My computer experiences frequent screen freezes.
My computer experiences frequent screen freezes.
This problem has persisted for a while, worsening gradually. It mainly occurs during multiplayer sessions, but also appears in single-player games. The most affected games are Team Fortress 2 and Minecraft multiplayer servers. Here are some examples of the frame freezes I experience:
TF2 frame freeze
The situation has become so severe that it happens at least once every minute most of the time. Additional issues include:
- Silksong opens in windowed mode while OBS is running, causing the game to freeze entirely
- Paint.net freezes the display when saving images quickly
- Quake 2 with OBS recording leads to frame drops followed by complete freezes after roughly 10 seconds
- Chrome will freeze completely when trying to interact with it occasionally
I’ve checked RAM usage and found a maximum of 13GB, which shouldn’t be problematic. CPU and GPU activity during freezes are normal—CPU reaches up to 80°C, which is typical for this processor, and GPU stays below 65°C. The issue doesn’t seem to originate from my drives, as I store games across multiple SSDs and HDDs, with only one drive having limited space (the OS drive). Even then, the problems persisted.
I suspect the drivers might be the culprit, since I haven’t fully uninstalled them but have kept updating them over time. It’s not just the games themselves showing normal lag; they completely freeze Windows and cut off audio. I’ve checked BIOS settings and XMP is enabled, but that didn’t resolve anything. Upgrading to Windows 11 hasn’t helped yet, as I need to convert partitions from MBR to GPT for Secure Boot.
I’m not entirely sure what’s causing it, so I’d appreciate advice from others who might have similar experiences. Thank you.
So this is an issue that I've had for a long time, it has just been getting worse over time.
Please elaborate on your definition of long.
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800x w/ Liquid cooling
What is the make and model of your liquid cooler? Make an model of your case?
MOBO: Gigabyte b450m DS3H
What BIOS version are you on for your motherboard?
PSU: Rosewill CAPSTONE-850-M
How old is the PSU in your build?
OS: Windows 10 Home
What version are you on for your OS?
So I have checked to see if RAM is the issue, and the most RAM usage I will have is 13gb usage, so that shouldn't be an issue right?
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RAM: G.SKILL Aegis 16gb DDR4 3200mhz
32GB is now the standard since games will consume most of that ram. What does your ram usage look like after a cold boot?
With Task Manager open, can you identify any spikes or troughs in CPU or system resources?
I do not believe it is my GPU itself, since I had recently upgraded from the RX 5600xt to the 7700xt, and the issues were still there. It might be the drivers, because I have not tried to uninstall them completely, but rather constantly updated them over the years.
Did you run DDU prior to the GPU swap? If no, you're advised to run DDU in Safe Mode, to remove all GPU drivers(intel, Nvidia and AMD) then reboot and manually install the latest GPU driver sourced from AMD's support site, in an elevated command, i.e, Right click installer>Run as Administrator.
ReBar enabled in BIOS?
I wanted to see if upgrading to Windows 11 would fix the issue, but I haven't been able to do that yet as I need to convert my partitions from MBR to GPT to enable Secure Boot.
If you do upgrade to Windows 11 using the internal upgrade path, you'll need to reinstall the OS. If your license key isn't OEM, I'd advise just reinstalling the OS anew.