance.
3. Choose Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows.
4. In the new window, go to the Advanced tab and under the Virtual memory section, click on Change.
5. uncheck "automatically manage paging file size  for all drives" then  if the HDD is the one that manages that, change it to the SSD.

If this don't solve the problem then as I said earlier you could try to check what process causes that. try to open the task manager on the background on the process tab, order the column by higher usage to lower, then once you get that freeze, quickly look what program uses the hdd at 100%

[Madog24]

1 minute ago, Soloq said:

hi, I'm not sure this will fix the problem, but you can try this

I see that there is a spike on some of the pictures in the HDD. So maybe the 1-2 sec freeze is the result of the HDD being saturated. SO normally you should find the process that causes that 100% spike. if you can find that, then I think that might solve the issue

You can also check if virtual memory is not activated on HDD. It should rather be activated on the ssd side.

do the following to check if it's not on the hdd 

1. Go to the Start Menu and click on Settings.
2. Type performance.
3. Choose Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows.
4. In the new window, go to the Advanced tab and under the Virtual memory section, click on Change.
5. uncheck "automatically manage paging file size  for all drives" then  if the HDD is the one that manages that, change it to the SSD.

If this don't solve the problem then as I said earlier you could try to check what process causes that. try to open the task manager on the background on the process tab, order the column by higher usage to lower, then once you get that freeze, quickly look what program uses the hdd at 100%

Paging File System is active only on my SSD (C: Drive), not my HDD (E: Drive)
What I find odd, is that when these spikes happen, my HDD is almost always spiked to 100%, but when watching the resource Monitor, I don't see anything unusual that targets or runs on my E: Drive, just the normal processes like logfile and SteamLibrary.

 

The spike also only happens during the freeze, after the freeze stops, everything is already back to normal levels.

[Soloq]

12 minutes ago, Madog24 said:

Paging File System is active only on my SSD (C: Drive), not my HDD (E: Drive)
What I find odd, is that when these spikes happen, my HDD is almost always spiked to 100%, but when watching the resource Monitor, I don't see anything unusual that targets or runs on my E: Drive, just the normal processes like logfile and SteamLibrary.

 

The spike also only happens during the freeze, after the freeze stops, everything is already back to normal levels.

I think it may be the other way around, the hdd spike could be the one causing the freeze. My guess is that your windows is installed on the ssd, that would explain why the mouse doesn't freeze but the rest does. Everything that is installed on the hdd freezes along with the spike. So you just have to find what causes the spike. Most likely a program that is installed, or a service running in the background

[Madog24]

15 minutes ago, Soloq said:

I think it may be the other way around, the hdd spike could be the one causing the freeze. My guess is that your windows is installed on the ssd, that would explain why the mouse doesn't freeze but the rest does. Everything that is installed on the hdd freezes along with the spike. So you just have to find what causes the spike. Most likely a program that is installed, or a service running in the background

Like I said though, I see no program running or accessing my HDD when the issue occurs. No Even viewer log, nothing.

[Soloq]

50 minutes ago, Madog24 said:

Like I said though, I see no program running or accessing my HDD when the issue occurs. No Even viewer log, nothing.

try to disable start up programs, then try to remove services that startup as well that are not from microsoft. you can do that by going to start -> run -> msconfig -> services -> check "hide  all microsoft services" , and uncheck everything. then reboot your pc. try using your pc for a while to see if the freezing occurs, if it doesnt, reenable services by the same method one by one until you find the culprit. 

[Soloq]

On 4/26/2021 at 4:17 PM, Madog24 said:

Like I said though, I see no program running or accessing my HDD when the issue occurs. No Even viewer log, nothing.

so, did you find the problem?

[Madog24]

20 hours ago, Soloq said:

so, did you find the problem?

I am not sure tbh, I disabled them all, and I didn't notice it freeze because it also means I can't use the PC. It may have happened when I was not looking once or twice.