My computer randomly freezes and I've tried anything that I could

Question

SECOND UPDATE

Freezes reappeared

UPDATE

This problem seems to be solved. I changed the PCI slot of my GPU and freezes seems to have disappeared. If you are in the same situation as me, try this workaround, it can help !

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Firstly, I would like to specify that English isn't my native language so I will try to be as precise as I can and I would like to apologize for the little mistakes this post will certainly contain.

Description of the freezes

As the boring title says, my computer freezes often since around September 2022.

(as I am a computer sciences student, it's really painful for me to write a post about a freezing computer ahah, but I'm really desperate )

Sometimes it will freeze thrice an hour, sometimes it will be okay for 3 weeks. The computer never come back by itself, rarely it reboots on its own but on 99% of the cases I need to hard reboot it.

The things that I do on my computer when the freezes occur are often different. Sometimes it will freeze during a gaming session, sometimes during a youtube video with nothing else started on the computer.

Everything freeze, screen, audio, mouse, keyboard etc. The only way to get my computer running again is to hard reboot it.

Often, I can't even reboot it instantly. The computer just don't start at all. The LED on the computer case is ON but nothing show on the screen and none of my RGB devices are lit. In this case, the only way for me to turn ON the computer is to wait few minutes (in certains cases 10minutes) and re try to reboot it.

Computer configuration

Here's my computer configuration, with the age of theses components because I'm not sure this can't be the reason of theses crashes

• GPU : Nvidia GTX 1050Ti (7 years old)
• CPU : Intel i5 10400F (2 years old)
• Mobo : Asus B460-PLUS (2 years old)
• RAM : 2x8gb DDR4 2666MHz Crucial Balistix (2 years old)
• Drives :
  • HDD : 1To (7 years old)
  • SSD : 500gb (2 years old)
• PSU : 600W (7 years old)
• OS : Windows 11 (installed on the SSD)

What I've tried

Here's the fun part where I will list everything I've tried to make it stop. I'm sorry, it won't fun to read but I want to be sure that I didn't forget anything important.

1. The first time the crashes occur, I was running my computer with a dual boot : Windows 11 and Manjaro (linux distrib). At this time windows 11 was out for around 6-8months. Someone told me that there were a bug with Win11 and dual-booting. So I've tried to uninstall the dual-boot. The problem seemed to have disappeared during maybe a month (you'll understand that this situation is a sort of leitmotiv throughout my "bug fixing journey" ) But it came back.

2. I've updated all my drivers, my BIOS, my OS.

3. I've removed all the dust in my computer case

4. I've reinstall windows 11.

5. I've downgraded my computer to Win10, telling me that my old components weren't able to handle it. Magic the problems disappeared for 2 or 3 months (They came back)

6. I've reinstall windows 10.

7. I've switch my RAMs from slots 1 & 3 to slots 2 & 4.

8. I've cleaned the dust of my computer (again) and tried to clean more precisely my PSU

9. And then, after around 7 months of fighting I've learned about the "Event viewer" and this appeared as the key of my solution. Every time a hard reboot was made on my computer, an error was written in the viewer. So I was able to search for errors few minutes before each "reboot errors". And I managed to find a strange Oculus application error that was written in the event viewer few seconds before each reboot. I search the internet for this error, and some people were having the same issues as me. So I uninstall the app, and "Tada!", no more problems. Until last week.

10. I've unplugged my CD-Rom drive

11. I've been carefully not touching the computer case with my legs while using the computer to prevent for shocks that can create theses freeze.

12. I've moved the computer in order to make it not touch the metal legs of my desk to prevent from static electricity issues.

Nothing has resolved my problems.

I'm pretty sure my problem comes from a hardware because of all the reinstallation I've made. But here's the question : How can I know which components I need to change in order to stop having the issue... I would love to not having to buy everything because of just one component that I can change.

Thank you a lot if you have managed to read this, and I would really love to read your answers.

Answer 1

Disclaimer: I'm not trying to promote any of these application that I provide. It's just a software that I use for diagnosing my personal's or friend's Laptop/PCs. Also, sorry for my bad English too.

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Before you really have to take apart your PC Components after concluding that the freeze comes from hardware, I suggest you to do a checking and testing each components by using some software to check if the components run as it should. I made some hypothesis that might be the cause of your randomly freezing computer.

Temperature

Have you tried monitoring your component temperature? CPU, GPU, motherboard etc. It might be a temperature related issue that causes your PC to freeze, even though usually when a CPU or any other components temperatures hit the max value, the PC usually completely shut off by itself, not by freezing it, but who knows.

• Monitoring : You can use a software like OpenHardwareMonitor to monitor the temperature.

• Testing : You can also monitor the temperature while stress testing the CPU. Cinebench 2024 is a good software for benchmarking/stress testing CPU. The latest version add an option to test the GPU too.

• You probably need to check if the CPU Thermal Paste if it's the cause of the issue, though a 2 year old Thermal Paste should not be dry.

Component Usage

A full usage of a component might causes some freezing too. Either CPU, Disk, or RAM. A full RAM usually it happens when it reached 100%. It will stopped freezing once its hit lower below 100%. A full CPU Usage can cause some lag if it hits 100%. A full Disk Usage can cause the same problem too, though it usually just a lag, not a freeze.

• Monitoring : You can monitor it just by using Task Manager. Check if either your CPU, RAM (Memory), or Disk is on 100% usage. You can also sort it by Disk/Memory/CPU to see which programs consume the most.

Degrading Storage Health

Though SSD/HDD Health doesn't always tell that your storage health is degrading, but it not a big deal to just check how's the storage health looks like.

• Monitoring : You can use CrystalDiskInfo or HDSentinel to check or monitor your storage.

• Testing : Also you can try to use CrystalDiskMark to test the Read and Write speed, and see if the freeze occur.

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If none of this checking and testing manage to re-occure the freezes and you still sure that its a hardware related issue, the easiest way to do before replacing and buying a new components, is to look for a friend who has a PC, and try to test/replace each components. Hopefully it won't hurt your friend's PCs... So I don't really recommend this steps..

And please don't hesitate to correct me If I'm wrong.

Thank you

Edit:

I'm not so sure that a grounding issue can cause a random freezes you had on number 11 and 12 that can cause a random freeze, so I don't have any explanation for these one.