Game freezing unexpectedly?
Game freezing unexpectedly?
At first, I wanted to note that I've looked at other discussions and nothing has helped much. I've updated all my drivers, and I'm not sure if I installed anything new—probably not.
I'm not particularly technical, but my hardware is decent enough. I keep updating it, so please don't judge me harshly. I just hope to get clear answers here.
Specifications:
- i5-10400 @ 2.90 GHZ
- 8GB RAM
(I’m aware it’s not ideal for gaming, and I’m soon getting a second stick, but it hasn’t caused any issues so far.)
ADATA SU650 SSD (two units: one for daily use, another for games)
ST4000VX013-2XG104 HDD (only used for media storage)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX3060 GPU
I’m not sure what else to add, but if you start doubting my build choices, I’d like to remind you that this was originally a PC for online school. I just made minor updates recently to enable gaming.
I think it’s close to being a bottleneck, but I’ve had this GPU for about six months or so and it never stuttered before. I don’t recall making any changes except one evening when my game froze completely and restarted (?) The GPU didn’t respond with ctrl+shift+b. I updated the drivers to the latest version and checked everything else too. I also reinstalled Windows last winter, and I own a genuine Windows 10 Pro copy to prevent any malware or viruses. Speaking of that, I ran a full scan and went through each folder personally to check for anything suspicious. My CPU usage stays around 70-80% during gaming, and I monitor background processes closely—there’s no evidence of viruses.
I thought my power supply might be faulty, but I bought it last year. I don’t have any way to test it, it makes no unusual noises, and my PC remains dust-free as I take good care of it.
My next concern was whether the CPU could be too weak for the tasks. I always run Discord and Opera GX in the background while streaming YouTube, but my CPU usage isn’t excessively high.
I also considered overheating, but my PC temperature is usually between 60-70°C during games, and if the case gets hot enough to cook eggs, I stop using it.
My game SSD isn’t nearly full—my system SSD has 30GB free (it’s not much, but it used to be worse).
I’ve read almost every article on this topic, and none suggest any fixes that I haven’t already tried.
P.S.
The stutters are extremely long and annoying—the whole system can freeze for 10-20 seconds, with no sound, just a frozen screen.
It would be helpful if you also provide motherboard make / model and your PSU make / model as they can both have a big impact on performance and stability.
With regards to temp you say is 'approx. 60 - 70 degrees' - what measurement is that exactly? Thermal throttling would explain the issue you are describing, if your CPU is getting too hot it will drop clocks to prevent damage, which will lead to a big lag spike when it does. If you have had the machine for a few years its possible the thermal compound between the CPU and cooler might need changing. Motherboard VRM temps can also lead to thermal throttling if they get too hot, do you have any fans in your system besides the cpu cooler?
I suggest using the free CPUID HWMonitor tool to keep an eye on all temps in the system. Load that up then fire up a game - it lists all temp sensors in your system including cpu, motherboard and gpu temps. If any of them are getting above 80C or so that could indicate thermal throttling - HWMonitor also shows CPU clock speeds, so you can see if the CPU frequency drops when the stutters occur.