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!

[LiljaFX]

Well, this gave quick results. I booted Linux on the PC in question from a USB stick about half an our ago and just went to setup the WiFi connection when it froze mid-password. Has been sitting frozen for 10 minutes now so I think it's the same freeze I get on Windows and not some hiccup.

Quick recap regarding hardware:

• PSU: has been replaced after first freezes
  
• RAM: sticks were tested separatly in different slots, still froze
  
• CPU: bought new, stress tested for couple of hours - no alternative on hand
  
• MB: bought new - no alternative on hand
  
• SSD: bought new, have an old one laying around I could test instead (but could the SSD even cause a freeze ? Linux had access to the SSD but it was booted from the stick)
  
• GPU: two different 1050Ti were tested, freezes with both
  

Where should I go from here?

[umdogan]

Many of Z490-I owners are having a hard freezing issue as well whlie XMP is enabled. None of us have a definitive fix yet but I think setting VCCIO and SA voltages manually (and corresponding boot voltages) to 1.1V helped a little for me at least. Could you try manually setting those voltages I mentioned?

I don't know the root cause of your problem but considering it's the same platform it might help.

[LiljaFX]

umdogan wrote:
Many of Z490-I owners are having a hard freezing issue as well whlie XMP is enabled. None of us have a definitive fix yet but I think setting VCCIO and SA voltages manually (and corresponding boot voltages) to 1.1V helped a little for me at least. Could you try manually setting those voltages I mentioned?

I don't know the root cause of your problem but considering it's the same platform it might help.

Thanks for the input, I actually changed those voltages some weeks ago according to this thread:
https://rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?93320-help-with-UEFI-RAM-settings

So I have them set at 1.2V. Which would be the corresponding boot voltages?

I tried many settings for the RAM, first it was set to "Auto" at default DDR4 voltage and frequency.
Afterwards I tried manually setting frequency and voltage to 3200MHz and 1.35V according to the ASUS support page (and additionally the CPU VCCIO Voltage and CPU System Agent Voltage to 1.2V), still froze.
Next I tried XMP I and XMP II but always got freezes. For now the RAM it was back to DDR4 default (2133MHz and 1.2V I think) by selecting "Auto" for those values and it froze time and time again.


For now I removed the mainboard from the case to rule out a short (I suspect that wasn't the problem, but better be safe) and will see when/if the next freeze happens. Any further instructions on how to proceed if a freeze occurs would be appreciated 🙂

[umdogan]

Sorry for asking basic questions but have you tried a different ram kit? Is the one you already have listed on QVL of Asus?

[LiljaFX]

umdogan wrote:
Sorry for asking basic questions but have you tried a different ram kit? Is the one you already have listed on QVL of Asus?

I appreciate your help, so no worries 🙂
My kit is CMK32GX4M2B3200C16 and ASUS has listed two versions for those:

I don't know how to determine which version I have but I guessed it would be compatible.

For now I didn't try another kit since I don't have any on hand (all other computers in the house still have DDR3), but I ordered one a couple of days ago and wanted to try that. I thought of RAM initially as the source of the freezes but I tested the sticks each on their own in different slots and the computer still froze so I thought "Can't be the RAM, how likely is it both sticks are defective?". But I will try it with the new kit, should arrive in the next couple of days and we will see if that fixes anything.

[LiljaFX]

Update: Froze again with MB out of the case. I booted Linux 3 times and all three times the freezes happened in less than 30 minutes. I'll see if I can monitor any useful information and reproduce the freeze again.
It's not the USB stick that causes the freezes, I let it run on another PC overnight and everything was fine.

[sglazier456]

To fix this issue, the first time CUK exchanged the computer and things were fine for a while. now after a few windows updates I am getting computer freezes frequently. I do see some dcom errors in the event log but nothing that would or should kill the system. 3 times this morning already. I run citrix remote to get into work and it is annoying to be in the middle of something and thing and have every thing freeze like writing this for instance.

I get one every so often about an error with the smart card reader which I am pretty surer there isn't one unless it is the little red dongle that come with this model.

here is the windows reported info.
Device name Raphael
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-10980HK CPU @ 2.40GHz 3.10 GHz
Installed RAM 64.0 GB (63.8 GB usable)
Device ID 28B97BB6-1C6B-434C-946B-0CF4D5D5105F
Product ID 00330-53086-77375-AAOEM
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Pen and touch No pen or touch input is available for this display
Edition Windows 10 Pro
Version 21H1
Installed on ‎4/‎9/‎2021
OS build 19043.985
Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.2020.0

I do not have huge amounts of time to waste mucking with this laptop. I expect when I pay top dollar that it works and is reliable. It one of the reasons I choose asus and while so far I like the machine this iss is rather maddening and it does not seem like it is easy to trace

[sglazier456]

I disabled / uninstalled macAffee it was hanging doing its realtime scans. I have Avast as well. I reinstalled the window security updates and it seems to works so far

[MRBULL]

this is probably not what is causing your issue BUT it sure was mine for a few months , massive freezes in games also
turned out to be the ****ing malwarebytes "WEB PROTECTION" i turned that off and never had another freez after that

[Gofran]

Have you find an sulotion ? For me its happens like once a week i think it has to do oled or on motherboard or aio because it also freeze when i put one of the on hw monitor