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Question

My computer should be a monster - but it keeps freezing!

Sep 8, 2017 8:27PM PDT

Hi everyone I hope you can help me, because I've tried about everything I can think of but,
I've almost lost hope now - I've been looking everywhere for the better part of a year to
solve this issue on my computer. I built this thing to be a monster and took a lot of time to
making sure all the parts were compatible. This is my second custom built computer so I had a
bit more experience this go around, and I'd note - I never had this issue on my old computer
but the thing was ancient and needed to go.

I have done a lot of troubleshooting myself but to no avail so far. I've gone so far as to buy
a brand new hard drive and reinstall windows 10 from scratch, and I still have the problem and cant
seem to identify the source; but I've ruled out (I think) a bunch of possibilities.

First I'll brief describe what happens during the freezes and what data I have captured using CUPID Monitor before, during - but not after the freezing incidents because the entire screen becomes unresponsive as does the mouse and keyboard (I.E. system no longer responds to overriding commands like CNTR Alt Delete etc.).

The computer
hardware appears to be running normally even during the freezes. And there is no spike of usage or heat prior to a freeze.

I have noticed it does not seem to be graphic intensive - it freezes when I play games, when I'm doing nothing, or when I'm surfing the internet, watching a movie, installing an update or
even I just leave the computer alone for extended periods of time I'll come back and the screen will be frozen.

Only a Computer restart fixes it, the computer starts up like nothing happened until it freezes the next time.
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Here are my specs:
Motherboard: ASUS m5a97 R2.0
850 Watt Power Supply
Video card: AMD Radeon r9 200 series graphics card (x2) 3G Memory each, 2 powerful fans each.
I've run each card on its own and together and still experience the freezes - all the drivers are up to date.
 
Hard Drive: 500gb WD Blue Solid state drive SATA 2.5" WDS500G1B0A - upgrading hard drives did not resolve the issue.
Processor: AMD FX(tm)-9590 8 core processor 4.70GHz
Ram: 32 GB
Corsair liquid cooling system, and 2 primary fans in the casing along with the 2 fans each graphics card has.
However the data from HWMonitor does not seem to indicate the computer is overheating. As even during graphic
intense games the HWMonitor shows the temperatures below 45 degrees Celsius on average
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm not even over clocking the system. anyone have any ideas?

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Mismatch
Sep 8, 2017 10:27PM PDT
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compatible motherboards
Sep 9, 2017 5:23AM PDT

Thankyou - I will give replacing the board a go. Is this an acceptable alternative?

ASUS AM3+ M.2 USB3.1 SafeSlot AMD ATX Motherboard (TUF Sabertooth 990FX R3.0)

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Should work
Sep 9, 2017 7:35AM PDT

The cpu is on the support list.

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New motherboard installed
Sep 20, 2017 7:56AM PDT

So I installed the new motherboard mentioned above - there was a tremendous speed increase in my computer - everything seems to be responding faster so that's good.

But I'm still experiencing freezes but not nearly as frequently.

I've noticed that playing graphics intensive games make it occur more frequently, anyone have any other ideas?

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Graphics drivers....
Sep 20, 2017 8:18AM PDT

....Direct X, any other software the gaming requires to run properly.

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video card issue?
Sep 20, 2017 9:53AM PDT

Okay so the drivers were already updated but I downloaded direct X.

This is the first time I could get through a game of starcraft 2 on max graphics without the computer locking up.

however after a couple of games the computer still froze.

could the video card be damaged or insufficient?

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Heat
Sep 20, 2017 2:30PM PDT

Check fans on GPU and CPU, make sure they are working. When's the last time you put thermal paste on either of them? What you describe sounds like a possible heat problem.

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Mobo
Sep 20, 2017 10:15AM PDT

After you installed this new mobo did you:
Reinstall windows?
Install the drivers that came with the mobo?
Update the drivers from the maker's site?
Update the bios from the maker's site?

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mobo
Sep 22, 2017 2:25PM PDT

I did install a fresh windows 10 on the new harddrive I got about 2 weeks ago.

I did use the startup mobo disk to install the drivers that came with it.

I did not update the drivers from the maker's site
I did not update the bios from the makers site

Also pretty sure its not an issue - thermal paste is freshly applied I have a cossair liquid cooling system and I've been tracking all of the temperatures and it isn't overheating. all the gpu and cpu fans are running properly. and the Graphics card has all of its drivers up to date from its maker

I'm going to try to update the mobo/bios drivers see if that works

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Problem becoming more frequent as time goes on
Sep 22, 2017 2:56PM PDT

updated motherboard drivers etc still no effect

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check for auto internet programs
Sep 25, 2017 3:21PM PDT

Those which update automatically from internet. Big contender could be updates for Windows itself.