It only slows down when not in a game session
It only slows down when not in a game session
Hello. This problem began unexpectedly, and I’m still trying to understand what’s going on. The computer tends to shut down at random, but not just when idle—it won’t crash under heavy use like gaming or stress tests, yet it does when I switch between Chrome tabs, click in Discord, or even just open windows. ^ I’ve performed many stress tests on CPU and GPU without any issues. ^ I ran a memory diagnostic on the system and found no errors. Recently, I upgraded to a brand new PC; everything except a few old HDDs from a previous build, has been fine. SPECS GPU is Nvidia ASUS RTX 4060, 8GB RAM, Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3200MHz, 32GB (16x2), PSU is CORSAIR CX650 80 PLUS Brown (650W). This replaced the 450W Corsair I had initially thought was the culprit. MOBO, MSI PRO B760-P DDR4 II ATX are also in use. *No overclocking has been done.*
To summarize, my PC often freezes a lot, especially when first turned on. Usually it’s either screen freezing for a moment or going black instantly. I can still hear friends in Discord for about a minute before they disconnect, and from another device I see the connection drop. YouTube videos only play briefly before cutting off, yet Discord remains audible. The Event Viewer shows no activity during normal operations: 1. Power on PC → screen goes black as if loading… doesn’t. 2. Disconnect and reconnect PSU → same result. 3. Turn off PSU → screen goes black again. 4. Repeated steps → eventually the system boots. Crash happens randomly, sometimes for a few seconds, sometimes immediately.
It usually takes only a day without a crash, or it can happen multiple times in a single day. I’ve tried:
- Swapping the PSU
- Cleaning internal components (DDU)
- Reinstalling Windows via USB (not resetting settings)
- Resetting BIOS settings or updating/flashing firmware
I’m still unsure if the problem is hardware-related or caused by software. If you’ve noticed anything similar, please let me know—especially if I missed something. I’ve been working on this for about 20 minutes with my GPU drivers uninstalled and haven’t experienced a crash yet, so it’s hard to tell what’s faulty.
I fixed the problem by addressing what seemed to be a motherboard issue. It appears the fourth PCIe slot was the culprit, so I moved my GPU to the lower PCIe 3 slot. Performance hasn't been affected noticeably.