PC locks up in games

[Nick980]

Hi all, my pc has recently taken to locking up when playing games, sometimes it takes a few minutes other times it can be fine for an hour and then just freezes. The game seems to freeze first and then the rest of the system follows shortly afterwards.

 

I have had some issues getting my RAM to run stable at its XMP/DOCP settings, mostly it causes the system to fail to post when you enable the profile but turning it off and on again fixes that problem. I've tried the RAM at various speeds including just leaving it on auto and this doesn't fix the locking up issue.

 

So far I've uplugged everything I can, and even dropped down to 1 stick of ram and nothing seems to help. Crystal disk info says my nvme drives are fine (they run in raid 0 but have been tried separately). The ram survived a memtest run with no issues, the system is water cooled (CPU, GPU and RAM) so I don't think temps are the problem.

 

So now I'm down to thinking it's either the CPU, GPU (god I hope not) or the motherboard and I'm leaning towards the motherboard as it's the newest component (bought in April to replace another board that died). The other components I've had for a year+ with no issues. Also have an issue with the Bluetooth/wireless on the motherboard stopping working, only way to fix that is to unplug the pc from the wall and let it completely discharge and then plug it back in, apparently it's a common issue with this board.

 

Anyway, has anyone got any suggestions before I return the motherboard for a replacement? Obviously don't want to have to waste time returning it if it's not the actual problem.

 

System specs 3800xt, 4x8GB DDR4 3600mhz RAM, Asus B550-E motherboard, Sapphire Vega 64, 2x Samsung pm981 1tb NVME SSD raid 0, Corsair rm1000x psu, sound blaster x7