Randomly freezing PC....

[SH]

Right I have a PC that randomly locks up and freezes. Ctrl - Alt - Del
does not work, only the reset button on the PC.

So it sounds to me either: (see later comments)

Overheating
Bad memory
Bad M2 SSD.

I can go days without an issue and then on the odd day I will have a
single freeze then its OK for the rest of the day after a reset.

I have had one occasion where it froze 4 times in one evening.

Is there any logging software or event logs I can delve into to try and
diagnose the trouble?

I had recently upgraded from 2 sticks of 16 GB ram (32GB) to 4 sticks of
32 GB ram (128 GB) and put in a 2nd M2 flash (same make and model as the
1st) and the 2nd one is used as a backup drive by Win 11 every Sunday to
back up the first M2 drive

It was after this than the freezing issues started to occur.

I have already run Win 11's own Memory tester and that found no issues.


S.

[Adrian Caspersz]

On 24/05/2023 11:01, SH wrote:
>
>
> Right I have a PC that randomly locks up and freezes. Ctrl - Alt - Del
> does not work, only the reset button on the PC.

Microsoft's suggestions here ...

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/performance/windows-based-computer-freeze-troubleshooting

>
> Is there any logging software or event logs I can delve into to try and
> diagnose the trouble?

Depends how deep you want to go.

On another machine you could install something to that periodically
collects logs, and install an agent on the machine itself to send them.

https://www.rsyslog.com/windows-agent/

Or you could go and do the whole enterprise thing and install Splunk,
which has a free version and a head-spinning learning curve. I painfully
use it for work.

>
> I had recently upgraded from 2 sticks of 16 GB ram (32GB) to 4 sticks of
> 32 GB ram (128 GB)

Back in the day, my first 286 PC had a dizzy 1MB of memory...

and put in a 2nd M2 flash (same make and model as the
> 1st) and the 2nd one is used as a backup drive by Win 11 every Sunday to
> back up the first M2 drive
>
> It was after this than the freezing issues started to occur.
>
> I have already run Win 11's own Memory tester and that found no issues.

Hmmm, my 2 cents suspicion is on the memory upgrade.

What motherboard, what chipset, what rank are the modules? You might be
hitting limits.

https://uk.crucial.com/support/articles-faq-memory/what-is-a-memory-rank

Are these particular ram memory modules on the validation list for the
motherboard?.

May be worth checking with the MB manufacturer, also finding out whether
any BIOS settings might help, or if the BIOS itself has a later upgrade
that fixes it.

--
Adrian C

[SH]

On 25/05/2023 10:11, Adrian Caspersz wrote:
> On 24/05/2023 11:01, SH wrote:
>>
>>
>> Right I have a PC that randomly locks up and freezes. Ctrl - Alt - Del
>> does not work, only the reset button on the PC.
> Microsoft's suggestions here ...
>
> https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/performance/windows-based-computer-freeze-troubleshooting
>
>>
>> Is there any logging software or event logs I can delve into to try
>> and diagnose the trouble?
>
> Depends how deep you want to go.
>
> On another machine you could install something to that periodically
> collects logs, and install an agent on the machine itself to send them.
>
> https://www.rsyslog.com/windows-agent/

That sounds interesting.

> Or you could go and do the whole enterprise thing and install Splunk,
> which has a free version and a head-spinning learning curve. I painfully
> use it for work.

Mmmnn a plan B!

>> I had recently upgraded from 2 sticks of 16 GB ram (32GB) to 4 sticks
>> of 32 GB ram (128 GB)
>
> Back in the day, my first 286 PC had a dizzy 1MB of memory...

Yes I can remember having a Pentium 90MHz CPU in 1994 that had 4MB ram
as 4 x 1MB SIMMS). I can remember upgrading that to 32 MB ( 4 x 8MB
SIMMS) and how excited I was about the upgrade and the bragging rights
it gave me for a litter while!

>  and put in a 2nd M2 flash (same make and model as the
>> 1st) and the 2nd one is used as a backup drive by Win 11 every Sunday
>> to back up the first M2 drive
>>
>> It was after this than the freezing issues started to occur.
>>
>> I have already run Win 11's own Memory tester and that found no issues.
>
>
> Hmmm, my 2 cents suspicion is on the memory upgrade.

Even though the RAM passed the Windows memory tester?

> What motherboard, what chipset, what rank are the modules? You might be
> hitting limits.

Asus Z490 Prime Mobo

Processor is Intel i5 10400CPU 2.9 GHz

The old memory is 2 sticks of Corsair Vengeance LPX CMK32GX4M2B32 and
the new memory is 4 sticks of Corsair Vengeance LPX CMK64GX4M2E32.

The original and the 2nd SSD is Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVME M.2 SSD

> https://uk.crucial.com/support/articles-faq-memory/what-is-a-memory-rank
>
> Are these particular ram memory modules on the validation list for th > motherboard?.

Yes they are.

> May be worth checking with the MB manufacturer, also finding out whether
> any BIOS settings might help, or if the BIOS itself has a later upgrade
> that fixes it.

I had to upgrade the bios before I could upgrade from Win 10 to Win 11
to get TPM support. So its a very recent BIOS.

[SH]

P.S. the graphics is a Radeon R9 200 series with 3GB ram. This is a bit
long in the tooth and I am minded to replace it once graphics cards
prices fall :-)

[Adrian Caspersz]

On 25/05/2023 11:08, SH wrote:
>
>>>
>>> Hmmm, my 2 cents suspicion is on the memory upgrade.
>>
>> Even though the RAM passed the Windows memory tester?

Depends what that is testing, never used it.

>>> What motherboard, what chipset, what rank are the modules? You might
>>> be hitting limits.
>>
>> Asus Z490 Prime Mobo
>>
>> Processor is Intel i5 10400CPU 2.9 GHz
>>
>> The old memory is 2 sticks of Corsair Vengeance LPX CMK32GX4M2B32 and
>> the new memory is 4 sticks of Corsair Vengeance LPX CMK64GX4M2E32.

Dual Rank

You could play with downclocking (XMP off + manual settings) in the
BIOS, but to be fair it should be fine with whatever basic XMP profile
the BIOS selects, as that would/should have been validated - and you
should get for what you pay for....

A long time ago, for a short while I used to lab test manufacturers
motherboards for a memory company so that they could add memory DIMMs
(DDR2 in those days) to their validation lists. So ran into the Rank,
BIOS and maximum limits thing regularly, so a bit biased to the fear of
that.

>>
>> The original and the 2nd SSD is Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVME M.2 SSD
>>
>>> https://uk.crucial.com/support/articles-faq-memory/what-is-a-memory-rank
>>>
>>> Are these particular ram memory modules on the validation list for th
>>> > motherboard?.
>>
>> Yes they are.

OK, I downgrade my 2 cents suspicion to less than 1 cent. It's something
else.

* power supply up to powering the new parts?
* graphics driver unhappy with the large memory map?

I think you'll have to diagnose the current windows 11 install, rather
than randomly shooting fish in a barrel with my suggestions.

The worst is unplugging this, swapping that and that, then ending up
with other accidental issues.

Involve the kind folks on uk.comp.homebuilt? A bit quiet here.

--
Adrian C