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Computer randomly freezes. Even reset button doesn't work.

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Try charging your phone from one of the rear USB connections. I'm pretty sure it's the front USB panel on your case, I've seen this happen many times. If the rear ports (on the board) don't cause a freeze, you've found the issue.
 
How does the power connectors to your HDD/SSD look like?
I mean just 1 single wire coming from your PSU distributed between both your HDD and SSD or 2 separate wires, one each for your HDD and SSD?

I didn't use front usb for the last week and it didn't freeze. Today I used it in the morning and few minutes later it froze. Then it froze about 20 times throughout the day.
Could be a total coincidence but last week I stopped using the usb to charge my phone only because my pc froze a few minutes after I connected my phone in it to charge.

I changed my HDD / SSD connections and haven't seen a freeze after that today. But I know it's too soon to speak right now regarding this issue.

I'd love if someone else could test this too. If you are using 1 modular cable from your PSU, which you're using for multiple HDDs / SSDs. Remove it and add 1 more in. Use only 1 wire per HDD / SSD.

By the way my PSU is Seasonic m12ii-650w.


The Votage+Amps supply going to the SSD, HDD with 1 or 2 cables is the same, that would not have anything to do with Freezing PC. Do you have your PC overclocked also are you having any other things not working correctly?
 
The Votage+Amps supply going to the SSD, HDD with 1 or 2 cables is the same, that would not have anything to do with Freezing PC. Do you have your PC overclocked also are you having any other things not working correctly?

Nothing is overclocked. Everything at stock. Everything else works perfectly when PC isn't freezing.
Today I had 4 freezes WITHOUT using any front usb connectors so we can rule that out but here's some new info:

I left PC on and went to the gym. I have my security cameras take picture and send them over to my PC when they detect any movement in the room. When I came back the PC was frozen and I checked the security camera data and this is what I found:
The filenames are stored as: Year/Month/Date/Hour/Min/Seconds

So, as you can see... the PC was completely fine even after I returned. The last 4 files are corrupt images. The PC froze right at the moment I moved my mouse to unlock my PC.
 
Nothing is overclocked. Everything at stock. Everything else works perfectly when PC isn't freezing.
Today I had 4 freezes WITHOUT using any front usb connectors so we can rule that out but here's some new info:

I left PC on and went to the gym. I have my security cameras take picture and send them over to my PC when they detect any movement in the room. When I came back the PC was frozen and I checked the security camera data and this is what I found:
The filenames are stored as: Year/Month/Date/Hour/Min/Seconds

So, as you can see... the PC was completely fine even after I returned. The last 4 files are corrupt images. The PC froze right at the moment I moved my mouse to unlock my PC.

Try running the The Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/processors/000005567.html
 

Sorry for late reply.

Ok so what I did few days back was, I opened up my pc, removed a couple of front and side case fans, installed the gpu in the 2nd slot on the mobo, cleaned out the dust (wasn't much dusty, I clean once a month).

I didn't have any crash for days after that. But today, while watching some anime on crunchyroll, my pc got laggy like it does before the crash. The audio got choppy, the mouse started moving sluggishly. Task manager wouldn't open, nothing else. Though I had monitoring software running by luck and all temps were normal.
It still didn't crash buy pc was not usable so I had to hard reset - it worked this time.

After that I ran the Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool and it showed no errors, it passed.
 
Think you've got a buggy driver somewhere dude. I would disconnect/remove all unnecessary devices from the PC (including video card), do a fresh install of Windows and see if the problem disappears. Then start adding things back in one at a time and see if and when the problem reappears.

Also, have you checked the SMART drive information on your hard drive and have you tried using a fresh SATA cable to connect it?

In addition, I would run SFC /scannow and Chkdsk /f /r on the system from an elevated command prompt to check for bad data clusters and corrupted system files.
 
Last edited:
Sorry for late reply.

Ok so what I did few days back was, I opened up my pc, removed a couple of front and side case fans, installed the gpu in the 2nd slot on the mobo, cleaned out the dust (wasn't much dusty, I clean once a month).

I didn't have any crash for days after that. But today, while watching some anime on crunchyroll, my pc got laggy like it does before the crash. The audio got choppy, the mouse started moving sluggishly. Task manager wouldn't open, nothing else. Though I had monitoring software running by luck and all temps were normal.
It still didn't crash buy pc was not usable so I had to hard reset - it worked this time.

After that I ran the Intel Processor Diagnostic Tool and it showed no errors, it passed.

That is good. If you have any other problems report back.
 
That is good. If you have any other problems report back.

That doesn't seem very good too me. Still having freezes means we still haven't figured out the problem.

Trents is right, it's time to get to basics on this one. I would go even further as to take everything out of the case, and set up the core components on the motherboard box (if you kept it. If not, I would grab a couple of cheap mouse pads from walmart/dollar store/wherever to set it on). This could be a short just as easily as drivers, and Cooler Master cases a year ago were well known to have issues with the I/O panel. While you're doing that, you can make sure that the PSU cables don't have any physical wear.

At this point, I can't think of a better way to proceed.
 
That doesn't seem very good too me. Still having freezes means we still haven't figured out the problem.

Trents is right, it's time to get to basics on this one. I would go even further as to take everything out of the case, and set up the core components on the motherboard box (if you kept it. If not, I would grab a couple of cheap mouse pads from walmart/dollar store/wherever to set it on). This could be a short just as easily as drivers, and Cooler Master cases a year ago were well known to have issues with the I/O panel. While you're doing that, you can make sure that the PSU cables don't have any physical wear.

At this point, I can't think of a better way to proceed.

^ Plus i would suggest checking the mobo for any visable damage/bent components.
And dont even think of removing the cover of the PSU to check too, Its REALLY dangerous.
 
That doesn't seem very good too me. Still having freezes means we still haven't figured out the problem.

Trents is right, it's time to get to basics on this one. I would go even further as to take everything out of the case, and set up the core components on the motherboard box (if you kept it. If not, I would grab a couple of cheap mouse pads from walmart/dollar store/wherever to set it on). This could be a short just as easily as drivers, and Cooler Master cases a year ago were well known to have issues with the I/O panel. While you're doing that, you can make sure that the PSU cables don't have any physical wear.

At this point, I can't think of a better way to proceed.

How long should he run it out of the case maybe a month or so? if it was a motherboard case short to ground it would show up all the time. If he still has a intermittent freezing problem the CPU would be easiest also most probable part with that cause and effect. So I would RMA the CPU, after Kenlautner makes sure that the Bios is up to date.
 
That doesn't seem very good too me. Still having freezes means we still haven't figured out the problem.
+1

I'd leave all that monitoring up, particularly something which includes looking at ram and page file use as well as other activity. Trents has you pointed in the right direction. :)
 
Think you've got a buggy driver somewhere dude. I would disconnect/remove all unnecessary devices from the PC (including video card), do a fresh install of Windows and see if the problem disappears. Then start adding things back in one at a time and see if and when the problem reappears.

Also, have you checked the SMART drive information on your hard drive and have you tried using a fresh SATA cable to connect it?

In addition, I would run SFC /scannow and Chkdsk /f /r on the system from an elevated command prompt to check for bad data clusters and corrupted system files.

Actually I have done a fresh install, and have also replaced my hard drives. I used to have the freezes even when I was running off my hard drives. When I switched to SSD, I did a fresh install and got new drives for data. Cables are still the same though but I remember back when I was troubleshooting with my hard drives, I swapped the cables and it still froze.

I would remove all my hardware - video card etc. but the thing is, I need to use them for work. And even if I manage somehow without them, this problem really could take months to narrow down. As of right now I haven't seen a freeze in 1-2 weeks - since my last update. But I know the problem isn't gone. Sometimes I would see 1 freeze in 2 months and sometimes 20 freezes in 1 day.

That doesn't seem very good too me. Still having freezes means we still haven't figured out the problem.

Trents is right, it's time to get to basics on this one. I would go even further as to take everything out of the case, and set up the core components on the motherboard box (if you kept it. If not, I would grab a couple of cheap mouse pads from walmart/dollar store/wherever to set it on). This could be a short just as easily as drivers, and Cooler Master cases a year ago were well known to have issues with the I/O panel. While you're doing that, you can make sure that the PSU cables don't have any physical wear.

At this point, I can't think of a better way to proceed.
I'm not sure if it's a short coz if it was, wouldn't it happen all the time and not randomly? I mean even when I have a freeze, I change nothing but just restart the pc and everything works fine until the next freeze.
I don't use that many components so I have lots of extra PSU cables which I replaced earlier when I opened up the PC. True that I haven't seen a freeze since then but the pc did get to the laggy part I mentioned earlier.


^ Plus i would suggest checking the mobo for any visable damage/bent components.
And dont even think of removing the cover of the PSU to check too, Its REALLY dangerous.

I checked the mobo, there doesn't seem to be any visible damage. I look after the components really well so if the pc dropped or anything happened to cause it physical damage, I would know.
Thanks, I won't open up the PSU if you say so.

How long should he run it out of the case maybe a month or so? if it was a motherboard case short to ground it would show up all the time. If he still has a intermittent freezing problem the CPU would be easiest also most probable part with that cause and effect. So I would RMA the CPU, after Kenlautner makes sure that the Bios is up to date.

BIOS is not up to date. There is just 1 more update of the BIOS released on site which when I try to install gives me an error that it's not supported by the windows or something. Though I'm sure I'm downloading the right BIOS. The website even lists the 2nd most recent BIOS that I actually have. It's this: https://msi.com/Motherboard/support/Z87-GD65-GAMING.html#down-bios


+1

I'd leave all that monitoring up, particularly something which includes looking at ram and page file use as well as other activity. Trents has you pointed in the right direction. :)

I did run memtest and it passed in all. Though if it could be Ram I can buy new RAM to test things out after the next freeze as DDR3 is pretty cheap right now. What do you think, should I go for it?
 
Kenlautner I had a intermittent Freeze that would take 1-4 weeks to show it self and the processor passed all stress test so I RMA the Skylake Processor, now it's been 2 months without a problem.
 
So far so good for me too. I didn't RMA the cpu yet though. I haven't had a freeze like old times yet. The only big thing I can think of doing is changing the gpu slot on the mobo.

But this happened even with my old mobo so don't know what's up with that.
 
Ok I'm back with an update.
My freezes have... evolved into something completely different.

Now THIS is interesting so I'll try to give as much details as I can.

Instead of PC freezes, now, ONLY my keyboard freezes. Yes, just keyboard. And it freezes randomly like my previous freezes.
I know it's just the keyboard because I can still move the mouse fine, click, open files, close browsers etc. completely fine.

If I'm playing a game, say CSGO, and Im holding down the W button, lets say freeze happens. I will no longer be able to use my keyboard, but, game thinks I'm still holding down that W key.
At this point, I can hear my teammates, they can hear me, I can move around the mouse, I can shoot people, it registers. So, it's safe to say that PC has not crashed.

At this moment everything will work flawlessly except the keyboard. NOW, if I remove the keyboard USB from the back of my mobo, at this exact moment my entire PC will freeze. No way out of the freeze other than hard reset.
I can put the keyboard usb in and that will make no difference.

I've tried changing the USB ports for keyboard and it didn't do anything.

Now this is something I've seen for the first time. What are your thoughts?
 
I'd recommend a complete disassembly, thorough cleaning and reassembly in stages to ensure that the problem is fixed.

What I mean by stages, is after you thoroughly clean the parts, start with just the board, CPU, HSF and 1 stick of RAM hooked up to the PSU. Set the board on a mouse pad or box and just try to get into UEFI. Once in, load optimized defaults, shut down and move the stick of RAM to the next slot. Try to boot back into UEFI. Repeat the process until you've tried all of your RAM slots, and then go back through with the next stick of RAM. Once you've done that with all of your RAM, return it to your original configuration, plug in your boot drive, and boot into Windows. First, run a stress test (I like Intel's extreme tuning utility, but there're many) for a couple of hours, and so long as it passes, try to replicate the keyboard locking up. If all is good, plug any storage drives you have in, one at a time, testing in between. If all checks out so far, install your GPU (if you have one, I don't remember seeing that information). Repeat the tests. At this point, plug anything else you have normally connected in, and if all is still good reinstall into the case.

I realize that's a long list of stuff to do, and probably doesn't look like much fun either. It isn't. It is the best way to diagnose problems like this though, because every part can be the problem. It could be the CPU wearing out (least likely, but still possible), a failing RAM stick or slot, bad PSU, failing motherboard, failing or corrupt drive(s), OS corruption, failing GPU, case grounding issue or just simply too much dust build up, among other possible issues. With this process, you can rule everything out systematically, eventually either finding the issue or no longer having one.
 
I would just swap your Ram one stick at a time and see if that solves your problem. I'm thinking you are having some kind of corruption in memory.
 
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