Intermittent PC freezing.

Toxiic · September 2, 2017

For the last month or so my computer has randomly been freezing and becoming unresponsive and requires me to forcefully shut it down with the power button. It happens 1 or 2 times a day at most. When it freezes, what ever was on my monitors at the time remains there and a loud popping/crackling noise goes through my USB headset (the sound last for less than a second). I initially had my PC overclocked to 4.7GHz (4.0 base) and figured that would be the problem but after leaving it a stock for a while it hasn't stopped it. Also, it happens both during playing games and just browsing the web.

My PC Specs are as follows:

i7 6700K @ 4.00GHz / Asus Z170-A / GTX 970 (base clock) / Corsair Vengence DDR4 16GB @ 2100Mhz / H100i AIO / 500 Samsung 850 evo / 1TB WB Blue + 2TB Seagate Barracuda / Corsair CX500 /

My personal opinion is that the PSU might be on the blink as I have had it for around 1.5 - 2 years. However I'm not the best when it comes to troubleshooting so I'd like some more opinions. If you need anymore info then ask away.

Extra: Event Viewer shows no logs relating to anything other than "Critical: The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly". Temps remain below 65C on my cpu and below 60C on my GPU under load.

Cheers.

LehransMedallion · September 2, 2017

Have you tried:

Re-installing graphics drivers
Restoring to a restore point before the freezing occurred
Checking for any issues with Anti-Virus/Firewall software (Possibly a recent program update)

Additionally, try to think of any software you might have installed recently that runs in the background that could be causing a conflict.

If these suggestions are unable to fix the issue, then try to replace the PSU. Even if it is not the PSU, an upgrade over a CX PSU wouldn't hurt.

Rule of thumb is to always try software first. Software is free, hardware is not.

Edited September 2, 2017 by TBA
Extra space. Whoops.

Toxiic · September 2, 2017

5 hours ago, TBA said:

Have you tried:

Re-installing graphics drivers

Restoring to a restore point before the freezing occurred

Checking for any issues with Anti-Virus/Firewall software (Possibly a recent program update)

Additionally, try to think of any software you might have installed recently that runs in the background that could be causing a conflict.

If these suggestions are unable to fix the issue, then try to replace the PSU. Even if it is not the PSU, an upgrade over a CX PSU wouldn't hurt.

Rule of thumb is to always try software first. Software is free, hardware is not.

Thanks for the shout. I doubt a restore point will fix anything as this has happened after I full reinstalled windows however I'll give the others a go.