PC freezes, can't use mouse/keyboard, can't reset, have to hard restart

These freezes have only been happening during the last week or so. Now becoming more frequent it seems. Please read what I wrote below...


I've been running this system for 1 year. It's OC'd but modestly and has been stable the whole time. (45x using XMP profile for my RAM), lower vcore to 1.240v

RAM is even newer because I had to RMA the original.

I'm running an older BIOS because each new BIOS that comes out seems to have issues for the Asus Maximus HERO VIII (running BIOS versions 2001) because I haven't had any issues with it or my OC or anything else up to this point.

I've looked at event viewer and checked the warnings/errors prior to each critical error or...the point at which my system locks up.


error - crash dump initialization failed (I have page file enabled min - 1024mb, max -16384mb)

warning - DNS client warning

error - The Connected Devices Platform Service service terminated with the following error: unspecified

warning - DNS client warning again

error - The application-specific permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID

ACPI error - The embedded controller (EC) returned data when none was requested. The BIOS might be trying to access the EC without synchronizing with the operating system. This data will be ignored. No further action is necessary; however, you should check with your computer manufacturer for an upgraded BIOS. (I GET THESE A LOT)

I also get DistributedCOM errors/warnings


These are pretty much it, It's always these same errors before a freeze up...not all but a combination of the above listed.

I don't have temp issues. I monitor temps in game and use HWinfo. Not sure if I can check voltage of different things just by looking at HWinfo or it has to be done manually on the actual hardware?

sfc /scannow did not find any issues.

Any idea what's happening here?

Thank you.

What OS are you running?

Do you see any pattern of what you are doing when the freeze ups happen? Are you playing a certain game for instance? Or do these freeze ups happen under a variety of computing conditions?

variety of situations, but it seems that it's when the system is idle for a sec and then I try to do something...though I can't confirm this and all my power options for usb are set to "NOT allow pc to turn off device to save power" so I don't know...

windows 10 64x home edition fully updated but not with creators update.

I did also crash once playing ghost recon wildlands but this was a graphics crash...with the loud audio freeze...etc

running latest NVidia update too.

What happens when you run occt for a hour

just ran RealBench for 15 min and Prime95 for an hour.

For MemTest do I need to do one stick at a time? How many passes is considered enough?

No, you don't need to run memtest with just one stick. But if you run it with all sticks of RAM installed and it throws errors then start taking them out one at a time.

Ok, ran Memtest for 7+ hours, tests 5 and 9 to completion, 0 errors.

Loop heaven for an hour.
Thinking GPU driver issue or Pstate change problem.

I was thinking GPU driver, so I did an absolute sparkling clean install. I haven't changed my Pstate settings in bios or OS...I do use them though but not the usb power off when not in use options.

I'll loop heaven for an hour.

Just in case anyone is following this or experiences similar issues.

I have a feeling I had some conflict with NVIDIA drivers. Particularly, left over files from a previous driver. Even though I have Windows auto driver install function disabled, it still did it and I think I didn't notice. I did a clean wipe of my NVIDIA driver and haven't had any crashes since. I also did a BIOS flash since it's been a year since the last one. Performance with boot has improved dramatically.

Keeping my fingers crossed that this issue has been solved.

Thanks to all who contributed.

Good deal.