Freezing during gameplay (variation in occurrence)
Freezing during gameplay (variation in occurrence)
Hello,
I've observed in the past few days that I sometimes experience brief freezing or stuttering while playing games (such as Black Myth and Jedi Survivor), usually when switching areas. At first, I thought it might just be a loading issue, especially since I use an NVME drive. But things got much worse last night. Even after restarting, my game would freeze for about ten seconds before stuttering out completely.
With RTSS enabled, the performance remained smooth for over 100 frames. RAM usage was around 15GB, while the task manager reported approximately 8GB. Both CPU and GPU temperatures stayed within normal ranges, around 70s. The GPU usage also decreased significantly during those freezes.
I’m curious about possible causes. Notably, the third RAM slot on my motherboard seems faulty. I’m not sure if this indicates a broader problem. Additionally, I’ve been hearing an unusual whining or beeping noise over the past couple of weeks, though I can’t pinpoint its origin—whether it’s from the hard drive, fan bearings, or coil whine.
On another note, I had a minor freeze while uploading an image to share, but outside gaming this has been rare.
EDIT: I also experienced several freezes while running Malwarebyted and Windows Defender. Perhaps that was just a coincidence of trying to run multiple scans at once.
I’ve taken steps like disabling D.O.C.P., playing games on another SSD (World of Warcraft), and moving some files from my M.2 to SSD. These attempts didn’t fully resolve the issue.
My current setup includes:
- Zotac 3080ti OC
- 5800x3D graphics card
- Asrock b450f motherboard
- WD Blue SN550 1TB SSD
- Viper Patriot Steel 2x8GB at 3600MHz DDR4
- Seasonic Focus Plus platinum 750W
- Some older HDD and SDD storage
Any suggestions would be appreciated!
monitor gpu and cpu activity during freezing or stuttering
track temperatures throughout the issue
For reference, the CPU ran around 4400 MHZ and the GPU about 1900 MHZ. Temperatures remained between 65-70 degrees, occasionally dropping slightly on both sides.
I suspect the problem might be with the two very old HDDs I had when I first assembled my PC ten years ago. Even though I only use them for storing game files and haven’t played them recently, I think one of them could be failing. After unplugging them, I restarted the system, booted back up to Star Wars, and experienced no freezes—just some minor stuttering when loading new areas. When I rebooted again, after about five seconds in the game, there was a noticeable freeze. After reinserting the drives, the issue disappeared within 10-15 minutes.
It’s strange that unplugging them helped since no data was being used at the time (as far as I knew). But these drives are extremely old.
Thank you for taking the time to reply.