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mwruss
mwruss
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For some time now, I have been experiencing bizarre screen/PC freezes that I couldn't find any mention of when searching online. The screen turns into a static color (white or blue inside Windows, or black before Windows 10 starts) and the PC freezes entirely - it stops responding to all input, and any sound from video streams or voice apps stop a few seconds later. Nothing other than a hard reset helps.

Initially, this happened sporadically once or twice a week, for no discernible reason, during routine activities that weren't particularly resource intensive and all hardware temperatures were in low-to-normal ranges.

Lately, it's started happening more frequently, in particular around system startup, sometimes before the BIOS starts up, sometimes before Windows starts up, sometimes just after Windows starts up. After several hard resets it would eventually make it past the Windows startup and if it survives for several minutes after, everything would run perfectly fine for the rest of the day.

In the final stage, it would either refuse to boot altogether and on the rare occasion where I make it into Windows, it just freezes and displays a white static screen after a few minutes.

What I tried

  • Looking online, it seemed like people thought PSU could be the culprit. Tried with a different PSU, and the problem got noticeably worse (more frequent, less likely to make it to Windows startup). Tried putting the old PSU back in right away, but that didn't even revert back to pre-PSU change behavior.

  • Tried running without the GPU, using integrated graphics and that works fine, without a glitch. Tried putting the GPU back in a different PCI-e slot, the problems were the same.

  • Went through the Windows Event Viewer looking for weird Warnings and Errors, but Windows thinks everything's fine and reports nothing other than hard resets.

  • Reinstalling Windows did nothing.

System specs:

  • OS Windows 10 Home
  • CPU QuadCore Intel Core i5-4690K, 3700 MHz (37 x 100)
  • Motherboard MSI Z97-G55 SLI (MS-7921)
  • RAM: Corsair Vengeance LP CML16GX3M4A1600C9
  • GPU: R9280X
  • Drive #1 - Samsung SSD 840 EVO 250GB
  • Drive #2 - Samsung SSD 860 EVO 500GB

For some time now, I have been experiencing bizarre screen/PC freezes that I couldn't find any mention of when searching online. The screen turns into a static color (white or blue inside Windows, or black before Windows 10 starts) and the PC freezes entirely - it stops responding to all input, and any sound from video streams or voice apps stop a few seconds later. Nothing other than a hard reset helps.

Initially, this happened sporadically once or twice a week, for no discernible reason, during routine activities that weren't particularly resource intensive and all hardware temperatures were in low-to-normal ranges.

Lately, it's started happening more frequently, in particular around system startup, sometimes before the BIOS starts up, sometimes before Windows starts up, sometimes just after Windows starts up. After several hard resets it would eventually make it past the Windows startup and if it survives for several minutes after, everything would run perfectly fine for the rest of the day.

In the final stage, it would either refuse to boot altogether and on the rare occasion where I make it into Windows, it just freezes and displays a white static screen after a few minutes.

What I tried

  • Looking online, it seemed like people thought PSU could be the culprit. Tried with a different PSU, and the problem got noticeably worse (more frequent, less likely to make it to Windows startup). Tried putting the old PSU back in right away, but that didn't even revert back to pre-PSU change behavior.

  • Tried running without the GPU, using integrated graphics and that works fine, without a glitch. Tried putting the GPU back in a different PCI-e slot, the problems were the same.

  • Went through the Windows Event Viewer looking for weird Warnings and Errors, but Windows thinks everything's fine and reports nothing other than hard resets.

  • Reinstalling Windows did nothing.

For some time now, I have been experiencing bizarre screen/PC freezes that I couldn't find any mention of when searching online. The screen turns into a static color (white or blue inside Windows, or black before Windows 10 starts) and the PC freezes entirely - it stops responding to all input, and any sound from video streams or voice apps stop a few seconds later. Nothing other than a hard reset helps.

Initially, this happened sporadically once or twice a week, for no discernible reason, during routine activities that weren't particularly resource intensive and all hardware temperatures were in low-to-normal ranges.

Lately, it's started happening more frequently, in particular around system startup, sometimes before the BIOS starts up, sometimes before Windows starts up, sometimes just after Windows starts up. After several hard resets it would eventually make it past the Windows startup and if it survives for several minutes after, everything would run perfectly fine for the rest of the day.

In the final stage, it would either refuse to boot altogether and on the rare occasion where I make it into Windows, it just freezes and displays a white static screen after a few minutes.

What I tried

  • Looking online, it seemed like people thought PSU could be the culprit. Tried with a different PSU, and the problem got noticeably worse (more frequent, less likely to make it to Windows startup). Tried putting the old PSU back in right away, but that didn't even revert back to pre-PSU change behavior.

  • Tried running without the GPU, using integrated graphics and that works fine, without a glitch. Tried putting the GPU back in a different PCI-e slot, the problems were the same.

  • Went through the Windows Event Viewer looking for weird Warnings and Errors, but Windows thinks everything's fine and reports nothing other than hard resets.

  • Reinstalling Windows did nothing.

System specs:

  • OS Windows 10 Home
  • CPU QuadCore Intel Core i5-4690K, 3700 MHz (37 x 100)
  • Motherboard MSI Z97-G55 SLI (MS-7921)
  • RAM: Corsair Vengeance LP CML16GX3M4A1600C9
  • GPU: R9280X
  • Drive #1 - Samsung SSD 840 EVO 250GB
  • Drive #2 - Samsung SSD 860 EVO 500GB
Source Link
mwruss
mwruss
  • 1
  • 1

Bizarre startup freezes / Windows 10

For some time now, I have been experiencing bizarre screen/PC freezes that I couldn't find any mention of when searching online. The screen turns into a static color (white or blue inside Windows, or black before Windows 10 starts) and the PC freezes entirely - it stops responding to all input, and any sound from video streams or voice apps stop a few seconds later. Nothing other than a hard reset helps.

Initially, this happened sporadically once or twice a week, for no discernible reason, during routine activities that weren't particularly resource intensive and all hardware temperatures were in low-to-normal ranges.

Lately, it's started happening more frequently, in particular around system startup, sometimes before the BIOS starts up, sometimes before Windows starts up, sometimes just after Windows starts up. After several hard resets it would eventually make it past the Windows startup and if it survives for several minutes after, everything would run perfectly fine for the rest of the day.

In the final stage, it would either refuse to boot altogether and on the rare occasion where I make it into Windows, it just freezes and displays a white static screen after a few minutes.

What I tried

  • Looking online, it seemed like people thought PSU could be the culprit. Tried with a different PSU, and the problem got noticeably worse (more frequent, less likely to make it to Windows startup). Tried putting the old PSU back in right away, but that didn't even revert back to pre-PSU change behavior.

  • Tried running without the GPU, using integrated graphics and that works fine, without a glitch. Tried putting the GPU back in a different PCI-e slot, the problems were the same.

  • Went through the Windows Event Viewer looking for weird Warnings and Errors, but Windows thinks everything's fine and reports nothing other than hard resets.

  • Reinstalling Windows did nothing.