Built a New PC, short freezes on higher settings

Aug 21, 2018
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My build
AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor
MSI - B350 PC MATE ATX AM4 Motherboard
Cooler Master - MasterWatt 550W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply
Patriot Viper 4 8 GB
PowerColor Radeon RX 580 RED Dragon V2 Radeon RX580 Graphic Card 8192 MB
5400 RPM 320GB HDD
Arctic Pro 7 CPU Cooler
On lower end games its perfect however when playing fortnite at max settings whilst it reaches higher frames it freezes in short spikes notably during the starting stages of the game and stops deeper into the game.

Let's rule out the PSU. as these are not problems typical of a PSU issue.

On overwatch at max settings when there are several enemies on the scene in a 6v6 it freezes again in very short bursts during the fight making it hard to play properly during spikes.

Only high-end games i've tested so far. I would like to get this problem fixed as i am keen to really perfect my pc building skills.

I've checked temps on GPU seem very normal, however the gpu fans seem to overcompensate as it goes down to 50-60 during load due to the fans being on close to max.
GPU idle at 63-67?
CPU seems to have no issues either. 45-55 idle?

I would love any help reguarding this. And if you think you could more closely help me
I can send you my discord so we can work it out on private chat.
Any help would be massively appreciated.

Thank you.
 
Solution
How much system memory do you have? Please say atleast 16GB because that hdd of yours isn't doing you any favours if the games are offloading data into virtual memory.

Msi afterburner has a pagefile usage meter, check it's usage.
Actually, they are absolutely symptoms of a PSU issue, and your PSU is both a model that is known to have Teapo 85° caps on a unit that ought to have much higher rated caps. More importantly though is the fact that you are running a card that carries a 550w recommendation but is WELL KNOWN to draw significantly more than that as it ages. In fact, there is a well respected member here that just recently sampled his one year old RX580 pulling well over 600w from the socket on a Ryzen build, and he had similar problems. His power supply was a 550w Seasonic Prime Ultra Titanium. Upgrading to a higher capacity model of the same power supply completely cured his issues. Just something to think about.

Have you overclocked the graphics card?

How long has this card been in service?

It's probably worth noting that the PC Mate series of MSI motherboards doesn't have a very good track record on either Intel or AMD platforms from several generations. It's really not a board that has shown itself to be capable of handling significant or demanding usage, sometimes not even basic usage. They are just low quality to be honest. It wouldn't surprise me at all if it were causing or at least contributing to your issues.

Couple of things I start with.

1) Make sure you have the very latest bios version installed.

2) Make sure you have the latest AMD chipset and graphics card drivers installed, and if you have installed more than one version of the GPU card drivers, or do not have the latest version, then do a clean install of the latest drivers AFTER removing all the old driver framework and files using the Display driver uninstaller by Wagnard tools.

The AMD "clean install" option does not actually do a clean install, removing all previously installed AMD driver files. The DDU does.

 
Aug 21, 2018
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Nah mate sorry i quoted the wrong temps. Changed it now thanks for your response
 
Aug 21, 2018
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Not done a clean install. I just installed windows and got latest drivers.

I've not overclocked nor do i plan to overclock the perfomance i see right now is more than good enough.
I've had it for roughly a week.
That's as long as the GPU has been working as it is new.
Low quality? ,i didn't know that, i thought they all perform roughly the same and aren't likely to affect anything the same. But i just learned something new.
? i was on a budget and probably should have got an out of the box compatible motherboard for the extra £50.

I needed the latest bios to allow it to be compatible with ryzen 5 2600.

I am probably going to try to clean install the drivers like you said and have directed me.

Cheers for such a great response, waiting for more. would love to fix this quite quickly.
 
Idle temps are irrelevant. Max temps are what we need to be concerned with.

Idle temps don't matter, unless they are particularly high. People focus way too much on idle temps and even on Intel thermal sensors the low end of the spectrum is fairly inaccurate anyhow. Staying within spec for maximum temps is what matters.

Even if your idle temps were 50°C, so long as your maximum temps never exceed 80°C, you would be operating within the normal, safe thermal envelope. Granted, lower temps are more desirable, at the high end, to a point, but if your max temps running Prime95 version 26.6 on the Small FFT option are between 65-80°C then you are totally fine.

There is NO benefit to your system by having an idle temp of 30°C with a maximum temp of 75°C over having an idle temp of 45°C with a maximum temp of 75°C. So long as the maximum temp is the same, and is within spec, idle is irrelevant.

I would suggest that you run Prime95 version 26.6 (And ONLY version 26.6) on the Small FFT option to determine if in fact your Core Temp thermal envelope is compliant or out of spec. I'd also run HWinfo (NOT HWmonitor or Openhardware monitor) and verify whether the system is throttling the cores. Considering the entry level nature of the motherboard, it would not surprise me if, on a six core CPU with a PC mate motherboard, you were experiencing VRM or CPU throttling. That might not be the case, but I'd make sure before I said it wasn't.


Prime95 v26.6 is THE primarily accepted way to do the majority of baseline thermal compliance testing running the Small FFT option.

Prime95 Version 26.6 download


Wmonitor, Open hardware monitor, Realtemp, Speedfan, Windows utilities, CPU-Z and most of the bundled motherboard utilities are not always terribly accurate, invariably, and in some cases. Some are actually grossly inaccurate, especially with certain chipsets or specific sensors that for whatever reason they tend to not like or work well with. I've found HWinfo or CoreTemp to be the MOST accurate with the broadest range of chipsets and sensors. They are also almost religiously kept up to date.

CoreTemp is great for just CPU thermals including core temps or distance to TJmax on AMD platforms.

HWinfo is great for pretty much EVERYTHING, including CPU thermals, core loads, core temps, package temps, GPU sensors, HDD and SSD sensors, motherboard chipset and VRM sensor, all of it. Always select the "Sensors only" option when running HWinfo.

In cases where it is relevant and you are seeking help, then in order to help you, it's often necessary to SEE what's going on, in the event one of us can pick something out that seems out of place, or other indicators that just can't be communicated via a text only post. In these cases, posting an image of the HWinfo sensors or something else can be extremely helpful. That may not be the case in YOUR thread, but if it is then the information at the following link will show you how to do that:

*How to post images in Tom's hardware forums



Run HWinfo and look at system voltages and other sensor readings.

Monitoring temperatures, core speeds, voltages, clock ratios and other reported sensor data can often help to pick out an issue right off the bat. HWinfo is a good way to get that data and in my experience tends to be more accurate than some of the other utilities available. CPU-Z, GPU-Z and Core Temp all have their uses but HWinfo tends to have it all laid out in a more convenient fashion so you can usually see what one sensor is reporting while looking at another instead of having to flip through various tabs that have specific groupings.

After installation, run the utility and when asked, choose "sensors only". The other window options have some use but in most cases everything you need will be located in the sensors window. If you're taking screenshots to post for troubleshooting, it will most likely require taking three screenshots and scrolling down the sensors window between screenshots in order to capture them all.

It is most helpful if you can take a series of HWinfo screenshots at idle, after a cold boot to the desktop. Open HWinfo and wait for all of the Windows startup processes to complete. Usually about four or five minutes should be plenty. Take screenshots of all the HWinfo sensors.

Next, run something demanding like Prime95 version 26.6 or Heaven benchmark. Take another set of screenshots while either of those is running so we can see what the hardware is doing while under a load.

*Download HWinfo


For temperature monitoring only, I feel Core Temp is the most accurate and also offers a quick visual reference for core speed, load and CPU voltage:

*Download Core Temp

 
Supposedly they've improved the PC Mate boards for B350, but I'm still skeptical as previous generations have had very poor power phase and were known for problems with both the PCI lanes and VRMs on substantial or higher core count systems. It might be fine, but I'd STILL check thermals and make sure no throttling is going on, because it really sounds a lot like momentary throttling.

If thermals don't check out, it could be something as simple as a bad paste job or a CPU cooler that is either too tight or too loose.

Might also be worth double checking all cable connections, pull the RAM and reseat it. Reseat the graphics card. And if nothing else helps, you might end up wanting to pull the CPU cooler and CPU, to make sure there are no bent pins at all. Bent pins can cause anything from glitches and freezing to no display to just won't POST at all.

Also, I'm not saying that you "need" a new PSU, right now, but if you don't find any other problems or if you resolve this issue but start seeing other issues down the road, you'll want to look at whether you're pulling more than that unit can sustain reliably or not.

 

Rogue Leader

It's a trap!
Moderator
Are you seeing this issue only with online games? Or with single player games too?

Have you run MSI Afterburner and checked the telemetry? It has graphs showing fps and where everything is at the time. I'd be interested to see these framerate drops in there and how they correlate to the rest of the system. Often the issue will present itself right in there. Please do this and share with us the part when you have this freezing.
 

boju

Titan
Ambassador
How much system memory do you have? Please say atleast 16GB because that hdd of yours isn't doing you any favours if the games are offloading data into virtual memory.

Msi afterburner has a pagefile usage meter, check it's usage.
 
Solution

Rogue Leader

It's a trap!
Moderator


Good call on that. That tiny dog slow hard drive definitely could be causing issues if hes hitting virtual memory.
 
Honestly, I didn't even notice the laggard hard drive. That might be the first thing you want to do, after making sure the drivers and bios are all up to date, is either get a much larger/faster hard drive or an SSD. I second that good call on Boju. That could easily explain some hesitation and seeming to freeze.
 

boju

Titan
Ambassador
Thanks to both of you.

Johnkkoduah has edited op with an update on system memory now being 4x 8GB i think it means. Enough memory i would've thought to minimise pagefile but depending on game i suppose and when it decides to load from hdd during gameplay.
 

Rogue Leader

It's a trap!
Moderator


No I think he only has 8gb, Patriot Viper 4 is the model.
 
Even so, just that very small capacity HDD at only 5400rpm could cause some problems.

I'm seeing:

Get an SSD or faster hard drive with more space. Preferably a 7200rpm model with a large cache size. More preferably, an SSD. This will speed many things up.

Perform a clean install of the GPU card and chipset drivers.

Maybe move a few sliders to the left and see if the issue resolves itself.


Maybe think about returning that motherboard if possible and going with a little higher quality model. I've definitely seen differences in performance based on motherboard model, with higher end boards clearly having better gaming and high end application performance than low end models, especially under sustained conditions, contrary to the belief by some that the only difference among motherboards is the feature set.

As I said earlier, the PC Mate boards have seen a fairly high problem and failure rate HERE on Toms over the years, we've all seen this, despite the fact that those boards got ok reviews. The fact that only secondary or second rate review sites ever really decide to review those models might be an indicator as to the value of those reviews anyhow. Regardless, I've seen at least fifty or sixty cases of problems with this series of board from several generations which is enough for me to believe that overall they are problematic. This may not be YOUR problem, but it is certainly A problem in some cases.

I would think 8GB would be enough to not cause freezing, but perhaps not. A lot of games are wanting to see more than that especially if you are doing heavy multitasking like recording, streaming or have other demanding processes running at the same time.
 
Aug 21, 2018
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RIght i guess imgoing to have to wait till payday to get myself a samsung 860 evo. I'll update this thread once i get it.i've resteated everything and played with the standoffs to no avail. Ill see if that works.

THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR YOUR HELP

 


It would be a very good idea to do THIS, as Rogue leader suggested.
 
Aug 21, 2018
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Yeah it worked all the problems gone thanks for the help everyone.

Perfect and isntant boot. cheers for the help.
 
Aug 21, 2018
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Putting in the 860 Evo, literally fixed everything now runs all games fullspeed no freezing,
I guess the 5400 RPM hard drive couldn't keep up with the graphics.