Freeze - Lockup

[Randy1]

Last night for the first time my screen froze twice.  Alt-tab failed as did the three finger salute.  Both times my only way out was pressing the computer power button for a restart.

I asked on vox and two others had the same problem last night albeit I am not sure they had exactly the same problem.

Any thoughts?

[The Fugitive]

Could be a heat issue. How clean is your rig? I try to clean mine out once a month. It's never too bad, but I can only imagine what it would look like after a few months. Clean inlets, fans, and screens with a brush and blow the crap out.

[Skuzzy]

It does sound like a typical heat or power related failure.

[Bizman]

Never Two Without Three... Heat.

As Fugi said, clean the inlets, fans and screens. If your case is equipped with dust filters, take them off for thorough cleaning. Don't forget to de-dust the Power Supply! Canned air comes in handy, but don't let it spin the fans too much. It's also a good idea to unplug the fans for cleaning since the airflow will make them act as wind turbines, feeding electricity to the motherboard instead of taking it.

[Randy1]

Cleaned it about a month ago.  Will check all the fans.  Thanks guys.

[Chalenge]

Randy, did you just change drivers? If so, and if you are using Nvidia (especially on W10) you want to make sure that the global settings "Power management mode" for the card are set to "Prefer maximum performance," and not "Adaptive."

[Randy1]

Randy, did you just change drivers? If so, and if you are using Nvidia (especially on W10) you want to make sure that the global settings "Power management mode" for the card are set to "Prefer maximum performance," and not "Adaptive."

No new drivers.  I have not installed w10 but will latter this year.   Good to know about the power setting.

[Chalenge]

I have used SLI for some time now, and I have yet to find a video game that plays well with the power set to "Adaptive." Also, you might want to check the Windows power profile you are using (in Control Panel).