Strange Freezing

[VenatoS]

So the issue I am having is quite strange. It began happening about a month ago and has been happening since.

After playing a game for an hour so, after closing it down the PC freezes - but I am able to move my mouse and operate in programs that are already open e.g Discord, but I am unable to open anything new, can't even ALT CTRL DEL to get to the task manager, or right click on taskbar to open it.
Also shutting down the PC by doing it through normal procedure -> Windows -> Shut down - Causes the PC to freeze and not shut down unless I force it with the physical button.

I have no idea what is causing this, I haven't added any new hardware or anything at all & this seems to happen nearly daily now forcing me to restart the PC by holding the power button.

- On another note, it would seem that the front 3 fans that the PC came with all spin at different speeds & the middle fan often makes a LOUD grinding noise and sometimes it goes away sometimes i have to open up the PC and move it about - not sure whats causing this.

Any help will be greatly appreciate.

Here are the specs:

Spoiler: PC SPECS

Case	CORSAIR CRYSTAL SERIES 570X RGB GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)	Intel® Core™ i9 Eight Core Processor i9-9900K (3.6GHz) 16MB Cache
Motherboard	ASUS® ROG STRIX Z390-F GAMING: ATX, LGA1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs - RGB Ready
Memory (RAM)	32GB Corsair VENGEANCE RGB PRO DDR4 3200MHz (4 x 8GB)
Graphics Card	GeForce® RTX 2080 SUPER™ GAMING OC 8G
1st Storage Drive	NOT REQUIRED
1st M.2 SSD Drive	1TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO PLUS M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3500MB/R, 3300MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive	NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply	CORSAIR 1000W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable	1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling	Corsair H100i RGB PLATINUM Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste	STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card	ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking	WIRELESS INTEL® Wi-Fi 6 AX200 2,400Mbps/5GHz, 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD + BT 5.0
USB/Thunderbolt Options	MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System	Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit - inc. Single Licence [MUP-00003]
Operating System Language	United Kingdom - English Language
Windows Recovery Media	Windows 10 Multi-Language Recovery Image - Unlimited Downloads from Online Account
Office Software	FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365 (Operating System Required)
Anti-Virus	NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser	Google Chrome™
Warranty	3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

 

[kam67]

Does it happen in more than one game?

Have you tried uninstalling/reinstalling the NVIDIA driver? When you do so click on the advanced tab and check the box marked clean install.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Does it happen in more than one game?

Have you tried uninstalling/reinstalling the NVIDIA driver? When you do so click on the advanced tab and check the box marked clean install.

To uninstall nvidia driver, use DDU, a normal uninstall won't actually uninstall it fully:

Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) V18.0.2.6 Released. - Wagnardsoft Forum

 

[Deleted member 17413]

Have you tried restarting explorer through task manager when it happens?
Ive had something in the past that seems similar from what youve said, restarting explorer was only a temp fix though. It was somehow related to the GPU and i suspect it was some sort of conflict with Win 10 and the GPU drivers (nividia). I think the GPU was glitching somehow and that then caused explorer to crash.

If i remember correctly, a complete reinstall of windows and using GPU drivers from before the issue started resolved/stopped it happening.
I did however upgrade machines a few months later so couldnt say if that was a proper fix or just lucky.

 

[VenatoS]

Does it happen in more than one game?

Have you tried uninstalling/reinstalling the NVIDIA driver? When you do so click on the advanced tab and check the box marked clean install.

At the moment, it seems to be mostly happening after playing "Valorant".

Have you tried restarting explorer through task manager when it happens?
Ive had something in the past that seems similar from what youve said, restarting explorer was only a temp fix though. It was somehow related to the GPU and i suspect it was some sort of conflict with Win 10 and the GPU drivers (nividia). I think the GPU was glitching somehow and that then caused explorer to crash.

If i remember correctly, a complete reinstall of windows and using GPU drivers from before the issue started resolved/stopped it happening.
I did however upgrade machines a few months later so couldnt say if that was a proper fix or just lucky.

As i have mentioned, once it freezes, I am unable to open anything else - especially ALT CTRL DEL

 

[SpyderTracks]

Valorant - More Problems With Anti-cheat, This Time it Freezes PCs

Valorant's anti-cheat system Vanguard blocks important programs on some users' computers. Sometimes it slows down or completely freezes the PC. In rare cases, the effects of using the app can be even more serious.

www.gamepressure.com

Riot Games respond to Valorant freezing and FPS drops after Patch 1.01 - Dexerto

Valorant players are running into a plethora of FPS issues after Patch 1.01, and Riot have confirmed that they’re working on a fix.

www.dexerto.com

There's a whole reddit thread going on it with no fix I have seen as yet, but does seem to be related to anti cheat system

 

[VenatoS]

Valorant - More Problems With Anti-cheat, This Time it Freezes PCs

Valorant's anti-cheat system Vanguard blocks important programs on some users' computers. Sometimes it slows down or completely freezes the PC. In rare cases, the effects of using the app can be even more serious.

www.gamepressure.com

Riot Games respond to Valorant freezing and FPS drops after Patch 1.01 - Dexerto

Valorant players are running into a plethora of FPS issues after Patch 1.01, and Riot have confirmed that they’re working on a fix.

www.dexerto.com

There's a whole reddit thread going on it with no fix I have seen as yet, but does seem to be related to anti cheat system

Thank God its nothing major then, just bad software!

 

[VenatoS]

Turned out that I had 31 viruses. Including Trojan and a few miners.
Safe to say I'll be going back to Installing Kaspersky instead of relaying on Windows.

 

[ubuysa]

Turned out that I had 31 viruses. Including Trojan and a few miners.
Safe to say I'll be going back to Installing Kaspersky instead of relaying on Windows.

What tool did you use to find those?

 

[VenatoS]

What tool did you use to find those?

MalwareBytes. Safe to say I don't trust Windows protecting itself!

 

[ubuysa]

MalwareBytes. Safe to say I don't trust Windows protecting itself!

Would you mind posting the Malwarebytes report? That sounds like a massive infection on the face of it but all antimalware scanners try to find everything they can that just might be classed as malware, because the number of detections is how they measure their effectiveness. It's not impossible that all those 'detections' are actually harmless. Most scanners will highlight a tracking cookie as malware....

 

[VenatoS]

Would you mind posting the Malwarebytes report? That sounds like a massive infection on the face of it but all antimalware scanners try to find everything they can that just might be classed as malware, because the number of detections is how they measure their effectiveness. It's not impossible that all those 'detections' are actually harmless. Most scanners will highlight a tracking cookie as malware....

Now that i have all of these items quarantined, the PC works back as it used to.
No more Freezing, the PC shutsdown properly, normal low CPU Usage. Everything is back to normal.

I'm attaching the screenshots of the report.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Now that i have all of these items quarantined, the PC works back as it used to.
No more Freezing, the PC shutsdown properly, normal low CPU Usage. Everything is back to normal.

I'm attaching the screenshots of the report.

Have you checked that your Windows defender is actually running? To allow that many infections through something must be severely compromised. Is your windows up to date?

It's a bitcoin miner, they come included in various applications such as some torrent managers off the top of my head, plus quite a few browser addons, have you got any driver updaters, or any unusual free packages installed?

 

[ubuysa]

Whilst there are some common false positives there (utorrent for example) that is a mess. The backdoor entries and the trojan entries are most likely the result of installing some suspect software at some time. The registry keys are possibly the result of the trojan running.

I would not be happy just quarantining those entries, some of the are Windows system files and having them quarantined may affect the running of your system.

I would clean install Windows to be sure you have a stable system and don't install software unless you trust it 100%.

 

[VenatoS]

Okay I was wrong to blame windows. I think something turned off my Windows Auto-Updates. Also my Windows Security is completely blank.
A lot of stuff is still screwed up.


EDIT: Can't seem to get the PC to update. :|

 

[VenatoS]

Any idea what i can do to force an update? The normal way is not working.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Any idea what i can do to force an update? The normal way is not working.

You won’t be able to, the OS is compromised, you’ll have to reinstall.

 

[VenatoS]

You won’t be able to, the OS is compromised, you’ll have to reinstall.

Pretty sure there is something that can be done

 

[SpyderTracks]

Pretty sure there is something that can be done

Yeah, you could spend days figuring out what's blocking the updates and still get nowhere, or you can spend an hour reinstalling.

 

[VenatoS]

Yeah, you could spend days figuring out what's blocking the updates and still get nowhere, or you can spend an hour reinstalling.

yeah and losing like a ton of data. Not a good idea.