Computer freeze, always while game minimized or running in background

GotNoRice

GotNoRice

[H]F Junkie
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Jul 11, 2001
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I'm having trouble figuring this one out. I can game all day long and my computer will never lock up as long as the game is not minimized or in the background. I don't have any issues when not gaming either. But when I am playing a game and I minimize it to do something else, or even when I just click on something on one of my side monitors, there is always a chance my computer will freeze/ lock up.

It doesn't do it every time, but every time my computer does lock up, it is when I'm gaming, and the game is in the background or minimized. It doesn't BSOD, the screen and audio will just freeze until I manually reboot.

I've tested my CPU, RAM, and SSD and all are fine. Seems odd that it only ever occurs under those specific circumstances, yet never while actually playing the game (not minimized, etc).

Any ideas?
 
Does it happen with specific games? Minimizing games is tricky to code for, and not everyone does it successfully or gracefully. Having Game Mode and fullscreen optimizations turned on with Windows 10 can minimize issues due to it forcing all games to run in a borderless window.
 
It happens the most often with World of Warcraft, but I'd guess probably because I put a lot of hours into that game and am often switching back and forth between other programs while playing such as clicking on links in Discord chat or switching over to my browser to watch a boss-fight video, etc. I've had it happen with other games such as FarCry 5 also.
 
When a lock up happens does the 'event viewer' have any pertinent information right after?
 
modi123 said:
When a lock up happens does the 'event viewer' have any pertinent information right after?
Click to expand...

No, just generic notifications that an unexpected shutdown occurred, etc.

TheFlayedMan said:
Does the freezing happen when the system is running at stock not overclocked?
Click to expand...

Yeah I've tried resetting bios to defaults so that my CPU is running stock and my RAM is running at stock non-XMP clocks, but it still locked up in the same way.

pendragon1 said:
sounds like its the gpu not switching power states correctly. try setting your power management to "prefer maximum" in nvidia settings.
https://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/ans...ent-mode-from-adaptive-to-maximum-performance
Click to expand...

Tried it, but unfortunately it still locked up under the same circumstances.



One odd thing is that this all began right about the time that I got a new AIO. My old Corsair H100i GTX died; thought it had a clog but turned out to have almost no liquid in it anymore so I ended up simply getting a new unit. Went with a bigger Cooler Master ML360R. Temps are fantastic now and my CPU doesn't overheat anymore even when running stress tests at max overclock for hours. No settings were changed in the bios or otherwise when I swapped out the AIO, but I never had this problem with locking up prior to that. My CPU would run very hot when using the broken H100i GTX, but because World of Warcraft uses less than half of the cores on my 5820K, I could still play that game without overheating (including minimizing it and doing all kinds of stuff). It would be weird if the AIO is at fault somehow given that I have no issues running stress tests, benchmarks, or actually playing a game, only issues while a game is minimized. The timing is hard to ignore though.

I also just tried doing a fresh windows install on a spare hard drive in case this was some kind of file corruption problem or software issue, but it still locked up the same way.
 
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