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My PC will frequently just completely lock up while I'm using it. The time of day, what I'm doing, apps that are running, totally random with no consistency. Just this morning I clicked on a picture in Google Photos, locked up. Yesterday I went to launch File Explorer, locked up.

When it happens the monitors continue to display whatever was there at the time of the lock up. No inputs will respond, mouse, keyboard, all dead. The only way to get out of it is to power the machine off.

A similar problem will sometimes occur when I'm not using the machine. In those cases the monitors have typically gone to sleep. One of the PC fans will rev up to full power and just spin until I power off the machine. Again, no response from keyboard or mouse.

I've run memtest86 a couple of times and no errors are reported. I've also downloaded and tried WhoCrashed but there is no crash log. I've looked in Event Viewer but have been unable to find any indication of what is causing the lock up there either.

I don't expect anyone to have a specific answer, but are there other tools/utilities that you could suggest I try to get a handle on what's causing this problem? Happy to provide whatever additional details might help.

Processor   11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-11700 @ 2.50GHz   2.50 GHz
Installed RAM   32.0 GB (31.6 GB usable)
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

Edition Windows 11 Pro
Version 23H2
Installed on    ‎5/‎11/‎2022
OS build    22635.2921
Experience  Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.22684.1000.0

NVMe PC SN730 NVMe WDC 1024 GB
ST1000DM010-2EP102
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  • The way you describe your issue, and especially because you already performed several RAM test, I would say it's a CPU or general overheating issue. I would advice you to stress your CPU to confirm with a lot of operations or use a specific software for this. You can try this : cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html - Do not forget to do a backup of your data before perform any action.
    – hidigoudi
    Commented Jan 9 at 20:36
  • Look also in Reliability History for Stopped Working errors at the time the lockup occurs
    – anon
    Commented Jan 9 at 21:42

1 Answer 1

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Monitor the voltages from your power supply, they should not go lower than 5% below there rating.

Try Prime95 to stress test your CPU

Then Furmark to stress your GPU

Also chkdsk /r c: Repeat for every drive you have.

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  • Tried all of those things except monitoring the voltage as I don't have a tool to do that. Ran prime95 for two hours and furmark for two hours, then chkdsk on both disks. No errors reported. Rebooted my computer and 30 minutes later it was locked up again.
    – Craig W.
    Commented Jan 16 at 19:15
  • @CraigW. Check the manufactures of your motherboard for voltage monitoring software. Otherwise generic software does exist, I used to use speedfan, but its probably discontinued by now. Make sure prime95 and/or furmark are running as your PSU is probably fine for idle loads. Both would be best if you can get them both to launch at once.
    – cybernard
    Commented Jan 16 at 19:44
  • I'll give that a try, although the computer often locks up while it's just sitting idle.
    – Craig W.
    Commented Jan 18 at 1:21

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