Rog Strix III system freeze windows 11

[Stefan Deotschel]

Hi,

My ROG Strix III MSQG731G recently started freezing randomly. I can't find any pattern or anything that could cause this. It started when I updated Unreal Engine 5. There are other people having crashes since then. Some days it works fine. Other days it freezes every 5 minutes. It mostly freezes when I have a version of Unreal Engine 5 open but it sometimes also freezes when unreal isn't open. It doesn't make any sense.

I did a memory test but it didn't show any errors. Once a bluescreen appeared with "kernel security check failed" or similar which indicates a driver issue or some hardware problems. All other times the screen starts having squares all over and weird sound can be heart. I have to hold down the power button to shut down.

The event manager doesn't show anything significant before the crash. All standard events like windows update or power manager. A different event each time before the crash. So nothing that I can see could help.

I added extra memory to the system (16 to 32) and a 2TB harddrive but they were working for a year or longer. I doubt they are causing this.

Any ideas what this could be or how to trouble shoot it?

[world]

Hey Stefan,

A couple questions to kick off the troubleshooting process!
Are you overclocked or undercooked at all?
Are BIOS and drivers up-to-date?
How are your temps generally?

[Stefan Deotschel]

Hey Stefan,

A couple questions to kick off the troubleshooting process!
Are you overclocked or undercooked at all?
Are BIOS and drivers up-to-date?
How are your temps generally?

No it isn't overclocked. I use the fan key to switch between silent / performance and turbo. I have tried all modes. Even the windows mode.

Bios and drivers should be up to date. I checked them recently but I can check again if you want. I got the available drivers from the asus website. Date 12/Mai/2022

Temperature? It is fairly high. It can be close to 90 degrees or even higher as far as I remember. It's 86 max when I set it to turbo right now doing not much for applications.

I actually opened the laptop and cleaned the fans as good as it goes. I haven't tested it afterwards. They were dusty. There is also a bit of surface rust on the USB ports

Thanks

[Stefan Deotschel]

Cleaning the fans did reduce the temperature. However the freeze still happened again. Yesterday was ok all day. I did run a complete check in the MyAsus windows app. It didn't show any errors.

[Cojokek]

Install LatencyMon and check with it.

[Stefan Deotschel]

What am I looking for? - I reinstalled all drivers from the ASUS website because the main comment got red in the LatencyMon window. After that it stayed black but lots of errors. I post the conclusion here first:

__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
CONCLUSION
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
Your system seems to be having difficulty handling real-time audio and other tasks. You may experience drop outs,
clicks or pops due to buffer underruns. One or more DPC routines that belong to a driver running in your system
appear to be executing for too long. At least one detected problem appears to be network related. In case you are
using a WLAN adapter, try disabling it to get better results. One problem may be related to power management,
disable CPU throttling settings in Control Panel and BIOS setup. Check for BIOS updates.
LatencyMon has been analyzing your system for 0:16:58 (h:mm:ss) on all processors.


__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
SYSTEM INFORMATION
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
Computer name: LAPTOP-TQBBR31V
OS version: Windows 10, 10.0, version 2009, build: 22000 (x64)
Hardware: ROG Strix G731GW_G731GW, ASUSTeK COMPUTER INC.
CPU: GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9750H CPU @ 2.60GHz
Logical processors: 12
Processor groups: 1
RAM: 32617 MB total


__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
CPU SPEED
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
Reported CPU speed: 2592 MHz

Note: reported execution times may be calculated based on a fixed reported CPU speed. Disable variable speed
settings like Intel Speed Step and AMD Cool N Quiet in the BIOS setup for more accurate results.


__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
MEASURED INTERRUPT TO USER PROCESS LATENCIES
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
The interrupt to process latency reflects the measured interval that a usermode process needed to respond to a
hardware request from the moment the interrupt service routine started execution. This includes the scheduling and
execution of a DPC routine, the signaling of an event and the waking up of a usermode thread from an idle wait
state in response to that event.

Highest measured interrupt to process latency (µs): 1303.50
Average measured interrupt to process latency (µs): 6.501145

Highest measured interrupt to DPC latency (µs): 1293.80
Average measured interrupt to DPC latency (µs): 2.022393


__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
REPORTED ISRs
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
Interrupt service routines are routines installed by the OS and device drivers that execute in response to a
hardware interrupt signal.

Highest ISR routine execution time (µs): 707.666667
Driver with highest ISR routine execution time: Wdf01000.sys - Kernel Mode Driver Framework Runtime,
Microsoft Corporation

Highest reported total ISR routine time (%): 0.000781
Driver with highest ISR total time: Wdf01000.sys - Kernel Mode Driver Framework Runtime,
Microsoft Corporation

Total time spent in ISRs (%) 0.000789

ISR count (execution time <250 µs): 53822
ISR count (execution time 250-500 µs): 0
ISR count (execution time 500-1000 µs): 1
ISR count (execution time 1000-2000 µs): 0
ISR count (execution time 2000-4000 µs): 0
ISR count (execution time >=4000 µs): 0


__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
REPORTED DPCs
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
DPC routines are part of the interrupt servicing dispatch mechanism and disable the possibility for a process to
utilize the CPU while it is interrupted until the DPC has finished execution.

Highest DPC routine execution time (µs): 1223.086420
Driver with highest DPC routine execution time: dxgkrnl.sys - DirectX Graphics Kernel, Microsoft Corporation

Highest reported total DPC routine time (%): 0.011021
Driver with highest DPC total execution time: Wdf01000.sys - Kernel Mode Driver Framework Runtime,
Microsoft Corporation

Total time spent in DPCs (%) 0.034309

DPC count (execution time <250 µs): 418849
DPC count (execution time 250-500 µs): 0
DPC count (execution time 500-10000 µs): 139
DPC count (execution time 1000-2000 µs): 3
DPC count (execution time 2000-4000 µs): 0
DPC count (execution time >=4000 µs): 0


__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
REPORTED HARD PAGEFAULTS
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
Hard pagefaults are events that get triggered by making use of virtual memory that is not resident in RAM but
backed by a memory mapped file on disk. The process of resolving the hard pagefault requires reading in the memory
from disk while the process is interrupted and blocked from execution.

NOTE: some processes were hit by hard pagefaults. If these were programs producing audio, they are likely to
interrupt the audio stream resulting in dropouts, clicks and pops. Check the Processes tab to see which programs
were hit.

Process with highest pagefault count: chrome.exe

Total number of hard pagefaults 6761
Hard pagefault count of hardest hit process: 1872
Number of processes hit: 66


__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
PER CPU DATA
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
CPU 0 Interrupt cycle time (s): 13.316617
CPU 0 ISR highest execution time (µs): 707.666667
CPU 0 ISR total execution time (s): 0.096388
CPU 0 ISR count: 53823
CPU 0 DPC highest execution time (µs): 1223.086420
CPU 0 DPC total execution time (s): 3.414452
CPU 0 DPC count: 308858
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
CPU 1 Interrupt cycle time (s): 9.396908
CPU 1 ISR highest execution time (µs): 0.0
CPU 1 ISR total execution time (s): 0.0
CPU 1 ISR count: 0
CPU 1 DPC highest execution time (µs): 389.489969
CPU 1 DPC total execution time (s): 0.021580
CPU 1 DPC count: 4016
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
CPU 2 Interrupt cycle time (s): 8.690862
CPU 2 ISR highest execution time (µs): 0.0
CPU 2 ISR total execution time (s): 0.0
CPU 2 ISR count: 0
CPU 2 DPC highest execution time (µs): 701.131173
CPU 2 DPC total execution time (s): 0.109301
CPU 2 DPC count: 17291
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
CPU 3 Interrupt cycle time (s): 9.076413
CPU 3 ISR highest execution time (µs): 0.0
CPU 3 ISR total execution time (s): 0.0
CPU 3 ISR count: 0
CPU 3 DPC highest execution time (µs): 508.815586
CPU 3 DPC total execution time (s): 0.042781
CPU 3 DPC count: 7776
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
CPU 4 Interrupt cycle time (s): 7.857585
CPU 4 ISR highest execution time (µs): 0.0
CPU 4 ISR total execution time (s): 0.0
CPU 4 ISR count: 0
CPU 4 DPC highest execution time (µs): 666.691358
CPU 4 DPC total execution time (s): 0.093107
CPU 4 DPC count: 17147
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
CPU 5 Interrupt cycle time (s): 7.233253
CPU 5 ISR highest execution time (µs): 0.0
CPU 5 ISR total execution time (s): 0.0
CPU 5 ISR count: 0
CPU 5 DPC highest execution time (µs): 812.31250
CPU 5 DPC total execution time (s): 0.020214
CPU 5 DPC count: 2808
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
CPU 6 Interrupt cycle time (s): 7.329362
CPU 6 ISR highest execution time (µs): 0.0
CPU 6 ISR total execution time (s): 0.0
CPU 6 ISR count: 0
CPU 6 DPC highest execution time (µs): 666.808642
CPU 6 DPC total execution time (s): 0.134091
CPU 6 DPC count: 21985
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
CPU 7 Interrupt cycle time (s): 6.734550
CPU 7 ISR highest execution time (µs): 0.0
CPU 7 ISR total execution time (s): 0.0
CPU 7 ISR count: 0
CPU 7 DPC highest execution time (µs): 579.428241
CPU 7 DPC total execution time (s): 0.023518
CPU 7 DPC count: 3225
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
CPU 8 Interrupt cycle time (s): 7.194340
CPU 8 ISR highest execution time (µs): 0.0
CPU 8 ISR total execution time (s): 0.0
CPU 8 ISR count: 0
CPU 8 DPC highest execution time (µs): 903.597222
CPU 8 DPC total execution time (s): 0.081645
CPU 8 DPC count: 10689
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
CPU 9 Interrupt cycle time (s): 9.329479
CPU 9 ISR highest execution time (µs): 0.0
CPU 9 ISR total execution time (s): 0.0
CPU 9 ISR count: 0
CPU 9 DPC highest execution time (µs): 725.679784
CPU 9 DPC total execution time (s): 0.116121
CPU 9 DPC count: 11404
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
CPU 10 Interrupt cycle time (s): 8.280218
CPU 10 ISR highest execution time (µs): 0.0
CPU 10 ISR total execution time (s): 0.0
CPU 10 ISR count: 0
CPU 10 DPC highest execution time (µs): 278.172068
CPU 10 DPC total execution time (s): 0.113065
CPU 10 DPC count: 11686
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____
CPU 11 Interrupt cycle time (s): 7.091402
CPU 11 ISR highest execution time (µs): 0.0
CPU 11 ISR total execution time (s): 0.0
CPU 11 ISR count: 0
CPU 11 DPC highest execution time (µs): 661.239969
CPU 11 DPC total execution time (s): 0.022159
CPU 11 DPC count: 2106
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ _____

[Stefan Deotschel]

[Stefan Deotschel]

Looks like all the problems are caused by Microsoft drivers or processes. Should I go back to windows 10? Is the Laptop not really well suited for windows 11?

[Cojokek]

Looks like all the problems are caused by Microsoft drivers or processes. Should I go back to windows 10? Is the Laptop not really well suited for windows 11?

I would go back to Windows 10 until the big update on Windows 11

[Stefan Deotschel]

A few more thoughts:

I have the laptop in the car most of the time so it gets a lot of vibrations. It might be something loose inside. I can't see anything though. Sometimes I work for a couple of hours and then I move the laptop and it freezes the moment I move it. But then other times I can shake it and nothing happens.

The whole latency thing might not be great but it might also be not the reason for the problem. I have worked with the laptop under windows 11 for months without the slightest problem. Until I installed an updated version of Unreal 5. This might be a coincidence. Because first it only crashed while using Unreal 5 but now I have it crashing/freezing sometimes if it only runs hardware monitor and latency monitor.

So maybe its even a combination of things. Loose hardware or defective hardware that only causes occasionally problems. Returning to factory state would be something of a last option. But I get the feeling it will happen even then. Anyway - I'll have to reset it eventually I guess just to make sure where the problem is.

Anyone knows if a repair would be possible? It's a $ 3000 laptop so it should be able to get repaired, or?