My computer Freezes for 1-2 seconds

[Sarcaustic]

Hi, my computer stutters every so often. Like 5 times a day randomly. Does not matter what i am doing, watching videos, playing games, opening files. My computer freezes for 1 or 2 seconds and then comes back again. Sometimes my screen goes black and sometimes my audio device disconnects. I have looked online and have tried updating my bios, lowering the voltage of my ram. I saw a video where to download this thing for your SSD because the voltage. Nothing has worked.

 

I swapped out my grahics card and powersupply to spares that work and it didnt change anything. I havnt swapped the SSD, cpu, ram, motherboard or my additional HDD.

 

These are my specs: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER OC 6GB Video Card ----- ASUS PRIME B365M-K LGA 1511 mATX Motherboard ----- Intel Core i5 9400F Hexa Core LGA 1151 2.90 GHz CPU Processor ----- Kingston HyperX FURY 16GB (2x 8GB) DDR4 2666MHz Memory - Black ----- Samsung 970 EVO Plus 250GB NVMe 1.3 M.2 (2280) 3-Bit V-NAND SSD - MZ-V7S250BW ----- Corsair CX-600 600W V3 80+ Bronze Power Supply ----- Seagate ST2000DM008 2TB BarraCuda 3.5" 7200RPM SATA3 Desktop Hard Drive

[legoyoda]

Hi,  When I  think of freezing it can be loads of things but you said "audio device disconnects"  Does it do the windows "Deo , deo Do.... wait.. di, de Do" noise of a USB device being lost and registered?

 

I find this is usually SW related OR a failing USB port/chipset But you'll have to dig to work out what's going on. Try...

 

- Have Task Manager on Performance Tab open all the time... after a freeze have a look...  has Disk activity on a drive gone to 100% just before the event? (you have NVMe so this is unlikely the cause but for HDDs and SATA if you saturated the disk windows was on it could cause soft lockups that recovered themselves). Might as well check eh?

- Clear your event log at the start oft he day... when you get a freeze up note the time. go in to event log after and select the system logs and the application logs... hunt for warnings or errors around the time of the freeze up (will point you towards a device if it's a device issue).  This is the best bet on tracking what's happening down quickly.

- Are you using USB Hubs.... if you have many devices plugged in to a hub and it draws to much power it can cause them to dissappear/reappear (causing a hang up).  Try plugging devices to direct USB ports if you are.

- Finally, to rule out GPU drivers download the latest versions from Nvidia website and then run DDU (display Driver Uninstaller) to remove every trace and install new drivers...

 

At all points, keep checking that event log for erros and warnings... Random hooks ups can cause other stuff to look broken when its not

[Bat-LB]

Honestly, this sounds like the graphics driver crashing. Check the Event Viewer when this happens, there should be something to be found indicating a service stopping.

[Sarcaustic]

3 minutes ago, Bat-LB said:

Honestly, this sounds like the graphics driver crashing. Check the Event Viewer when this happens, there should be something to be found indicating a service stopping.

I already swapped my grahics card, used the graphics driver uninstaller and installed the appropriate drivers. Didnt work.

[Bat-LB]

Instead of randomly "trying" things, look for indications on your PC. The Event Viewer is your place to be in such situations, these 1-2 second freezes, if not GPU related, most likely are IRQs - Maybe your SSD is broken, maybe your RAM leaks full and the software leaking it crashes, causing the 1-2 second freeze, or IRQs freezing your CPU, causing the OS to take care of the faulty application. Theres a good chance some service in the background is causing the problem. Check the Event Viewer.

[Sarcaustic]

31 minutes ago, legoyoda said:

Hi,  When I  think of freezing it can be loads of things but you said "audio device disconnects"  Does it do the windows "Deo , deo Do.... wait.. di, de Do" noise of a USB device being lost and registered?

 

I find this is usually SW related OR a failing USB port/chipset But you'll have to dig to work out what's going on. Try...

 

- Have Task Manager on Performance Tab open all the time... after a freeze have a look...  has Disk activity on a drive gone to 100% just before the event? (you have NVMe so this is unlikely the cause but for HDDs and SATA if you saturated the disk windows was on it could cause soft lockups that recovered themselves). Might as well check eh?

- Clear your event log at the start oft he day... when you get a freeze up note the time. go in to event log after and select the system logs and the application logs... hunt for warnings or errors around the time of the freeze up (will point you towards a device if it's a device issue).  This is the best bet on tracking what's happening down quickly.

- Are you using USB Hubs.... if you have many devices plugged in to a hub and it draws to much power it can cause them to dissappear/reappear (causing a hang up).  Try plugging devices to direct USB ports if you are.

- Finally, to rule out GPU drivers download the latest versions from Nvidia website and then run DDU (display Driver Uninstaller) to remove every trace and install new drivers...

 

At all points, keep checking that event log for erros and warnings... Random hooks ups can cause other stuff to look broken when its not

Thank you for the help i will try these. I do not use USB Hubs and when my audio device disconnects it does makes the  "Deo , deo Do.... wait.. di, de Do" disconnect, connect sound.

[Sarcaustic]

15 minutes ago, Bat-LB said:

Instead of randomly "trying" things, look for indications on your PC. The Event Viewer is your place to be in such situations, these 1-2 second freezes, if not GPU related, most likely are IRQs - Maybe your SSD is broken, maybe your RAM leaks full and the software leaking it crashes, causing the 1-2 second freeze, or IRQs freezing your CPU, causing the OS to take care of the faulty application. Theres a good chance some service in the background is causing the problem. Check the Event Viewer.

thanks for the suggestion what are IRQs and leaks. I will try these

[Bat-LB]

3 minutes ago, Sarcaustic said:

thanks for the suggestion what are IRQs and leaks. I will try these

IRQs are Interrupt Requests sent by Devices to the CPU to "interrupt" ongoing tasks, asking for immediate attention. It is as if you were working on your project and someone comes to you, needing quick assistance. They will interrupt you, take your attention for a bit and let you evaluate the importance of each task at hand.

rogue or malfunctioning services and programs can cause so many interrupts, that the CPU can't work them off quickly enough anymore. this will queue IRQs and eventually freeze your system - When the program causing those interrupts dies or gets killed, your pc "resumes" working fine.

leaking is, when your system memory is not freed anymore after usage. you have a limited amount of RAM - nowadays something between 8-32 GB - and when a program is started, it allocates a certain amount of that memory to itself. sometimes those programs however , when not needing the RAM anymore, don't "free" it again - and allocate new memory for usage. this can blow up services/programs to a point where they overflow your RAM, which can causes freezes, sutterung and errors. Usually at this point the program just dies, causing a short freeze and the PC "returning to normal". 

However, all those are just guesses. That is why the Event Viewer could at least point us in a direction.

[legoyoda]

3 hours ago, Sarcaustic said:

Thank you for the help i will try these. I do not use USB Hubs and when my audio device disconnects it does makes the  "Deo , deo Do.... wait.. di, de Do" disconnect, connect sound.

ok, So keep looking at that event viewer to try to narrow things down.  what IS your audio device? A USB headset? a DAC? External sound card etc?  If it's anything USB related and teh audio device disconnects EVERY time you get a freeze then it might be Windows resetting that device or (if it's USB) the USB subsystem is a little wonkey.  for that last one, update your chipset drivers (motherboard manufacturers site). it can't hurt and sometimes makes wierd stuff go away. But the key will most likely come from analyzing event viewer

If the Audio device keep resetting every time (lost..wait..found) then it either a cause or symptom connected to the issue.. (check event viewer for errors etc or even massive lists of "information" relevent to the device as the freeze happens.

[Sarcaustic]

9 hours ago, legoyoda said:

ok, So keep looking at that event viewer to try to narrow things down.  what IS your audio device? A USB headset? a DAC? External sound card etc?  If it's anything USB related and teh audio device disconnects EVERY time you get a freeze then it might be Windows resetting that device or (if it's USB) the USB subsystem is a little wonkey.  for that last one, update your chipset drivers (motherboard manufacturers site). it can't hurt and sometimes makes wierd stuff go away. But the key will most likely come from analyzing event viewer

If the Audio device keep resetting every time (lost..wait..found) then it either a cause or symptom connected to the issue.. (check event viewer for errors etc or even massive lists of "information" relevent to the device as the freeze happens.

It doesnt always happen, usually it freezes and nothing disconnects. When my turtle beach headset (connected via head phone jack on my pc case) disconnects if im listening to something it will start playing on my monitor speakers. If i am using my microphone (Audio technica AT2020) and it disconnects audio doesnt go through as when i use OBS the levels are muted after it freezes. Doesnt always happen though. My mic is conneted my Focusrite audio interface which is usb connected to my case. Only my mouse and keyboard is connected to the motherboard.

 

I will try the event viewer. Where should i be looking and at what? 

 

Thank you for the help thus far!!!

[Sarcaustic]

11 hours ago, Bat-LB said:

IRQs are Interrupt Requests sent by Devices to the CPU to "interrupt" ongoing tasks, asking for immediate attention. It is as if you were working on your project and someone comes to you, needing quick assistance. They will interrupt you, take your attention for a bit and let you evaluate the importance of each task at hand.

rogue or malfunctioning services and programs can cause so many interrupts, that the CPU can't work them off quickly enough anymore. this will queue IRQs and eventually freeze your system - When the program causing those interrupts dies or gets killed, your pc "resumes" working fine.

leaking is, when your system memory is not freed anymore after usage. you have a limited amount of RAM - nowadays something between 8-32 GB - and when a program is started, it allocates a certain amount of that memory to itself. sometimes those programs however , when not needing the RAM anymore, don't "free" it again - and allocate new memory for usage. this can blow up services/programs to a point where they overflow your RAM, which can causes freezes, sutterung and errors. Usually at this point the program just dies, causing a short freeze and the PC "returning to normal". 

However, all those are just guesses. That is why the Event Viewer could at least point us in a direction.

Ok thank you for explaining. 

[Sarcaustic]

8 hours ago, legoyoda said:

ok, So keep looking at that event viewer to try to narrow things down.  what IS your audio device? A USB headset? a DAC? External sound card etc?  If it's anything USB related and teh audio device disconnects EVERY time you get a freeze then it might be Windows resetting that device or (if it's USB) the USB subsystem is a little wonkey.  for that last one, update your chipset drivers (motherboard manufacturers site). it can't hurt and sometimes makes wierd stuff go away. But the key will most likely come from analyzing event viewer

If the Audio device keep resetting every time (lost..wait..found) then it either a cause or symptom connected to the issue.. (check event viewer for errors etc or even massive lists of "information" relevent to the device as the freeze happens.

Also should i download all of them or just the 1 labled "chipset" driver. I Also have warranty for all my products. I actually forgot to say that it was freezing out of the box. I am and was stupid and havent took it into the place i got the parts from or ask to get the parts replaced. Better late than never hahaha!!

 

[Sarcaustic]

After my computer froze i recorded the task manager and event viewer.

[legoyoda]

OK, so disk doesnt seem to be an issue, good.  In the Event viewer you actualyl need to expand the tree view on the left out to look like this:

Here you can then see what was going on around the time of the issue... look for lots or errors or warnings or even LOTS of "information" from a single source RIGHT BEFORE the freeze....  Event Viewer can get out of control (verbose) so you need to keep an eyue on time... only events in the few seconds before will really be relevent at a guess...

You said warranty? is it a pre built?

[legoyoda]

Also, yes.  That circled chipset driver....  download and install that...  Doesn't hurt to get the Audio and LAN driver also

 

[Sarcaustic]

3 hours ago, legoyoda said:

OK, so disk doesnt seem to be an issue, good.  In the Event viewer you actualyl need to expand the tree view on the left out to look like this:

Here you can then see what was going on around the time of the issue... look for lots or errors or warnings or even LOTS of "information" from a single source RIGHT BEFORE the freeze....  Event Viewer can get out of control (verbose) so you need to keep an eyue on time... only events in the few seconds before will really be relevent at a guess...

You said warranty? is it a pre built?

ok cool i see now. The individual parts have warranty its not a pre built. Is it a software issue or a hardware issue? 

[legoyoda]

Need to check the logs first (sorry) at the moment it could be SW or HW (if it's HW i'm betting on the Motherboard at this time)

 

[Sarcaustic]

9 hours ago, legoyoda said:

Need to check the logs first (sorry) at the moment it could be SW or HW (if it's HW i'm betting on the Motherboard at this time)

 

ok, yeah i agree motherboard acting suss, anyways im still gathering enough screenshots so we can see a trend. Also i downloaded the chipset etc didnt work

[Sarcaustic]

Ok took awhile but i got 18 entries. Basically when my computer stuttered id screenshot the latest info. "Distributed COM" came up 16/18 times. "Service control manager" came up 6/18 times.Theres some others too that are alot less frequent.

 

Task manager is consistent. My screen never went black. My Headphones and microphone got disconnected 2-3 times. Hope this helps!!!