Question Intel Alder lake - FREEZING problems?

[Kocicak]

I got lured from AMD to Intel with a high single thread performance (and the coindidence of my AMD motherboard breaking and also four m.2 slots on the Gigabyte Z690 board being very useful), but my computer with 12600K, Gigabyte Z690 Gaming X DDR4 and Windows 11 keeps freezing, it happened for the third time now in a few months.

I tried looking in an event logger but the only thing visible is me shutting down the computer, nothing before that.

Does anybody know what is the cause for this? Is it there some setting I need to change or is it some hardware issue?

 

[Tech Junky]

System doesn't seem to be freezing but probably the GPU. Check the drivers and run DDU to purge everything and reinstall.

I run 12700k with Linux 24/7 without any issues and my laptop 12700h with some minor quirks I'm still chasing but, neither freezes.

Windows is a pita no matter the system though. Check for any BIOS updates as well.

 

[Kocicak]

I do not have an extra GPU at all, I run the graphic card in the processor.

BTW if I remember correctly it froze every time while browsing the web, no high stress on anything.

 

[tamz_msc]

Could be anything - RAM, GPU drivers, power supply, motherboard. Really hard to pinpoint without the freezing being somewhat reproducible.

 

[Kocicak]

I have no idea how to troubleshoot something that happens so infrequently. I also have no spare parts available.

I am not sure if all the drivers are up to date, but I updated the bios after the second freeze, if I remember correctly.

The only info I have now is that it happens with little/no load on anything.

 

[Dave3000]

What speed is your DDR4? Alder Lake is not guaranteed to be stable on anything above 3200 for DDR4 as running above 3200 for DD4 is considered "overclocking" for Alder Lake.

 

[Kocicak]

It runs at 3600 MHz. It does not seem as any extremelly high speed to me. Could this be the reason?

In the meantime I found just a few reports about Alder lake freezing on the internet, but no definitive conclusions.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Yeah, seems Alder Lake has some "gremlins" still. Or, at least a greater number of new platform problems than most Intel users are used to. (Remember, a while back, Intel let go their validation engineering staff.)

 

[Dave3000]

It runs at 3600 MHz. It does not seem as any extremelly high speed to me. Could this be the reason?

In the meantime I found just a few reports about Alder lake freezing on the internet, but no definitive conclusions.

It might be the reason. Your CPU's memory controller might not be able to run DDR4-3600 reliably and I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case as that's way out of spec for that CPU. Did you try lowering the speed manually in the BIOS to 3200 or even just running the RAM without setting it to the XMP profile and just using Auto setting for the RAM?

 

[scannall]

It runs at 3600 MHz. It does not seem as any extremelly high speed to me. Could this be the reason?

In the meantime I found just a few reports about Alder lake freezing on the internet, but no definitive conclusions.

Is there anything in your Event Viewer log?

 

[Kocicak]

Wow, it just happened again, the only error I see before the critical error (shutting the computer down) is some Application popup error:

 

[Shmee]

May as well start going through the basics of troubleshooting. Start with memtest86, then maybe CPU stress test etc.

 

[Dave3000]

Wow, it just happened again, the only error I see before the critical error (shutting the computer down) is some Application popup error:

View attachment 66054

Was that happening with your RAM underclocked to 3200?

 

[Kocicak]

No, I just confirmed that I have still an old F7 BIOS and left RAM at 3600MHz.

I already checked new bioses and I am not sure if I should update to the newest with support for next gen processors, or the one before that, because I do not think I will be buying such processor soon.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Gigabyte mobos do that. I know. I'm on my third (and thankfully, most stable one so far). Run the Windows built-in memory test. If the quick test passes successfully, do the full test. If both pass, it's not the RAM. My Z77 mobo used to bluescreen randomly while browsing. Found out by accident that it was a third party free anti-virus causing it so removed it. The bluescreens became infrequent and but they did happen still and mostly when the system was idling. I never ran a full RAM test on that system but I think my Corsair RAM was to blame coz that same RAM gave me no end of headaches on my Z97 mobo and Windows RAM diagnostics test would also fail. Finally changing the RAM to Kingston brought stability back to my kingdom.

 

[igor_kavinski]

the one before that

Try it first. If that doesn't work, downclock the RAM to 3200 MHz since that's supposed to be the stable clockspeed for all Alder Lake CPUs.

 

[Kocicak]

I use this set of RAM: Kingston KF436C18BBK2/32.

Gigabyte mentions improving compatibility with RAM with Samsung D dies in their recent BIOS update, i tried to look in the spec sheet of this RAM set what dies it uses but it is not writtten there.

 

[Thunder 57]

I use this set of RAM: Kingston KF436C18BBK2/32.

Gigabyte mentions improving compatibility with RAM with Samsung D dies in their recent BIOS update, i tried to look in the spec sheet of this RAM set what dies it uses but it is not writtten there.

Nobody cares what RAM you are using. If the memory controller can't handle it, it won't work. Troubleshooting 101, run everything at stock.

 

[Kocicak]

I updated the bios and lowered RAM frequency to 3400 MHz. I also ran the Windows memory test before the changes and it went well (standard setting). And now I just wait, days or weeks, if it worked. Months? I hate this.

Anyway, thanks everybody for the input, so far. Hope I will not be back again.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Few more things you could try if it freezes again:

Disable hyperthreading.

Disable e-cores.

Disable low power sleep states.

Check other ACPI/power related settings in BIOS and disable any that you don't need or care about.

Use some cheap discrete graphics card and disable the onboard graphics in BIOS (if possible) or disable in Device Manager.

Check the services list and disable any services you don't need.

 

[Shmee]

I updated the bios and lowered RAM frequency to 3400 MHz. I also ran the Windows memory test before the changes and it went well (standard setting). And now I just wait, days or weeks, if it worked. Months? I hate this.

Anyway, thanks everybody for the input, so far. Hope I will not be back again.

Windows memory test, afaik, is not very thourough, which is why you want to use something like Memtest86.

 

[Kocicak]

It froze again, 20 minutes ago, while viewing this forum in Firefox browser.

BTW the motherboard has a new revision now.

 

[igor_kavinski]

If you have a spare M.2 SSD, do a fresh install on that and see if the problem occurs again. That way, you can rule out Windows issues. If you don't have or want to use a spare SSD, try doing sfc /scannow.

You may also want to try this: How to use DISM command tool to repair Windows 10 image | Windows Central