Clock stops, PC freezes entirely

[OVERKILL]

Ill check it over for sure in a little bit.

What baffles me, is despite losing power to all USB ports, there's still video output to both monitors, although the entire screen is frozen including the clock being stopped at whatever time it froze up.

That's pretty normal with a hard lock.

It's definitely not the CMOS battery, the clock is freezing because the whole unit is bricked at that point, it's a symptom of the freeze, not a clue.

I tend to agree with others who have hinted at it possibly being a power problem.

Question: Does it freeze when you are using it, or only when it's left idle? Usually, if it's power related, that manifests under load, while it sounds like this is happening when it is idle. Is the computer set to go to sleep at all?

 

[cwilliamsws6]

That's pretty normal with a hard lock.

It's definitely not the CMOS battery, the clock is freezing because the whole unit is bricked at that point, it's a symptom of the freeze, not a clue.

I tend to agree with others who have hinted at it possibly being a power problem.

Question: Does it freeze when you are using it, or only when it's left idle? Usually, if it's power related, that manifests under load, while it sounds like this is happening when it is idle. Is the computer set to go to sleep at all?

Only at idle, and its usually at some time overnight or very rarely during the day while I'm at work. Not set for sleep mode at all.

 

[OVERKILL]

Only at idle, and its usually at some time overnight or very rarely during the day while I'm at work. Not set for sleep mode at all.

Can you run a CPU stress test on it, see if you can get it to freeze? HP usually ships their units with a diagnostic utility that can do some basic tests and this is one of them.

 

[Killer223]

Sounds like a driver problem, the computer going to sleep or suspend mode? try changing the power setting to stay awake for ever and see if problem continues.
unplug any external drives and devices.
a way to force the issue is select sleep from the start menu, see if it freezes.

 

[Skippy722]

Try disabling C states in BIOS. A lot of people were having this problem lately on both Intel and AMD CPU’s.

 

[Bladecutter]

I chased a problem on my wife's work pc (AMD Ryzen) for a while for the usb system just locking up randomly.
Final resolution was the power supply, after replacing/upgrading memory, cpu, cpu cooler, and video card.

 

[cwilliamsws6]

Can you run a CPU stress test on it, see if you can get it to freeze? HP usually ships their units with a diagnostic utility that can do some basic tests and this is one of them.

I've benchmarked it and stress tested it like 8 times on max settings and it worked just fine. Not aware of it having any built in utilities but I'll check it out

 

[OVERKILL]

I've benchmarked it and stress tested it like 8 times on max settings and it worked just fine. Not aware of it having any built in utilities but I'll check it out

Stupid question, but have to checked to see if there is a BIOS update for it?

 

[cwilliamsws6]

Stupid question, but have to checked to see if there is a BIOS update for it?

I have, and there is not

 

[cwilliamsws6]

I checked all the settings, it's set to never go asleep it's supposed to be always on. I'll try turning it on and see if it still freezes up overnight or when I'm at work.

Since I've already replaced everything else short of the motherboard and processor, if it continues I'll go ahead and throw a power supply at it next.

 

[OVERKILL]

I checked all the settings, it's set to never go asleep it's supposed to be always on. I'll try turning it on and see if it still freezes up overnight or when I'm at work.

Since I've already replaced everything else short of the motherboard and processor, if it continues I'll go ahead and throw a power supply at it next.

I have an HP workstation at a buddy's that was doing the same thing, but I could get it to freeze running the UEFI Memtest86 10.5. It would pass Memtest86+, pass CPU stress tests...etc.

Case is open with HP to replaced the board/CPU, but what temporarily solved it was to switch it from dual channel to single channel, lol. Just moving the one stick of RAM to be adjacent to the other, breaking dual channel operation.

 

[cwilliamsws6]

I have an HP workstation at a buddy's that was doing the same thing, but I could get it to freeze running the UEFI Memtest86 10.5. It would pass Memtest86+, pass CPU stress tests...etc.

Case is open with HP to replaced the board/CPU, but what temporarily solved it was to switch it from dual channel to single channel, lol. Just moving the one stick of RAM to be adjacent to the other, breaking dual channel operation.

I ran the built-in memtest in the BIOS and Memtest86+ both ran flawlessly.

The motherboard in this PC only has two RAM slots but I suppose I could remove one of the sticks and see if anything changes...

 

[OVERKILL]

I ran the built-in memtest in the BIOS and Memtest86+ both ran flawlessly.

The motherboard in this PC only has two RAM slots but I suppose I could remove one of the sticks and see if anything changes...

Ahhh, OK, different board then, this one has 4x slots.

As I noted, the interesting bit with this system was that it would pass Memtest86+ just fine, I let it run for 27 hours, no problem. BUT, the UEFI version of Memtest86 10.5 would make it freeze.