Computer randomly freezing up

[kistomi01]

Hello,

 

Yesterday I installed a set of flexible PSU cables inside my machine (these ones), I have a Corsair RMx 850 that is compatible with those cables.

The machine turns on great, Cinebench same as when I built it half a year ago. It runs Windows 11, no updates after yesterday's cable replacement.

 

Today however the machine completely froze up twice, after some hours of being used. When I reboot it worked fine (that is, until the next freeze). I did use an antistatic mat (connected to my switched off power surge protector) and I had the wrist wrap on me as well.

Do you think the freezing could be due to my CPU or my motherboard being damaged?

 

Note that it happens during regular desktop use, not rendering or gaming or any performance intensive stuff.

Also note that when starting up the machine for the first time after the cable switching I got a "new CPU detected" message at BIOS.

 

Note that I had to remove some thermal paste from the CPU's top from the PCB, where I highlighted on the picture. It was seated in the mobo's socket all along for safety. There was quite some paste overflown on those sides and because I was using my screwdriver for this I made sure I only touch the paste itself so there's still some paste left on those sides (but the bulk of it was removed). Do you think I damaged my CPU doing so?

 

 

System is

AMD Ryzen 9 5900X

Asus ROG Strix B550-f

GTX 1650 super

Corsair RMx 850

GSkill NEO Trident Z

 

[Frizz]

1 hour ago, kistomi01 said:

Hello,

 

Yesterday I installed a set of flexible PSU cables inside my machine (these ones), I have a Corsair RMx 850 that is compatible with those cables.

The machine turns on great, Cinebench same as when I built it half a year ago. It runs Windows 11, no updates after yesterday's cable replacement.

 

Today however the machine completely froze up twice, after some hours of being used. When I reboot it worked fine (that is, until the next freeze). I did use an antistatic mat (connected to my switched off power surge protector) and I had the wrist wrap on me as well.

Do you think the freezing could be due to my CPU or my motherboard being damaged?

 

Note that it happens during regular desktop use, not rendering or gaming or any performance intensive stuff.

Also note that when starting up the machine for the first time after the cable switching I got a "new CPU detected" message at BIOS.

 

Note that I had to remove some thermal paste from the CPU's top from the PCB, where I highlighted on the picture. It was seated in the mobo's socket all along for safety. There was quite some paste overflown on those sides and because I was using my screwdriver for this I made sure I only touch the paste itself so there's still some paste left on those sides (but the bulk of it was removed). Do you think I damaged my CPU doing so?

 

 

System is

AMD Ryzen 9 5900X

Asus ROG Strix B550-f

GTX 1650 super

Corsair RMx 850

GSkill NEO Trident Z

 

Get a magnifying glass, is there even a tiny amount of thermal paste on the underside of the CPU or the socket it sits in on the MB?

Did the old cables do this at all? And would not hurt to really double check those cables even at the PSU side

 

What does event viewer-> windows logs-> system show around the time of the freeing? Look for error and critical logs. "System shut down unexpectedly" or the like won't help us here, that's probably when you reset the system

[kistomi01]

50 minutes ago, Frizz said:

Get a magnifying glass, is there even a tiny amount of thermal paste on the underside of the CPU or the socket it sits in on the MB?

Thanks for the headsup.

 

There's def no paste on the pins or socket. I installed the CPU once, when I built it last year and I haven't taken it out ever since. There's a tiny amount of paste on the side of the die, the place I highlighted on the picture. I didn't want to remove that with my screwdriver for fear of damaging the CPU (I just rolled the overflown paste back to the top of the CPU with it).

 

51 minutes ago, Frizz said:

What does event viewer-> windows logs-> system show around the time of the freeing? Look for error and critical logs. "System shut down unexpectedly" or the like won't help us here, that's probably when you reset the system

as for the logs, I have 2 errors - Asus update check is crying that it wasn't shut down properly but there is a more interesting critical log:

 

Quote

The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.

From Kernel-Power. Note that when the machine froze up I held the power button to shut down - could that be it? It was indeed accompanied by errors you mentions (shut down unexpectedly).

 

 

51 minutes ago, Frizz said:

Did the old cables do this at all? And would not hurt to really double check those cables even at the PSU side

This has happened before too with Win 10 or 11 with the old cables. However today it happened twice within hours and before that it was like once every few months. It's kinda sus that this is more frequent after yesterday's tinkering.

 

 

[Frizz]

16 minutes ago, kistomi01 said:

Thanks for the headsup.

 

There's def no paste on the pins or socket. I installed the CPU once, when I built it last year and I haven't taken it out ever since. There's a tiny amount of paste on the side of the die, the place I highlighted on the picture. I didn't want to remove that with my screwdriver for fear of damaging the CPU (I just rolled the overflown paste back to the top of the CPU with it).

 

as for the logs, I have 2 errors - Asus update check is crying that it wasn't shut down properly but there is a more interesting critical log:

 

From Kernel-Power. Note that when the machine froze up I held the power button to shut down - could that be it? It was indeed accompanied by errors you mentions (shut down unexpectedly).

 

 

This has happened before too with Win 10 or 11 with the old cables. However today it happened twice within hours and before that it was like once every few months. It's kinda sus that this is more frequent after yesterday's tinkering.

 

 

The reboot error should be just from when you tried to reboot it, the next log about unclean shutdown just means when the system booted back up it knows the shutdown was not clean so tried to check your drive for errors.

 

Also FYI you don't need a screwdriver to lift up the CPU, you can use your finger to lift it up after the cooler is off and the hinge undone. It comes out easily.

 

Try super clearing your CMOS, remove your power cable and remove the battery, then hold down power button 1 minute.

Then update your MB firmware to make sure that is all stable.

 

After that try memtest86 to see if your RAM is ok

[kistomi01]

1 hour ago, Frizz said:

The reboot error should be just from when you tried to reboot it, the next log about unclean shutdown just means when the system booted back up it knows the shutdown was not clean so tried to check your drive for errors.

 

Also FYI you don't need a screwdriver to lift up the CPU, you can use your finger to lift it up after the cooler is off and the hinge undone. It comes out easily.

 

Try super clearing your CMOS, remove your power cable and remove the battery, then hold down power button 1 minute.

Then update your MB firmware to make sure that is all stable.

 

After that try memtest86 to see if your RAM is ok

I've updated my BIOS today (from 1206 to 2603).

Also for the record, I'm not messing with any fancy undervolting - overclocking - memory timing gizmos. Everything is set to default.

 

I didn't lift the cpu, it's been installed to the socket once last year July and never got removed. The thermal paste was excessive from my last build and it flew over the top of the cpu right to the die (the green part on the top of the cpu - idk how it's called ) and got cluttered up. I used the screwdriver to gently fold it back to the top of the cpu.

 

In the meantime I dismounted my heatsink and wiped clean the cpu's top green part I've been talking about with some dry q-tips - I shined some light on it and it's c-l-e-a-n. Not even a hint of broken up reflections that would indicate a scratch.

 

I go ahead with the memtest now.