Random Non-Load related Computer Lockups

[magibeg]

I'm having a pretty strange lockup issue and i'm wondering if anyone can give me some insight.

At random times, sometimes once a day, sometimes once a week, sometimes 4 times in a day, the computer will freeze. No blue screen or memory dump occurs. There is nothing written in the event log (just the critical kernal power loss after I am forced to shut down the system). If i'm listening to audio it'll make a bzzzzzz sound, although at last freeze it continued to play sound in slow motion while the rest of the computer was locked up. The crashes are seemingly not load related as stress tests don't seem to induce a freeze. I don't have access to a voltage tester but when in the BIOS the voltages are essentially dead on spec according to the motherboard. Memtest did not give me any RAM errors and prime95 doesn't give me any round checking errors. It doesn't matter if i'm overclocked or running all stock settings. Drivers have been updated to no change (the issue has been going on for several months now and several driver revisions for the video card for example).

Any ideas for this very intermittent problem would be welcomed!

 

[Caring1]

Get rid of the Asus Motherboard and buy a better brand.

 

[Voluman]

Dying hard drive? Something broken in the motherboard? Anyway , more info on system, old, new, parts?

 

[Toothless]

Drop clocks and up voltage if you can on the chip.

 

[kastriot]

There can be many things so this is game of elimination but you need spare parts, 1st use spare PSU and see what happens then gpu, it's very boring and lengthty procedure.

 

[magibeg]

Dying hard drive? Something broken in the motherboard? Anyway , more info on system, old, new, parts?

Hard drive seems to be fine according to Samsung Magician. Maybe something on the motherboard but it's hard to test. It's the system in my specs, all parts are about a year old.

Drop clocks and up voltage if you can on the chip.

Already removed all overclocks and such. Used to run just fine at 5Ghz with no issues, voltage looks fine in the motherboard and I can't induce instability with prime95 or any sort of load.

There can be many things so this is game of elimination but you need spare parts, 1st use spare PSU and see what happens then gpu, it's very boring and lengthty procedure.

Yea unfortunately I don't have any spare parts but I'll ask around my friends group to see if i can borrow.



The problem is that it is such a sporadic issue. I haven't had a crash since i posted, it tends to happen in little bursts of issues. So i'll end up crashing a dozen times in a week then it goes away for a few weeks before I have an issue again.

 

[eidairaman1]

Hard drive seems to be fine according to Samsung Magician. Maybe something on the motherboard but it's hard to test. It's the system in my specs, all parts are about a year old.



Already removed all overclocks and such. Used to run just fine at 5Ghz with no issues, voltage looks fine in the motherboard and I can't induce instability with prime95 or any sort of load.


Yea unfortunately I don't have any spare parts but I'll ask around my friends group to see if i can borrow.



The problem is that it is such a sporadic issue. I haven't had a crash since i posted, it tends to happen in little bursts of issues. So i'll end up crashing a dozen times in a week then it goes away for a few weeks before I have an issue again.

Ram has caused random lockups along with win updates

 

[Deleted member 67555]

Windows 10 update kb4482887 was causing my PC to randomly lock up but usually when using a browser...
Also kb4482887 was an update to another patch that caused lockups... Which was also an update for an update that caused lockups...
If you're on 1809 that could be your problem.. That is 1809

 

[magibeg]

Ram has caused random lockups along with win updates

Could be, can pass memtest without issues though.

Windows 10 update kb4482887 was causing my PC to randomly lock up but usually when using a browser...
Also kb4482887 was an update to another patch that caused lockups... Which was also an update for an update that caused lockups...
If you're on 1809 that could be your problem.. That is 1809

Yea that was good thinking, a fresh idea.


So i reformatted and wiped everything clean. Now I have a super interesting issue. Upon trying to install the geforce experience the first 2 times it caused a crash. The first time i wasn't really paying attention (was doing other things while things were installing). The second time my screen filled with artifacts then restarted. I still don't get a BSOD, just a critical kernal power entry in the event log with no information. Of course it installed properly the 3rd time so i wasn't able to snag a picture.

So I'm leaning towards GPU or PSU still at the moment. I was really hoping i found something that was really reproducible.

 

[Aquinus]

Can you reproduce the issue at stock? Even if it doesn’t appear to be a load issue, it could be an issue with light load if lower power states are unstable. This wouldn’t necessarily manifest under full load.

 

[Folterknecht]

Could be, can pass memtest without issues though.

Did you run Memtest outside of windows from an USB stick overnight?

 

[magibeg]

Can you reproduce the issue at stock? Even if it doesn’t appear to be a load issue, it could be an issue with light load if lower power states are unstable. This wouldn’t necessarily manifest under full load.

Yea everything is stock right now. Can't say I can really reproduce the issue. It's sporadic. Also reflected in the gaps between my posts because I can't get it to crash intentionally. It could be something to do with power states.

Did you run Memtest outside of windows from an USB stick overnight?

When I ran memtest is was from a bootable USB. Wanted to eliminate windows as a possible culprit.

 

[eidairaman1]

Could be, can pass memtest without issues though.



Yea that was good thinking, a fresh idea.


So i reformatted and wiped everything clean. Now I have a super interesting issue. Upon trying to install the geforce experience the first 2 times it caused a crash. The first time i wasn't really paying attention (was doing other things while things were installing). The second time my screen filled with artifacts then restarted. I still don't get a BSOD, just a critical kernal power entry in the event log with no information. Of course it installed properly the 3rd time so i wasn't able to snag a picture.

So I'm leaning towards GPU or PSU still at the moment. I was really hoping i found something that was really reproducible.

Memtest is not fool proof.

 

[Flaky]

It doesn't matter if i'm overclocked or running all stock settings.

Did that "all stock" include disabling XMP and letting memory run at low clocks (2133/2400/2666, depending on spd)?
XMP is overclocking, and does not guarantee stability.

 

[magibeg]

Did that "all stock" include disabling XMP and letting memory run at low clocks (2133/2400/2666, depending on spd)?
XMP is overclocking, and does not guarantee stability.

Yea I ran it with and without XMP profiles. Granted I only ran it without XMP profiles for a a couple hours before discounting it. I'm currently running the computer with XMP enabled though.

 

[Solaris17]

Have you tried running OCCT or 3Dmark on that GPU?

 

[magibeg]

Have you tried running OCCT or 3Dmark on that GPU?

I ran furmark for a while and it was solidly stable, 65C max temps and no artifacts induced. Unfortunately the crashing doesn't seem to be load related at all.

 

[Solaris17]

I ran furmark for a while and it was solidly stable, 65C max temps and no artifacts induced. Unfortunately the crashing doesn't seem to be load related at all.

yikes thats pretty bizarre. That would put strain on both the PSU and GPU. You mentioned it almost appears out of nowhere, and the sound loops. Generally when iv ran into this its

CPU
Mobo
Data corruption.

of course data was in the ancient days before bus locking, when touching the PSB raised the freq of the ide and pci bus. I do wonder though. It it isnt something using alot of data in the background. Have you just tried swapping to a different sata cable?

 

[er557]

I had bsod's due to cpu undervolting, in non load related scenarios, that means you can try to INCREASE voltage to the vcore, and any other critical system components like ram, not by much though, in order to increase stability, as the board may be mishandling the steady power supply to the components.

 

[magibeg]

yikes thats pretty bizarre. That would put strain on both the PSU and GPU. You mentioned it almost appears out of nowhere, and the sound loops. Generally when iv ran into this its

CPU
Mobo
Data corruption.

of course data was in the ancient days before bus locking, when touching the PSB raised the freq of the ide and pci bus. I do wonder though. It it isnt something using alot of data in the background. Have you just tried swapping to a different sata cable?

Can't even swap a sata cable, it's an M.2 drive haha.

Normally I don't have issues troubleshooting, but it's so irratic and hard to reproduce.

I had bsod's due to cpu undervolting, in non load related scenarios, that means you can try to INCREASE voltage to the vcore, and any other critical system components like ram, not by much though, in order to increase stability, as the board may be mishandling the steady power supply to the components.

Thing is if i go for really strong overclocks it doesn't really increase or decrease the issue. I was running really stable at 5ghz without incident. It seems to occur at roughly the same frequency as when i'm stock.

Something interesting to note about it is that when it does happen it'll happen several times in a day, then stop for a week. So it's sporadic but it clusters.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

yikes thats pretty bizarre. That would put strain on both the PSU and GPU. You mentioned it almost appears out of nowhere, and the sound loops. Generally when iv ran into this its

CPU
Mobo
Data corruption.

of course data was in the ancient days before bus locking, when touching the PSB raised the freq of the ide and pci bus. I do wonder though. It it isnt something using alot of data in the background. Have you just tried swapping to a different sata cable?

I was going to suggest the sata cable

But now ill suggest uninstalling anything asus AII suite related ,all of it, it has several system monitoring things running in the background and i have had various similar issues across the YEAR's whenever i retested it and i have a fair few times, not a defo but my 2 cents.

 

[eidairaman1]

Could be nvme too, sounds like software is trying to access memory address space whether ram, nvme or cpu cache and crashes, could be ethernet too.

Till ram is swapped you are chasing your tail.

 

[magibeg]

I was going to suggest the sata cable

But now ill suggest uninstalling anything asus AII suite related ,all of it, it has several system monitoring things running in the background and i have had various similar issues across the YEAR's whenever i retested it and i have a fair few times, not a defo but my 2 cents.

None of the Asus stuff is installed right now. Did a full format and fresh boot, so clean... until it froze and lost kernal power.

Could be nvme too, sounds like software is trying to access memory address space whether ram, nvme or cpu cache and crashes, could be ethernet too.

Till ram is swapped you are chasing your tail.

I would have thought that memtest would have discovered if ram was the problem, though i have no idea how i could test some odd memory space caching issue.

So it sounds like i'll have to figure out a way of swapping parts over time and seeing if i get the problem.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

None of the Asus stuff is installed right now. Did a full format and fresh boot, so clean... until it froze and lost kernal power.



I would have thought that memtest would have discovered if ram was the problem, though i have no idea how i could test some odd memory space caching issue.

So it sounds like i'll have to figure out a way of swapping parts over time and seeing if i get the problem.

At this point i would personally remove and reseat everything while cleaning all interface parts with a pencil eraser where possible ie only pciex and memory and isopropyl alcohol clean the connectors AFTER a very thorough dust ie remove any fur and re-Tim the south and north bridge personally.

 

[Batou1986]

Are you using new prime95 with AVX or old prime95 ? old prime isn't very good at breaking modern CPU's. p95v296b7.win64.zip <latest prime95 with AVX
Are you using the Samsung NVME driver ? I assume you are since Magician says everything is OK.
I would use something to generate a sensor log so you can see what the temps voltages and fan speeds where before the crash, it may be something as stupid as gpu fans getting stuck in idle off mode or a weird quirk with CPU power states that results in a crash.

Additionally are you using any other devices with the system not listed in specs such as WIFI/BT adapters, sound cards, USB hubs, webcams that sort of thing?