PC freeze with buzzing sound?

I’m having an odd issue with the desktop computer and at this point after trying numerous things (listed below) I’m kind of at a loss as to what is the cause.

Basically what happens is the entire system will freeze for 3-4 mins. After which it will unfreeze and proceed to “catch up” on those 3-4 mins by fast-forwarding any video that was running during that time. The fast-forward only lasts a few seconds. There are no blue screens, no restarts, nothing out of the ordinary that I notice anyway… In the case of some games, they crash to desktop (CTD) after the system unfreezes. While the freeze is ongoing, there is a very irritating buzzing sound. Here’s a video I managed to capture of the last few moments of a freeze:



The freezes are completely random. Sometimes not freezing for days, other times it will freeze several times in an hour. The freezes occur even when nothing else but internet browsing is being done on the computer.

System specs:

Spoiler

ASUS P8-Z68 V-PRO motherboard

I7 2600k OC’d to 4.5Ghz @1.350V

16GB (4x4) Corsair Vengeance Blue 1.5V CL9 @1600

Asus ROG STRIX 1080 A8G

Samsung 850 256GB (Windows 7 Ultimate)

Western Digital Black 6TB

Corsair HX1000W Modular PSU

Over the past few months I’ve upgraded some components and the problem persists so we can eliminate SSD/HDD/GPU from the culprits.

Things I’ve tried:

Spoiler

Lowered CPU overclock in increments of 100 down to 4.0Ghz without changing the 1.350 static voltage.

Lowered CPU to 4.0Ghz and voltage to 1.270.

Temperatures are well within the norm, CPU never breaks 74C, usually below 70 in gaming.

Ran Intel Processor Diagnostics Tool and it passed



Ran memtest86 and 0 errors


Cloned SSD and HDD to new drives

Tried different SATA port on the mobo with different controllers (Intel vs Marvell)

Tried different power cables for the sata drives

Tried switching around the sata cables of the system drive and the storage drive.

Replaced GPU

Reinstall graphics driver with DDU first

No GeForce Experience installed

Ran OCCT and it passed

At this point the parts from the PC that still remain the same as 5 years ago when I assembled it, are the RAM, CPU, mobo, and PSU.

Still kind of leaning towards the CPU being the problem, since I’ve read that prolonged use of high voltage destabilizes it over time. But all tests show there’s nothing wrong with it? Any ideas?

 

Also why should we log into youtube to see the video? Anytime I see that I decide otherwise. If you didn't OC the CPU - I doubt the problem is CPU but more towards RAM problem as the main culprit. iNtel CPU are very stable for the i-series lines unless you been having issues prior to this but iNtel CPU isn't the problem here.

 

Oh, that's weird, I'll try to fix it so it doesn't want login. Not sure what happened there.

 

Now I can see it...that is some bad lags...is that the laptop or desktop that is it happening on?

 

Try resetting all OC clocks and voltages and reseating your RAM. Check for any other loose connections.

 

This is on the desktop.

Tried resetting OC and it still happens. I have not yet tried reseating the ram though, will give that a go over the weekend.

 

OK otherwise uninstall your GPU driver and reinstall the latest and see what that does as well. So does this happen if your not gaming-like watching Youtube video?

 

I had been battling this issue for years and it will still happen time to time for no apparent reason but only for 1-2 seconds at a time and no crashing.

When I was battling the problem, I approached it much the same way you did. Personally, I swapped out GPUs, different driver revisions w/ and w/o clean installs, OS reinstalls, RAM, Drives, just about everything I could swap and test was done and the problem kept on coming back. I don't think I ever found a solution to it all. I ended up building a new system from scratch and now only have the brief periods of freezing once every few months. It's the weirdest thing because it appears to be extremely rare when searching online and when other people would see it happening they'd be perplexed as well.

Ultimately, it has to come down to the CPU or motherboard as I'm 95% those are the only two things I hadn't swapped out.

 

I included a list of things I tried under a [spoiler tag] but I'm not sure if you can see it unless you're viewing the site on a pc and not a phone. But yes, I already tried reinstalling the driver. This issue has been happening for 8 months now, so I've tried multiple drivers over that time. And yep it happens when just watching youtube videos and not playing anything.

I fear that it's probably the motherboard. The latest drivers for that are years old and maybe they don't play nice with recent windows 7 updates anymore. Or modern components such as the gpu and ssd. Unfortunately there is no way to update the drivers anymore. ASUS does not list any newer drivers on their website and trying to install unbranded drivers from station-drivers site gives me a blue screen.

 

I doubt it's even the motherboard drivers themselves actually. My setup was on a Z68 Asus board with 2x GTX 280 (told you it's been years) in SLI. It could very well be beyond those components and I kept on replicating the variables of causing it inadvertently but I purposely left a clean install clean save for a "safe" driver install from Nvidia and a couple games to play. With having everything replaced at one point or another and for it keep popping up I still am just lost as to what the true cause was. I literally spent about 3 years researching this off and on trying different ideas to no avail.

 

Yeah I've kinda been "tolerating" it for the past 8 months. But I decided to ask for help and see if by some freak chance someone knows a solution. Like you, googling for answers did not give me any workable results.

 

Yeah, definitely interested if anybody chimes in with that. This is probably the only thing I've been completely unable to resolve in the entire time I've been in computers.

 

If you have a spare harddrive, maybe try Win10 and see if you have any luck with it? I don't much like it as an OS but it raised my wife's notebook like Lazarus, when it crashed constantly with Win7. IIR, you can try Win10 for two weeks before registering it.

 

I've gone to great lengths to avoid win10 until it matures enough and i am forced into using it because all my software will require it.

For now I've loaded Optimized Defaults in the bios and will report on how this goes in a few days.

Worth noting is i noticed my ram speed dropped to 1333 from the rated 1600 after i loaded the optimized defaults. Strange. This is Corsair Vengeance Blue 4x4GB 1600 1.5V ram.

 

You got a really nasty problem happening there. Have you tried to swap the Asus with another Nvidia GPU that matches the 1080 to see that the GPU isn't the cause because a Youtube freezing would indicate GPU video playback problem? And since the 1080 just came out that doesn't rule out that is could also be the cause as well. I only have a MSI GTX970OC but like to upgrade to MSI GTX1070OC if there is one as I don't game at HD levels but just like to be able to see how Nvidia 1000 series works for me.

If I was you I wait til they release Window 10 Sp1 before going W10-don't be the genuine pig like others are doing now. And the drop in your RAM is troubling here tells me the Ram isn't stable at 1600 if that is what it is rated for and that should be a email to Corsair to ask them what is happening here.

 

Yes, the GPU has been replaced. I used a GTX 570 before. And the problem still happened.

I decided to try something new: I'm gonna increase the memory controller voltage, the VCCIO in the BIOS. Let's see if this helps.

 

Any updates? Did that help?

Sent from my LG-H850 using Tapatalk

 

Sadly it did not
I increased the VCCIO to 1.1V and it still happened. Increased to 1.2V and it still happened. Set it to Auto and it still happened (Auto appears to be 1.05V). Tried with frequency of 1333 and 1600 and it still happened. Changed Command Rate to 2 and it still happened.

Now I'm trying something else. Took out 1 stick and down to 3 sticks now for a total of 12GB. Let's see if it still happens. Trying with 1333 first.

 

Well just happened again with only 3 sticks of ram (12GBs total).... Underclocked to 1333. And reseated, so that can also be checked off as a cause

 

Man you got a gnome of a problem here. Have you take it to a shop to have them run some test on it?

 

I don't know what kind of test a shop could run that I haven't run myself already. Just waste of money in my opinion. Also I can't drive, so I would have to ask someone to drive me and the computer if I were to do that.

 

Did you check that all motherboard connections are completely tight?

 

They could possibly swap out the motherboard, PSU, or any other component and see if that is the issue. If I can't troubleshoot my PC I take it to my shop and they will try everything. This only happened once, when I had a dead motherboard, but they had me up and running again in under a week.

 

This will help no one and are there no one there that can help you with transport? You have to think outside of the box when all the things you done haven't given a resolution you know. Also unless you run a computer fix it shop you don't know or have their hardware or software at their disposal to test what and where the problem is coming from.

 

Seconded, getting a tech's hands on your hardware is always worth the trouble of arranging transport at this point.