Solved PC freezing in some games.

[esoterical]

Hi, I'm not sure whether this belonged here, in software support or in gaming support, but I think it's a hardware issue. Sometimes, when I'm playing a game, my pc will freeze unrecoverably. I've tried ctrl+alt+del and win+ctrl+shift+b during the freeze and nothing happens. I have to force restart to get my computer back in a working condition. This only happens to some games and will only happen to those games, without regard to how intensive the game seems to be. This also seems to have only started happening after I upgraded my pc a few years ago, but I'm not 100% sure that it is the newer components causing the issue.

Old Specs-
i5 4690k
corsair vengeance 2x4gb ddr3
evga 1080ti sc black
asus Z97-E
evga NEX750G psu

new specs-
Ryzen 7 3800X
corsair vengeance 4x8gb ddr4
evga 1080ti sc black - same gpu
asrock X570M pro4
corsair RM750 psu

Notes:
- Freezes occur with both PSUs
- I've tried using 2x8 gb ram with both pairs.
- Event viewer shows nothing other than unexpected restart at the time of freeze.
- I don't see any spikes in my memory and gpu memory charts in task manager when the freezes occur.
- lowering graphics settings reduces the odds of a freeze, but they still occur occasionally.
- underclocking my gpu also reduces the chances of freezing.
- I haven't had any issues running VR games or blasting the cuda cores for machine learning
- I don't have access to another gpu to swap out and check

I think it's the GPU but I want an opinion from someone more knowledgable in this.

 

[veeg]

Hello

Which games are making your pc freeze up? What is your memory clocked at?

 

[esoterical]

I've first noticed it with Ori and the Will of the Wisps. Right now, it consistently freezes within 15 minutes in Escape Simulator. Elden Ring on lower settings is fine but still freezes occasionally. Games like Control, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, Genshin Impact, and Hades can run fine with no freezing. My ram should be 3000 but task manage says it's currently clocked at 2133.

 

[esoterical]

I've also tried driver reinstalls for the gpu and a clean reinstall of win10 if that helps.

 

[veeg]

Do this and check the status..

How do I know my vertex shader?


Press Win+R and in the box type dxdiag then press Enter on your keyboard to run the command. In the System tab, listed under the System Information heading, the tool returns your current DirectX version. Match your DirectX version with the Shader version listed below.

Try to set your memory to lock in at 3000 when playing games..

 

[esoterical]

I'm not sure what you mean by by my vertex shader, but I'm running dx12. Setting my memory back to 3000mhz adds artifacting across my screens along with the freezes.

 

[Bruce]

@esoterical - let's bring in some other members for their ideas.

@PeterOz @Bastet @Rustys

 

[Bastet]

Have you tried using DDU to cleanly remove the graphics card driver? If not I would try that then you can clean install the driver.

www.wagnardsoft.com

Wagnardsoft: Computer PC Software tools. Home of Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU)

www.wagnardsoft.com

 

[esoterical]

I believe thats what I used when I reinstalled drivers but I'll try again

 

[esoterical]

Reinstalled drivers with ddu following the instruction on the page, still freezing with artifacts

 

[esoterical]

I've found this in my event viewer, but I forgot about it since I haven't looked in my event viewer in a bit. This error triggers at about the same time as the freezes. I've looked up the error before but haven't been able to find a consistent solution.

---------------------------------
The description for Event ID 14 from source nvlddmkm cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.

If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.

The following information was included with the event:

\Device\Video3
0a97(2a90) 00000000 00000000

The message resource is present but the message was not found in the message table
---------------------------------


- <Event xmlns="

http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event

">
- <System>
<Provider Name="nvlddmkm" />
<EventID Qualifiers="49322">14</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2022-03-31T17:53:15.0699266Z" />
<EventRecordID>31877</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="4" ThreadID="10640" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>Eric-PC</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
- <EventData>
<Data>\Device\Video3</Data>
<Data>0a97(2a90) 00000000 00000000</Data>
<Binary>0000000002003000000000000E00AAC0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000</Binary>
</EventData>
</Event>

 

[Malnutrition]

Step 1:
Please download MINITOOLBOX and run it.
Checkmark following boxes:
Flush DNS
Reset FF proxy Settings
Reset Ie Proxy Settings
Report IE Proxy Settings
Report FF Proxy Settings
List content of Hosts
List IP configuration
List Winsock Entries
List last 10 Event Viewer log
List Installed Programs
List Users, Partitions and Memory size
List Devices (problems only)
Click Go and Attach the log in your reply.

---

Step 2:Speccy Scan.

• Please go here and download Speccy.
• Install and run the program.
• Upon Completion:
• Hit File
• Publish Snap Shot
• A link will appear, post that link.

---

Step 3: Autoruns Scan.
Download Autoruns and Autorunsc Unzip it to your desktop and then double click autoruns.exe
After the scan is finished then click on File>>>>>>>>>>>Save
The default name will be autoruns.arn make sure to save it as Autoruns.arn under the file type option.
Attach the text in your next reply. If the file is too large, then use catbox.moe or filedropper.com and send the link in your next reply.

 

[esoterical]

mtb - https://www.dropbox.com/s/mtw15u77v2116el/MTB.txt?dl=0
speccy - http://speccy.piriform.com/results/1yYRlmCzbki2MDXhnKfmAls
autoruns - https://www.dropbox.com/s/4su9iy46czm8fq5/Autoruns.arn?dl=0

 

[esoterical]

The system error at (03/31/2022 01:55:28 PM) in the mtb log is the force restart I had to do after the freeze, so anything immediately prior might be related.

 

[esoterical]

I might've figured it out. MSI afterburner and some other program probably had conflicting access to my gpu. I disabled afterburner and haven't had any issues in my test. I'm gonna try raising my graphics settings and see if freezes still occur.

 

[Malnutrition]

keep us updated. I’ll have a reply later today on how you can improve performance/

Plus temps look a little on the high side....

 

[esoterical]

Still getting freezes, I think the temps for my cpu are normal for idle but my gpu used to idle around 35-40c, not sure why it's higher now. The motherboard temps are usually around 40c though.

 

[Malnutrition]

I’ll have a reply for you tomorrow. I’ve been a pretty busy today...

 

[Malnutrition]

The first thing that we will do is download Junkware Removal Tool by Malwarebytes. Save it to your desktop run as admin, this is an outdated crapware removal tool, it will remove some junk but most important, this will create a restore point. I do not need to see the log from this, if you want to go back to before any of these steps you will have a restore point created....

---

Uninstall the following with Geek Uninstaller.


Bitdefender Agent (HKLM\...\Bitdefender Agent) (Version: 26.0.1.220 - Bitdefender)
Bitdefender Antivirus Free (HKLM\...\{1FCCF41D-5F00-4FE2-9653-162D0486C8B4}) (Version: 1.0.17.221 - Bitdefender)
Mozilla Maintenance Service (HKLM\...\MozillaMaintenanceService) (Version: 86.0.1 - Mozilla)

Run the bitdefender removal tool.

---

Reset your Hosts file, it isn't listed correctly under minitoolbox log.

1. Click here to download RstHosts v2.0\
2. Save the file to your desktop.
3. Right Click and Run as Administrator.
4. Click on Restaurer, then click OK at the prompt.
5. This will restore the default host file.

---

Open Elevated command prompt and run chkdsk /f /r then reply Y to run on the next reboot.

---

Open notepad, copy and paste the content of the code box below into it, and save as tempclean.bat
Save to desktop.
Then right click and run as admin.

del /s /q C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution\download\*.*
del /s /q "%userprofile%\AppData\Local\temp\*.*"
del /f /s /q %systemdrive%\*.tmp
del /f /s /q %systemdrive%\*.log
del /f /s /q %systemdrive%\*.chk
del /f /s /q %systemdrive%\recycled\*.*
del /f /s /q %windir%\*.bak
del /f /s /q %windir%\prefetch\*.*
rd /s /q %windir%\temp & md %windir%\temp

---

After this, reboot your machine check the issue.

 

[Malnutrition]

Also, clean install your graphics driver with DDu

Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) download version 18.0.8.4

Download Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) - Remove AMD/NVIDIA/INTEL Graphics Drivers Cleanly - DDU is a driver removal utility that helps you completely uninstall AMD/NVIDIA graphics card drivers and packages from your system, leaving no leftovers behind, including registry keys, folders, files...

www.guru3d.com

Grab new copy from here.

Download The Latest Official NVIDIA Drivers

Download the latest official NVIDIA drivers to enhance your PC gaming experience and run apps faster.

www.nvidia.com

---

Launch autoruns as admin. Uncheck these items.

---

Disable windows update while you game.

Windows Update Blocker v1.8

In Windows There is no option to turn off Windows Updates. Windows Update Blocker is a tool that helps you to disable or enable Updates.

www.sordum.org

---

Run Easy service run tweaked mode while gaming.

Easy Service Optimizer v1.2

Easy service optimizer (Eso) is a portable freeware to optimize Windows services , By disabling unnecessary services, the performance can be improved

www.sordum.org