Beeping and stuttering/unresponsive windows

[Farm-Boy_7130]

So at random, absolutely no correlation from anything else I was doing, My windows will stop, start beeping at every attempt to control the os (clicks, etc.), and become unresponsive until it either stops, or I restart my PC with the power button. It's pretty weird and I'm not sure what's causing it. It's been happening since November 2021 with several attempts to stop it, and three installations of windows. If I can't figure out what it is, I'll have no choice but to switch to Linux which I don't want to do yet. Now to clear some things up, I do have a generalized idea of what is causing this. Explorer.exe is the GUI for Windows and this bug is by no means new at all, however I cannot find any fix to it that has worked for me. I believe this to be the culprit to the problem, but I've installed windows several times previously so I also can't see that being it. Sound drivers are another potential issue, but I'm not convinced of that either since I've also tried re-installing those too. Does anybody know what may be causing this problem?

To help with troubleshooting, here are my pc specs:

CPU: Intel Core I9 9900KF (It is overclocked, 4.9GHz all core, I manually setup an infinite boost setting)

AIO: BeQuiet! Pure Loop 240mm x 120mm

GPU: GeForce RTX 3060

RAM: Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 4x8GB (32 GB, 3200 MHz)

Motherboard: Asus Prime Z390-A

Storage: 1TB Western Digital Black NVMe M.2(Boot Drive), 1TB Wester Digital Blue Sata SSD, 4TB Seagate Barracuda 4500 RPM HDD

[emosun]

6 minutes ago, Farm-Boy_7130 said:

RAM: Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 4x8GB (32 GB, 3200 MHz)

run it with a single stick of ram , try each stick alone by itself in the machine and see if it stabilizes

[emosun]

7 minutes ago, Farm-Boy_7130 said:

CPU: Intel Core I9 9900KF (It is overclocked, 4.9GHz all core, I manually setup an infinite boost setting)

also you don;t overclock a computer while trying to diagnose problems so disable the overclock and don't bring it back until the issue is solved

[emosun]

your board also has had 21 bios updates in the past 4 years so you should update that as well.

[Farm-Boy_7130]

5 minutes ago, emosun said:

run it with a single stick of ram

I have tried this, Nothing changes.

 

4 minutes ago, emosun said:

also you don;t overclock a computer while trying to diagnose problems so disable the overclock and don't bring it back until the issue is solved

It's been overclocked the entire time I've had it.

 

2 minutes ago, emosun said:

your board also has had 21 bios updates in the past 4 years so you should update that as well.

Done my bios updates. I do not appreciate your aggression coming into this, If you cannot be kind about this and not condescend me in this way, Please get off the forum. "You don't overclock a computer while trying to diagnose a problem" Wow, I had no idea. I didn't overclock it when the problem became a thing. Just drop the attitude then give me solutions. I've already tried everything you've proposed.

[emosun]

39 minutes ago, Farm-Boy_7130 said:

I do not appreciate your aggression coming into this, If you cannot be kind about this and not condescend me in this way, Please get off the forum. "You don't overclock a computer while trying to diagnose a problem" Wow, I had no idea. I didn't overclock it when the problem became a thing. Just drop the attitude then give me solutions. I've already tried everything you've proposed.

I'm not entirely sure how you are reading these responses or in what tone , but these are just diagnostic steps/ideas that were not listed in the OP. If there are any other diagnostics that were already done please list them so others know to not suggest them.

Also , if theres any sort of requirements/adjustments anyone needs to make regarding how their suggestions are read in terms of the tone that you read it in that would also be helpful as I'm not 100% sure how I would have typed any of those steps differently.

[emosun]

47 minutes ago, Farm-Boy_7130 said:

It's been overclocked the entire time I've had it.

47 minutes ago, Farm-Boy_7130 said:

I didn't overclock it when the problem became a thing.

As far as your actual issue , is the machine being overclocked currently or not?

[Farm-Boy_7130]

48 minutes ago, emosun said:

is the machine being overclocked currently or not?

Yes, Running the overclock of 4.9 GHz, Has been it's entire lifetime.

I would like to find a solution to this issue, I do not believe it is a hardware issue, but is potentially.

[emosun]

12 minutes ago, Farm-Boy_7130 said:

Yes, Running the overclock of 4.9 GHz, Has been it's entire lifetime.

I would like to find a solution to this issue, I do not believe it is a hardware issue, but is potentially.

Ok. Hardware issues can/will cause software freezes. If the operating system is reaching an unrecoverable state because it is stuck waiting on an unresponsive bit of hardware then you'll get a partial freeze with the mouse still being alive but the os stuck in an unrecoverable state because the code doesn't have a way out of unresponsive hardware.

If theres no way out of the unresponsive code then I'd imagine it's either waiting on a drive , or some external bit of hardware like a usb device or something that doesn't allow the OS to progress without a successful handshake (you see this a lot with usb drives). Or......

....the os through it's own code is just creating enough errors to work itself into a dead end. Typically a good way to avoid OS errors is reinstalling the os (which you've done) but also removing extra hardware , and removing any avenues the software has to become unstable.

So again , for diagnostic purposes , remove any extra ram , remove any extra hardware , and remove any overclocks so the build can be VERY simplified. The goal is to simplify the build UNTIL it stops crashing , then slowly add hardware/setting back until the unstable element is discovered.

[Farm-Boy_7130]

10 minutes ago, emosun said:

So again , for diagnostic purposes , remove any extra ram , remove any extra hardware , and remove any overclocks so the build can be VERY simplified. The goal is to simplify the build UNTIL it stops crashing , then slowly add hardware/setting back until the unstable element is discovered.

This would take months, The problem only occurs about once every or twice every two weeks, I don't really have time for this, and seeing as I do believe this is a hardware problem (which does suck) I will start by removing certain things, I've noticed an increase in this issue since about a year ago in June 2021 after receiving a new headset. I am led to believe this may be a contributing factor. I can try to exchange my headset for a separate one, if the issue persists, It will rule this out then I can start other diagnostics. If it's not this, I believe RAM could be an issue, since this was also replaced shortly after the headset. Now I highly doubt RAM is the issue at hand, because I had done an RMA through Corsair once before, if this IS indeed the problem, I will have no choice but to sell my whole setup and give up this whole "hobby" which I am using for more than just the occasional gaming. Let's try easy things first, then progress.