Perform freezing and crashing regardless of load conditions.
Perform freezing and crashing regardless of load conditions.
I built this setup in November 2020 and noticed the issue started in January 2021. Under heavy use, my system would freeze for 10–20 seconds, sometimes with faint distortion in audio, followed by a black screen while it stayed on. The DRAM error light appeared on the motherboard. After a hard shutdown and waiting 15–30 seconds, it would restart normally—immediately restarting usually caused it to skip to BIOS.
At first, I thought the problem was with the GPU. Over time, the symptoms worsened: only intense games triggered freezes, then even average titles caused issues. I managed to fix it by limiting the GPU to 70%/79°C using Zotac Firestorm (power and temp limits). Eventually, that didn’t help, so I lowered it to 60%. Now, at 60%/65°C, it still freezes after 5–10 minutes of gameplay.
CPU temperatures stay below 55°C most of the time, RAM stays stable near the limit, but GPU temps rarely exceed 75°C at 70%. No error logs appear in Event Viewer or monitoring tools—just occasional unexpected shutdowns after reboots. I’ve tested resetting overclocks, updating drivers, reseating RAM and GPU, changing power cables, updating BIOS, and even swapping the GPU or PSU. Nothing resolved the problem.
This seems to be a persistent hardware concern, possibly related to the GPU itself. I’m unsure if it’s due to dust, thermal issues, or something more fundamental. If you’re considering replacing it, I’d recommend checking the model number first—sometimes newer GPUs are better suited for this workload. Otherwise, you might want to explore community forums or manufacturer support for deeper diagnostics.