PC crash / lock up with no BSOD

shiver

shiver

shiver

Associate
Joined
13 Jun 2007
Posts
1,381
Location
London
Over the passed few months I have experienced seemingly random crashes / lock ups with my PC when playing various games. The screen will freeze, and if there was sound playing at that point it'll repeat constantly until I manually power off the PC.

Unfortunately, Event Viewer or Reliability Monitor do not show any faults or errors apart from the "power off without proper shutdown" from when I have had to force power it off.

Here's what I have tried so far:

- Put CPU back to stock speeds
- Ran memtest. This produced an error when running all 4 DIMMs, I removed one pair and ran again and it passed. I was hoping this was the key to the issue but I have had crashes since running with just the 2 DIMMs that passed (other pair are being RMA'd)
- Performed clean, fresh Windows 10 install. Original install was an upgrade from 7 > 8 > 10. In general, the PC runs a lot better but I am still getting crashes during games.

I had very infrequent crashes like this before, but they seem to have increased since upgraded the GPU in December.

Does anyone have any thoughts or experience of these log-less crashes?

Could it be my CPU can't handle it anymore?

PS:
Games where it has crashed - PUBG, BF5, Middle Earth Shadow of War

Specs:
Intel 4770K with Corsair H100i (now at stock clocks)
4x8GB Corsair 1866MHz RAM (currently running 2x8GB)
Gigabyte Z87X OC Motherboard
EVGA RTX 2080 Black GPU (recently upgraded from EVGA 980Ti Hybrid)
Corsair RM650i PSU
Samsung 840 Pro 250GB boot drive, other SSDs for games.
 
Only new and far from an expert, but I had the exact same issue years ago with games crashing and repeating sound lock up and that definitely was ram for me, but I only had 2 sticks and just replaced them both which fixed all problems for me for years till I upgraded. Even if the other ram didn't have errors in Memtest, looks pretty likely it might be faulty too. My faulty ram didn't show as faulty for a few tests I ran then it finally did on an overnight test.

I ran games like yours on an old i5 760 till recently so your CPU should be fine still.
 
PC777 said:
Only new and far from an expert, but I had the exact same issue years ago with games crashing and repeating sound lock up and that definitely was ram for me, but I only had 2 sticks and just replaced them both which fixed all problems for me for years till I upgraded. Even if the other ram didn't have errors in Memtest, looks pretty likely it might be faulty too. My faulty ram didn't show as faulty for a few tests I ran then it finally did on an overnight test.

I ran games like yours on an old i5 760 till recently so your CPU should be fine still.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply. I did another memtest overnight and it produced no errors. :/

Any other hardware specific issues that can cause a crash with no error logs?
 
I would get hard locks, frozen screen and have to hard reset my comp, they were totally random, i could bench the pc all day and nothing would happen but play a game for 15 mins or 1 hour and boom. I'd recently changed the fans on my card so it was significantly heavier, i assume it was sagging and losing contact at points but was never totally sure. I changed back to the original shroud and fans and its been fine since. Worth a shot anyway :)
 
shiver said:
Thanks for the reply. I did another memtest overnight and it produced no errors. :/

Any other hardware specific issues that can cause a crash with no error logs?
Click to expand...


Even though it didn't show errors I'm still hunching the ram being an issue, I think all Memtest can do is to confirm that ram has bad sectors so is great for saying ram is definitely bad, but I don't think it's as good as stating that ram is 100% fine just because it passes a long test. Think it might even say in the readme that ram can still be bad passing multiple tests.

I think logically as you've had crashes that indicate ram issues, plus one set of confirmed bad ram already, I still think it's the other set even with long passes in Memtest.

I spent about 2 weeks trying to diagnose my bad ram with probably 4 or 5 multiple hour long memtests passing before the overnight fail, so I know what you're going through, likely tearing your hair out trying to diagnose all kinds of potential issues.

The bad ram you had, was it all part of the exact same kit? Have the got the correct voltage and timings set? Do you have XMP enabled? Possibly could be that, but your crashes match a faulty ram issue so closely, I still think it's that.

I know it sucks to keep doing it but maybe try memtest a few nights in a row?

If you RMA'd the bad set and are getting a new set sent to you, try that without the other sticks, if games all work fine then, then you'll know for sure.

As an aside, I did have some similar issues once with a failing GTX680 that eventually died, but I'd always get the display driver issues reported in Event viewer in the crash report. When it was ram issues I didn't get anything, just the power off without shutdown from having to unplug the locked up system.

Best of luck as I know this sucks to deal with, those crashes are incredibly annoying.
 
Thanks for the input @Grandmaster Fap! @PC777 . I will be checking the GPU seating and for sagging this evening.

I will do extensive memtesting overnight/whilst at work too.

The longer I can make this kit last, the better!
 
Grandmaster Fap! said:
I would get hard locks, frozen screen and have to hard reset my comp, they were totally random, i could bench the pc all day and nothing would happen but play a game for 15 mins or 1 hour and boom. I'd recently changed the fans on my card so it was significantly heavier, i assume it was sagging and losing contact at points but was never totally sure. I changed back to the original shroud and fans and its been fine since. Worth a shot anyway :)
Click to expand...

Without wanting to speak to soon, I reseated my GPU, and tightened the backplate pci slot thumbscrews a little bit extra so it has less "wiggle" and I haven't had a crash since then! Fingers crossed but thank you!

Thanks for all the suggestions!
 
I had a similar issue many moons ago, and it turned out to be an out of date firmware on an OCZ SSD. Once I ran the drive updater, the lock-ups stopped. Said drive died recently, after 7 years of service...
 
I'm having similar random crashes so will try some of the suggestions here, and will report back any useful findings.

Some of the crashes are a complete lockup with no BSOD, but yesterday there was a BSOD. Every time I checked event viewer after a crash there is the same "EnhancedStorage-EhStorTcgDrv" error one second before the kernel power error. Could that mean it's a hard drive / SSD issue?
 
Last edited:
Phil87 said:
I'm having similar random crashes so will try some of the suggestions here, and will report back any useful findings.

Some of the crashes are a complete lockup with no BSOD, but yesterday there was a BSOD. Every time I checked event viewer after a crash there is the same "EnhancedStorage-EhStorTcgDrv" error one second before the kernel power error. Could that mean it's a hard drive / SSD issue?
Click to expand...

I used to get the exact same errors in Event viewer too, but like i say above, turns out it was a sagging GPU of all things. Not saying thats your problem but have a look, prop the card up with something.
 
Grandmaster Fap! said:
I used to get the exact same errors in Event viewer too, but like i say above, turns out it was a sagging GPU of all things. Not saying thats your problem but have a look, prop the card up with something.
Click to expand...
I think my 1070 is sagging slightly so will have a go at reseating it and see if I can find something to prop it up from underneath. Did you get the EnhancedStorage-EhStorTcgDrv error just before each crash consistently like I'm getting?

I just had another lock up, completely frozen and noticed the hard drive activity light was on constantly while it was frozen. I've been looking at upgrading my ageing storage drive, so have already ordered a new 6TB Seagate and will see if that helps. I've also never updated my SSD firmware so there are a few things I can try here, but one thing at a time :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom