Computer Freezes & GPU Drivers crash randomly.

[JACOBSMILE]

Hello!

 

I've had this computer for about 2 years now, and this has been an on-going problem for a while. I never have really been bothered TOO much by this, it simply seemed to happen, I wait, and it passes. But recently the problem has been getting unbearable to the point where it is causing harm to things that I am working on.

 

Anyways, the problem is that every once in a while, I can't quite tell if it is random or not. It seems random, however, it doesn't usually happen when I am doing simple tasks, or gaming. My computer freezes randomly for about 40-70 seconds for no apparent reason. Every window I have open starts either Not Responding when it begins, or it eventually does go to that point after a while. For example, I open a piece of software, it freezes, the video I have playing on my other monitor is still playing, but interacting with it too heavily will cause it to freeze, or it will eventually freeze. Windows Explorer itself freezes, while I can still move the mouse, hovering icons on the desktop does not highlight them, the taskbar shows the generic loading-circle of death, and nothing really works. Eventually it catches back up, usually trying to do everything that transpired in that time all at once. 

 

Some common times I've seen this happen is when I open certain software. For example, sometimes opening the League of Legends client freezes on a blank window with just the Orange Launch button visible, without being able to interact with it. Other times it happens when opening Open Broadcast Software (OBS). I haven't really experienced this happening with these two as consistently as they used too, but it did happen. 

 

Now, basically, every once in a while, it just freezes, and it denies any input. It may also be worth nothing that my nVidia GPU driver every once in a while pops up in the notification sidebar saying that it stopped working and successfully recovered. Very rarely, and this has happened just about 5 times, starting in the last month to 2 months, my screen randomly will turn completely black on both monitors, and  I continue hearing sound coming from the PC as normal, but eventually I hear the familiar "hardware detected/added" sound in windows, and it throws me back to the login screen. Logging in will give me a scrambled desktop where my main monitor is the only one visible, and certain Win10 animations are not playing, and my icons are shifted off-screen. Doing a standard Windows 10 reboot does NOT fix this problem. So, I have to hold shift on shutdown (Or just power off completely) to restart the GPU driver cleanly. Then it fixes it and everything goes back to normal.

 

Again, I don't really know if these two problems are related, or not. I don't know where to begin on troubleshooting either, as it just seems to happen randomly. If it is worth noting, the freezing seems more likely to happen when running a virus scan and opening google maps, but there are sometimes I'm not doing anything and it freezes 3 times in 5 minutes. Other times it is once per hour or so. 

 

In the span it took me to type this thread, which was about 20 minutes, it hasn't had any, so I can't really begin to diagnose this problem.

 

SPECS: 

 

GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 770 Superclocked 2GB 

CPU: AMD FX-8350 8-Core AM3+

MOBO: MSI 970A-G46 

SSD: Intel 520 Series Solid State Drive 240GB (Boot Drive, contains crucial software, & League of Legends for fast load-times)

HDD: WD RED 2TB (Mass-storage Drive, for bigger games)

RAM: 2x8GB Corsair Vengence

PSU: EVGA Supernova PSU 1000w (Overkill, yes I know. I bought the wrong one when building.)

 

Again, I welcome any troubleshooting ideas and/or direct fixes. 

Also, if this thread seems like the description is a bit all over the place, I apologize, I am writing this quite late. 

 

 

[Marauder]

This sounds exactly like a problem I had with a computer my sister had. Turned out that the HDD needed replaced. It was a WD Green drive and was stopping at random to save power. Things stored in ram like video and things would still play and I could still move the mouse, but the various windows and programs would freeze if you tried to use them. After a while the symptoms would go away after the HDD Spun back up to full speed. I THINK YOU MAY NEED A NEW HDD.

[JACOBSMILE]

1 hour ago, Marauder said:

This sounds exactly like a problem I had with a computer my sister had. Turned out that the HDD needed replaced. It was a WD Green drive and was stopping at random to save power. Things stored in ram like video and things would still play and I could still move the mouse, but the various windows and programs would freeze if you tried to use them. After a while the symptoms would go away after the HDD Spun back up to full speed. I THINK YOU MAY NEED A NEW HDD.

Windows is running off of the Solid State though. If the HDD is not spinning up to speed, does that cause an issue still? 

[yhmjack1]

Did you run memtest to test your RAM?

DId you try to run HD Tune into your C drive?  See if your PC freeze during scanning

[Marauder]

20 hours ago, JACOBSMILE said:

Windows is running off of the Solid State though. If the HDD is not spinning up to speed, does that cause an issue still? 

It can. If the sectors on the SSD are damaged than windows may encounter problems. The issue with an SSD is that you cannot defragment. I would get a new SSD or HDD and give a fresh install a try.