System locking hard, though unsure why

Colonel_Klinck

Colonel_Klinck

Colonel_Klinck

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So my PC is being very odd. 99% of the problems happen when playing Insurgency Sandstorm. I play most evening for a couple of hours. It started by the occasional system lockup. Picture just freezes, system has completely locked. Won't even restart off reset button on case, have to press and hold power button to shut it down. At first it would restart and I could game again. I could go several days before it happened again.

Then it started locking up after the restart when playing IS after a couple of minutes. It was playing Half Life Alyx and Doom Eternal with no issues. Then it started acting oddly in Half Life Alyx, not locking up but the game becoming unresponsive, couldn't quit Stream VR even in Task Manager. Even locked up a couple of times a minute or so after restart, as apps loading. Doom was still fine though. 3D Mark will run on loop, no issues. BF4 fine.

So uninstalled GC drivers and installed latest. Checked MB driver up to date. Windows up to date. No change. Decided to move the Steam folder from the 1T 970 NVME (not C drive) to an SSD, reinstalled all the Steam games. PC then behaves perfectly for 6 days. No lockups in Insurgency. Thought it was either an issues with the 970 even though it appears in perfect health or Steam was corrupted and causing a problem. Then tonight playing Insurgency it locked hard. Restart and it locks again 3 mins into Insurgency. Restart, fire up Doom and it plays perfectly for 40 mins. I've done a System File Checker in Command Prompt and it says it can find no issues. I'm at a loss. Is it hardware? I removed and re-seated graphics card, made no difference. No OC on CPU, just XMP, no OC on GC and it still does it. There seems to be no pattern other than Insurgency is the trigger. Avast says no virus, malware etc. Can't get it to show any issues with any other software or workloads I've tried. Verified Insurgency Sandstrom files.

10900K
Aorus Master 490
32 GB G-Skill F4 3600C16 @XMP
256GB Samsung 960 Windows 10 Pro 19042.1083
1TB Samsung 970 EVO
2 x Kingston CT480 SSD
ASUS TUF OC 3080 water cooled
Corsair RM850
 
Make sure Sandstorm isn't being interfered with by any antivirus

Experiment with the in-game settings. Things like Fullscreen/Windowed and Gsync/Freesync could be the cause

The obvious one would be temps but if you never get issues elsewhere then probably not. If you haven't actually checked temps of everything then still definitely do that asap
 
I'd consider turning off XMP to rule that out.

Are all the temps on the 3080 okay?

Anything in event viewer?

Did you use new SATA cables for the SSDs?

From what you described it sounds like files are getting corrupted.
 
Thanks guys. Temps all over system are fine. 3080 never gets above 55c core even after 60 mins of gaming and 64c memory junction. CPU again is fine and never gets above 60c.

I only installed Avast after the problems started to see if I'd picked up a virus, it said I hadn't. I've uninstalled it again.

Its been fine for 3 days again, very odd how it comes and goes.

Event viewer just shows a critical error, system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first..... I'll grab a screen shot next time it does it.

I'll play with Sandstrom settings.

I did also notice that when it started also playing up in Alyx and I couldn't get Stream VR to quit even in Task manager, I also couldn't access the drive it was on. I'd open that drive but it wouldn't populated the window with the contents. It would just give the green progress bar in address bar but never really moved. That was what made me think it was the 1TB 970 but when the system restarted it was back to allowing drive access.

Man PCs are amazing when they work, when they start doing stuff like this though they can drive you nuts!
 
Colonel_Klinck said:
Thanks guys. Temps all over system are fine. 3080 never gets above 55c core even after 60 mins of gaming and 64c memory junction. CPU again is fine and never gets above 60c.

I only installed Avast after the problems started to see if I'd picked up a virus, it said I hadn't. I've uninstalled it again.

Its been fine for 3 days again, very odd how it comes and goes.

Event viewer just shows a critical error, system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first..... I'll grab a screen shot next time it does it.

I'll play with Sandstrom settings.

I did also notice that when it started also playing up in Alyx and I couldn't get Stream VR to quit even in Task manager, I also couldn't access the drive it was on. I'd open that drive but it wouldn't populated the window with the contents. It would just give the green progress bar in address bar but never really moved. That was what made me think it was the 1TB 970 but when the system restarted it was back to allowing drive access.

Man PCs are amazing when they work, when they start doing stuff like this though they can drive you nuts!
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To be honest at this point I'd just do a fresh install of Windows. The whole thing will take a few hours which seems nothing compared to the amount of time and effort you're putting into trying to fix this.

When did you put on the current installation? If it's several years old then I'd wager starting fresh will fix the issue - and if not it should show you it's the SSD or whatever acting up.
 
TheRandomGuy7 said:
To be honest at this point I'd just do a fresh install of Windows. The whole thing will take a few hours which seems nothing compared to the amount of time and effort you're putting into trying to fix this.

When did you put on the current installation? If it's several years old then I'd wager starting fresh will fix the issue - and if not it should show you it's the SSD or whatever acting up.
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Yeah that was the next thing on my list tbh. I've already saved everything I need. Windows isn't that old, 12 month tops but its so easy to install these days that I might as well just bite the bullet and install a nice fresh version.
 
Check everything is seated property, cables all in etc.

Particularly RAM, probably not that but cuts one possibility out.

It is wierd from what you described almost like your SSD crashed or wasn't working, you say you moved the files over was windows still using any of the suspect drive?
 
BUDFORCE said:
Check everything is seated property, cables all in etc.

Particularly RAM, probably not that but cuts one possibility out.

It is wierd from what you described almost like your SSD crashed or wasn't working, you say you moved the files over was windows still using any of the suspect drive?
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No Windows is on a separate NVME drive, the Steam files have never been on that drive. Like you say it is odd. I've not known a PC issue where it always crashes this hard, a total lock that needs the power button pressed for 5 secs to get it to shut down. Its almost like the motherboard has crashed. Also that is so intermittent. It hasn't crashed for 5 days now. WTF lol
 
Colonel_Klinck said:
No Windows is on a separate NVME drive, the Steam files have never been on that drive. Like you say it is odd. I've not known a PC issue where it always crashes this hard, a total lock that needs the power button pressed for 5 secs to get it to shut down. Its almost like the motherboard has crashed. Also that is so intermittent. It hasn't crashed for 5 days now. WTF lol
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Did you check Windows event viewer ?
 
It's always hard nailing down an intermittent issue especially when it can go for 5 days without issues.

I'd say to swap the GPU over for your FE for a while but since it's watercooled then that's not really practical.
 
Joxeon said:
It's always hard nailing down an intermittent issue especially when it can go for 5 days without issues.

I'd say to swap the GPU over for your FE for a while but since it's watercooled then that's not really practical.
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I actually ended up selling the FE. This of course started happening just after I posted it :rolleyes:
 
I have similar issue with an older GPU atm, plays some games fine for hours yet others it artifacts and crashes within 10 minutes. Does the same in multiple systems. GPU temps are within spec so I'm guessing it's a VRAM issue. Tried re-pasting and padding, was ok for a few days but now back to old behavior.
 
Alan McFall said:
I have similar issue with an older GPU atm, plays some games fine for hours yet others it artifacts and crashes within 10 minutes. Does the same in multiple systems. GPU temps are within spec so I'm guessing it's a VRAM issue. Tried re-pasting and padding, was ok for a few days but now back to old behavior.
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If I was getting artefacts I'd be more worried its the GPU but haven't had any. Just hard lockups.
 
Do you have a spare PSU you can try? My experience with hard locks etc it's always the PSU.
 
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