Computer having too many freezing issues

ShutUp38 · Sep 16, 2016

I'm know this kind of threads have been posted quite a lot of times already, but I really can't help it anymore and need help with this situation.

It all started about 4 months ago, my pc started freezing. I didn't get a BSOD or anything, it literally just froze there. My mouse wasn't moving, I pressed numlock on my keyboard, nothing. So I had to forcefully shut down my pc and on it again. I felt like that was a minor problem, so I just ignored it. After a few days or so, my pc began crashing quite constantly, almost 3-4 times a day. It was really annoying, so I decided to reformat my pc. The crashing stopped for about 1-2 months, then it came back. But this time it got worse. After a crash, when I force shut down my pc and on it again, everything worked except for my monitor. Num lock, Caps lock was wokring fine, But my monitor had no display... I tried hooking up to another monitor(which was newer), and still the same. After about 4-5 restart attempts, my computer would start up, just to crash a few minutes later. Now I can barely access the computer, it would have to freeze a few times before working properly for a few hours before freezing again.

Here are my specs:
ASRock 970 Extreme3 R2.0
AMD FX-4130 (Cooler Master T3
Asus R9 270
1TB Toshiba Hard Disk
SilverStone Strider Plus ST60F-PS 600W
2x4GB Kingston 1333mhz ram

A few things I have to say :
1. I do not have extra parts or the money to buy any extra parts in the meantime, so I'm kinda limited atm.
2. I know it's not heat issues because it can literally freeze at idle. I've have my HWMonitor up and I can even freeze when temps are around 40C (Not 1 component reached 50C)
3. I never overclocked anything, everything is at stock speed
4. There are no dust build ups because I clean my pc every month.
5. I've ran Prime 95 for around 4 hours, no errors whatsoever
6. Even did a memtest for both my ram for 12 hours+ still no errors,
7. Ran WD's Hard Disk scanning tool, still passed.
8. All My drivers are up to date.
9. Whenever my pc freezes, I would be stuck in the "Monitor No Signal" problem for about 4-5 restarts. But when I do manage to get an input, my pc would put me into the Bios. This is probably a ASRock built in feature, but I just wanna point that out.
10. I'm using Avast Anti-Virus, did a Full Scan, nothing.

Any help would be appreciated...

Calvin7 · Sep 16, 2016

2x4GB Kingston 1333mhz ram
I guess this is two random single modules. Wrong speed for FX CPU.

I recommend you use a single kit with a matched pair of DIMMs.
AMD FX-4130
Supported memory: DDR3-1866

There are no XMP (eXtreme Memory Profile) settings available on the motherboard. In that case, you can manually set memory clock speed and DRAM Timings in the BIOS.

ShutUp38 · Sep 16, 2016

But it wouldn't really make sense since I had those DIMM's since the day I built my pc. How does using lower mhz ram effect my pc? The freezing happened like 1 year after I built it. The freezing just randomly appeared and won't go away. Both of the Ram Sticks are Identical and their Dual-Channeled if your wondering

justajohn · Sep 16, 2016

There really are a lot of things this could be related to.
I am leaning toward it may be more of a hardware related issue though sometimes drivers for hardware can create such issues as well.

Simple place to start and I am sure you are very aware of this and have probably already gone over everything in there as you say you built the PC and are familiar with monitoring software and how to do diagnostic tests on the RAM, Hard Disk and such.... but I can't take it for granted and you never mentioned anything about it... so I'm mentioning it.
Device Manager is a good place to start checking for issues.
Do you have anything showing up as an issue in there. If so what?
I have a few PC's now and have had quite a few in the past that were a pain to track down every single Unknown Device to make sure everything was accounted for in the list. I know your issue more then likely wouldn't be that easy to spot but as I said it's a great place to start and you never mentioned anything you may have or have not found there.

To go a step further I'd recommend checking the event viewer to see if you can find hopefully more of a direct sign of the culprit there. Any specific critical event that repeats often enough may be linked to the issue.
I am not an expert myself at sorting out the stuff found in System Events but just giving some advise where hopefully you can get some more info to share and someone with more know how in that department can probably use the extra info to help sort it out that way.

You can access the event viewer by simply typing - EVENT VIEWER in the search bar of Windows 7, 8, or 10 and selecting it from there.
On that note what OS are you currently running? Didn't see that you mentioned that anywhere yet.
Sometimes it helps to google a specific event you are seeing to help identify reasons why it could be occurring or others who have had and hopefully fixed their similar issue.

Now the advice I can give you for troubleshooting the hardware side of this if the other paths turn up nothing worthwhile is this -

-Disconnect all unneeded peripherals currently attached to your PC. (So anything that is not the Mouse, Keyboard, Monitor, and maybe Lan plug. Sound is not needed if you have speakers from a sound card they can stay unplugged also)
-Unplug the GPU and visually inspect both the PCI-e slot and the connector pins of the GPU for anything out of the ordinary. Re-seat the GPU card ensuring it is connected securely. Double check the pci-e power cable(s) running to your GPU are securely connected also at this time.
-Unplug visually inspect the slots on the Mobo and pins on the Dimms and re-seat your RAM
-Double check the Sata Cable and power cable going to the HDD are secure and in good condition. Visually inspect the connecting ends of each to verify everything looks good and use another one if not.
-Also check the visual condition of the receiving end of your HDD connectors to make sure they are in good working order.
-Visually inspect the inside of the PC case for any other possible issues (such as loose or long fan cables or any other foreign objects wires etc. that can use tidying and or removal)
-if you have any other add in hardware plugged into the PC (IDE, PCI, PCI-e cards, or other SATA devices [CD-DVD-Bluray] ) and they are not critical to the operation of the machine and you are comfortable removing them temporarily and possibly having to restore the drivers and such later then remove them now also.
-Double check all of your on board headers are hooked up properly and snugly (this includes everything USB's, fans, Power Button, Reset Switch, HDD lights, Front Sound Panel, etc...) anything that plugs into the motherboard using a header or jumpers. Remove and visually inspect each to make sure there are no bent or broken pins or anything loose or any broken wires.
-Visually inspect all USB slots around the whole machine front and back to make sure all the connectors look to be in proper working condition. Also do this for all the I/O peripheral ports that may be on your PC's back I/O panel to make sure there are no small items that may be jammed in them or causing interference of any kind and that they all look to be in good working order. Do this for all the speaker connection jacks also.
-Disconnect your Monitor cable and inspect the plug and cable for any damage as well as the I/O ports of the GPU itself to make sure there is nothing interfering with it and that all the video outs appear visually to be in good working order.
-Make sure the important stuff (mouse, keyboard, monitor, Lan cable optional) is plugged back in and start it up and see what she does.

If you get anywhere further with this give us a heads up.

ShutUp38 · Sep 17, 2016

Thanks justajohn for your feedback.
I've tried everything you suggested, and no clue whatsoever. I had my task manager at all times, no program was eating up too many resources. I've tried using the event viewers, I tried looking at the errors or whatever happened at the time my pc freezed. It only said that there was an unexpected shut down, which I know that was by me holding down the power button. I've visually inspected every connectors, pci-e slots, ram slots, the dimms and graphics card itself, everything looks fine... I've reseated everything, tried using one ram, even tried using different slots, the problem still persists. If you have anymore suggestions please let me know.

UPDATE :
The crashing has gone to the point that It freezes at the bios(uefi). Normally after a few failed attempts of starting windows, my pc automatically send me to the bios (uefi), from there I would just exit it and continue to booting windows. here's the thing, this time, It sent me to the bios, and froze there. I cannot use my keyboard to navigate through the bios, it was frozen there. I could not believe it, so I disconnected my hdd, so I could only boot into the bios, and the same thing happened. Frozen. I guess hdd is not the problem. Now I'm starting to think that it's either ram or cpu or even psu... Although my goal is to pin point what could be the problem, any help would be nice

UPDATE 2: I can't even boot up at all. It freezes at the loading screen for Windows

justajohn · Sep 19, 2016

Well I really would think this is more than likely due to the Motherboard itself. There is a chance that the bios has become corrupted. It may be a compounded problem where the other issues and restarting and such could have created the corrupted bios issue... but all in all... a quick fix would probably call for a replacement motherboard.

The long fix would require getting the most recent bios file for the motherboard re-flashing the bios and seeing if that fixes the issue. If not done correctly then you can brick the mobo altogether.
Chances are also that there is something on the motherboard itself which may have given out and re-flashing may fix the bios startup issue but it could still have the other mysterious random shutdown issues down the road.
Not much change in the solution but to buy a replacement mobo.

The bios can have a lot to do with all the issues mentioned so far. So there is a chance that a re-flash properly done can get you back in business 100% as well.

Hopefully we hear back from you with some better news next time.
Good luck.

ShutUp38 · Sep 25, 2016

I couldn't touch my computer much because of work, but I'm finally back on. So I re-flashed the Bios with the bios files on the ASRock website, apparently I could flash the bios without entering the bios (.exe). So far so good, if I can run 24hours without freezing then maybe I wouldn't need a new motherboard

Update : This time it wasn't a freeze though. My screen just blackout, sounds we're still working, numlock as well. Had no idea what happened, so I shut downed the pc with my power button. Could it be that my graphics card is dying? Although I still wouldn't jump to conclusions.

Update 2 : Nevermind. Crashing still persists. Guess it's time for a motherboard change?

justajohn · Sep 26, 2016

So the bios flash seemed to do the trick then things started getting wonky again after a little time?
I don't have any experience with that specific motherboard. I just did some quick researching online with the search string "ASRock 970 Extreme3 R2.0 Random Restart" and things got a little scary.
Seems this is a pretty common issue with these boards.

I read through a few posts on the subject that popped up in the google search, some here on Tom's and a few elsewhere and all are similarly perplexing. Several also have had the similar issues with video output failing at times (black screen) and looking as if the GPU has gone out which is not the case at all.
This poor guys post stands out for me. He has an intel based Asrock z77 Extreme4 motherboard. No not your AMD 970fx but it is an Asrock with a very similar issue. I skimmed through it initially just because the random shutdown restart even while in bios issue sounded so familiar and I was glad I did. The fact that he did so much hard work troubleshooting and documenting his efforts is commendable. But alas he may have had a CPU issue in the end. Check out that post here -----> http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=377381

It's true that these are other peoples issues and although similar it doesn't mean it's exactly the same case by case as yours could be as I am sure you are aware. But so many very similar issues is a red flag at the least.
This leads me to conclude that you should treat this solely as a motherboard related issue...

but to be utterly certain it's not anything else you can try these further steps.

-Are there any post codes (beep codes etc) listed during boot at all? If so post them here or research them yourself for a little more insight maybe.

-rule out a malfunctioning CPU (I highly doubt this would be the case though) by either
a) test your fx4130 in another AM3+ motherboard
b) try another compatible AMD chip in your machine to see if the issues are still present

-oddball shorts shouldn't be ruled out completely until proper troubleshooting is done to ensure this isn't the case. Often times intermittent shorts can be fixed by subtracting the case and breadboarding the hardware. Do this by removing and reassembling the basic hardware components outside of the case, preferably on a non-conductive static free surface. A wooden cutting board or worktable is perfect for this. Not plastic this rhymes with static. Not the living room rug. Not on the comforter of a bed. Not on a tile floor (off the floor altogether whenever possible).

Between these things and what you say you've tried thus far I think it' safe to rule out anything else as the problem.

With a little bit of luck, and the extra effort you put in, you may not need to buy anything to fix this.
But given the track record of your specific motherboard it's hard to say if the lucks run out or not.
I'd be happy to help out further if I am able.

So good luck to you! =)

ShutUp38 · Oct 1, 2016

I think my pc has finally given up on me, after 10 force restart attempts it won't even post... I really think it's really the mobo's problem, because I never had issues with prime95. The guy you mentioned above, he said he crash when he runs prime95, so it really kinda points to cpu related problems for him. Maybe I might find another motherboard to test out the cpu some day (if I can even find one), but now I've just given up on using my pc.

I surprisingly don't have any beep code speakers so I couldn't tell what's going on. I've heard of breadboarding, I don't think that would be possible because I NEED to have my graphics card connected in order to have a display. Even so, I already know it can freeze at bios, so I honestly think it's the motherboard at this point. What do you think?

I have a tad bit more information until this point that I want to point out. After the constant crashing, when I do managed to get my pc to work, I've noticed some of my games were not detected by steam. But when I check the steam directory, everything was there... Steam kept asking to download something I already have... Isn't that strange? It's like my pc crashed to the point until it doesn't remember what is what anymore... is it caused by the hardware of some sort? or just a software problem?

Btw, I want to ask you some questions about my issue from your experience.
1. What's the probability of a failing cpu?
2. Could it possibly be the gpu?
3. What are the odds of a faulty psu? (because I have no way of testing it)
4. Based on the current symptoms, are there multiple culprits or just one?

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