PC freezing

[Luke87]

I had a new desktop PC delivered in March. Maybe a month or so ago I was having a minor issue where the PC would sometimes freeze a few minutes after being turned on (the mouse would stop moving and the keyboard doesn't do anything and whatever was on screen at the time just remains there, so have to restart the PC) but usually once restarted it worked fine. Over the last day it has started freezing very regularly.

Any advice on the best thing to do would be appreciated.

 

[SpyderTracks]

I had a new desktop PC delivered in March. Maybe a month or so ago I was having a minor issue where the PC would sometimes freeze a few minutes after being turned on (the mouse would stop moving and the keyboard doesn't do anything and whatever was on screen at the time just remains there, so have to restart the PC) but usually once restarted it worked fine. Over the last day it has started freezing very regularly.

Any advice on the best thing to do would be appreciated.

Can you post the full specs from the order page?

 

[Luke87]

Can you post the full specs from the order page?

They are:

Case	PCS GENESIS G1B CASE + SD CARD READER
Processor (CPU)	AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Eight Core CPU (3.7GHz-4.35GHz/20MB CACHE/AM4)
Motherboard	ASUS® PRIME B450-PLUS (DDR4, USB 3.1, 6Gb/s) - RGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)	16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2400MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card	1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE 710 - DVI, HDMI, VGA
1st Storage Drive	512GB PCS 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (520MB/R, 450MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive	NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply	CORSAIR 450W VS SERIES™ VS-450 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable	1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling	PCS FrostFlow 100 V2 Series High Performance CPU Cooler (AMD)
Thermal Paste	STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card	ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking	WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD
USB/Thunderbolt Options	2 PORT (2 x TYPE A) USB 3.0 PCI-E CARD + STANDARD USB PORTS
Operating System	Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [KUK-00001]

Thanks.

 

[ubuysa]

The first thing we'd want to check are the temperatures. I'd suggest downloading HWMonitor (free) and posting a screenshot of the output from that when idle - and if you can, leave the PC off for an hour or so, then boot it and take a screenshot of the temps immediately after.

Leave the HWMonitor window open and start to stress the PC, keep a close eye on the various temperatures and if you see them climbing rapidly take another screenshot. If they don;t climb too rapidly run the most demanding game or other software you can and take a screenshot of the temps then.

 

[Luke87]

So the output when just turned on after being off for a while was:

Then I ran some demanding software for about 15 mins, the temps got up to those shown below and then seemed to stabilise at about that level:

In case it is relevant, it doesn't seem that running more demanding software has any relationship to when it freezes, it nearly always freezes relatively soon after being turned on if it is going to (say within a few mins), and once it has been running for a while it seems ok. The only other time it sometimes happens is if I have left it on but unused for a while and then come back to it, after waking up it sometimes then freezes shortly after as well.

Thanks.

 

[paul1224]

As it is so quick to try I would suggest you turn off 'fast start up' as per here (option 1).

It may not be the culprit but it is an easy 'solution' to try. My last 2 PC's if I had 'fast start up' enabled gave me glitches and freezes so might be worth a shot (especially if a restart solves the issue as my understanding is that 'restart' doesn't load the OS the same way that a 'shutdown' with 'fast start up' does).

 

[Luke87]

Thanks Paul, I have this switched off already as it was one of the things I saw mentioned to try, unfortunately it has not solved the issue.

 

[ubuysa]

There's nothing startling in those temps.

The wisest thing to check next is your RAM. Download Memetest from https://www.memtest86.com/ and use the extracted tool to make a bootable USB stick. Boot that stick and let Memtest run overnight - the free version will only do 4 iterations of the various tests but that should find most issues.

Let us know whether that throws any errors.

 

[Luke87]

I have run the test and all seemed ok:

 

[ubuysa]

That's good.

Having eliminated the common hardware causes it would be best to confirm it's not software. One relatively painless way to check that would be to start it in safe mode. That eliminates most drivers (which are the most likely software cause) and see whether it freezes then.

It might also be worth downloading a Linux distro (most of these can run straight off the USB) and see whether it freezes running that.