New PC keeps hard freezing

[LiljaFX]

Hi everyone,

I put together a PC about 1 month ago and from the beginning random hard freezes occur (meaning the screen just freezes at the last frame and I have to shut the PC down via pressing the power button and buzzing sounds coming from the speakers). Pressing Caps Lock doesn't do anything on the keyboard, so the computer really doesn't respond to anything besides shutting down. I had it run for 1 hour after freezing once to see if anything further happened, but the freeze continued.
These freezes occur randomly, sometimes there a no freezes for a couple of days and then it suddenly freezes twice in a row. Also I had freezes while in idle, during gaming, after booting up in the Windows Login screen and while booting in the frame with the spinning circles (this one happened directly after a freeze, when I tried to boot it after the force shutdown).

The system:

Windows 10 Pro
intel i5-10600KASUS
ROG STRIX Z490G-WiFi
Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (2x16GB)
DDR4 3200MHz
ASUS PH-GTX1050Ti-4G (taken from previos computer)
Crucial MX500 1TB SSD
Corsair CX650M Power Supply

I tried lots of troubleshooting, including stress tests without any success. I first suspected the RAM but couldn't really find any fix, tried adjusting BIOS settings (3200MHz and 1.35V as stated on support page) and one RAM stick at a time in different slots but always got freezes. Actually the freezes seemed to be more frequent when I only used one RAM stick (5-30min directly in a row, mostly the freezes occur every 3 days) but I guess that could just be bad luck.

After all this and more freezes I did a clean reinstall of Windows 4 days ago (thus reverting some of the troubleshooting I mentioned above), this time connecting a CD drive to get the drivers from the mainboard's CD instead of downloading them, suspecting I messed something up with the downloaded drivers. Went well for 4 days until it froze this morning when in a call on Teams in the browser (currently the MOBO drivers are still from the CD, I plan to download the newest later today but don't really see this fixing the freezes).

I'm kind of at my wits end here and am running out of ways to try and fix this.

Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

[Wangeyed]

do you have ai overclock enabled? turn it off if so and try that, update bios to latest ver or reset. if still freeze then download all drivers from support page and put on a usb then do a windows reinstall with fresh upto date drivers, still having issues reseat all parts/cables. if all that fails then could be a usb device or dodgy component
good luck

[LiljaFX]

Wangeyed wrote:
do you have ai overclock enabled? turn it off if so and try that, update bios to latest ver or reset. if still freeze then download all drivers from support page and put on a usb then do a windows reinstall with fresh upto date drivers, still having issues reseat all parts/cables. if all that fails then could be a usb device or dodgy component
good luck

Thanks for the answer! Ai overclock is enabled atm but it wasn't in the beginning - I will look into the settings again. BIOS is up-to-date. I initially had all drivers from the support page on my first install but I guess I will try again. I really hope it's not some hardware error because I have no compatible alternatives lying around to just exchange and see if the freezes disappear 😕

[Wangeyed]

also the drivers you install from asus are usually blocked
https://winaero.com/blog/how-to-unblock-files-downloaded-from-internet-in-windows-10/
or use the drivers on this forum which are more upto date

[LiljaFX]

Wangeyed wrote:
also the drivers you install from asus are usually blocked
https://winaero.com/blog/how-to-unblock-files-downloaded-from-internet-in-windows-10/
or use the drivers on this forum which are more upto date

Alright, I didn't have a message saying they were blocked but I will doublecheck.
Would I take the drivers from here: https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?119120-INDEX-All-My-Firmware-Drivers-Software-Threads ?

[Wangeyed]

yes thats the ones

[RoGHoliday]

Assuming your power supply isn't the problem and you have updated to the latest UEFI version, It could be a short between the motherboard and your case. If you're up for it take it apart, loosen all the motherboard screws, give the board a wiggle (or better: remove it completely to check for anything behind it that could cause contact) and then tighten down the screws again. If you really want to know, remove the MB from the case all together and set it up on your desk, just place it on the box it came in or some other non conductive material and try that.

[LiljaFX]

Well I just had the first freeze again after it running with no problems since saturday morning when I updated the drivers 😞

RoGHoliday wrote:
Assuming your power supply isn't the problem and you have updated to the latest UEFI version, It could be a short between the motherboard and your case. If you're up for it take it apart, loosen all the motherboard screws, give the board a wiggle (or better: remove it completely to check for anything behind it that could cause contact) and then tighten down the screws again. If you really want to know, remove the MB from the case all together and set it up on your desk, just place it on the box it came in or some other non conductive material and try that.

I guess that would be worth a try, thanks!
When it froze just now I had a look at the MB and saw that the lighted ROG logo still changed colours. The Ethernet port also still blinked and when I removed the LAN cable it stopped blinking, when I plugged it back in it lit up again. So I guess the MB was still responsive, does that rule out the eventuality of a short between MB and case?
As a side note: When I had the freezes the first weeks and had not reinstalled Windows the MB did not change the colours of the RGB logo anymore when a freeze happened so if I saw the MB didn't change the logos colour anymore 'Damn it froze again". After I reinstalled Windows it suddenly changed that behaviour so that the MB now continues changing the logo colour when a freezes happens. Had me really baffled the first times and I'm wondering why this is the case.

[XYchromosone]

I doubt this is the problem but since you said that after you reinstalled Windows the behaviour of the mobo lights changed when it froze, maybe your windows installation media has a corrupt file. I would redownload Windows 10 to rule that out before reinstalling Windows 10. Another option is to run a Live Ubuntu on a bootable USB stick to see if it crashes in ubuntu [ubuntu is a user friendly linux distro similar to Windows 10]. If you are not familiar with ubuntu it is very easy to run without actually installing it from a USB stick. Here is a step by step guide for creating a bootable ubuntu v20.04 [Focal Fossa] on a USB stick using a small program that runs from its exe file [no installation required] called UNetbootin.
https://linuxconfig.org/create-a-bootable-ubuntu-20-04-usb-stick-on-ms-windows-10

[LiljaFX]

XYchromosone wrote:
I doubt this is the problem but since you said that after you reinstalled Windows the behaviour of the mobo lights changed when it froze, maybe your windows installation media has a corrupt file. I would redownload Windows 10 to rule that out before reinstalling Windows 10. Another option is to run a Live Ubuntu on a bootable USB stick to see if it crashes in ubuntu [ubuntu is a user friendly linux distro similar to Windows 10]. If you are not familiar with ubuntu it is very easy to run without actually installing it from a USB stick. Here is a step by step guide for creating a bootable ubuntu v20.04 [Focal Fossa] on a USB stick using a small program that runs from its exe file [no installation required] called UNetbootin.
https://linuxconfig.org/create-a-bootable-ubuntu-20-04-usb-stick-on-ms-windows-10

I guess I don't get around trying this, thanks for the suggestion! My problem is that the freezes are so random and the computer is in normal use, but I guess it's a good idea to let Linux run overnight and see if it froze overnight. So if I got freezes with Linux would it mean I have a hardware problem?

Edit: I just finished the Linux USB stick and it's working (writing this from Linux!) and I will try to have Linux on as much as possible to see if any freezes happen while it's running. I will get back when I know more, thanks for everyone's help so far!