Weird Issues involving Random Freezes+Non-Responsive Programs/System

My PC is about 2 years old. I don't remember having this issue initially but it started occurring about 6 months or so into it's use.

It usually happens when I'm playing normal PC games. (I tried playing a full screen game in a window and it also happened once like this too.) When I play emulator games on their own (Bluestacks/LD Player) it doesn't seem to happen. If I'm running a normal PC game + emulator games it happens randomly.

(And by randomly--I mean that--on average--it happens once every few weeks or sometimes once a month or so.)

Basically, one of two things will occur.

1. The game I'm playing will crash. If I try to reload it it just insta-crashes without loading. Task manager will either not open at all--or it will open and half the stuff in the list will be missing.
2. Browsers will lock up and/or if I try to open a new browser or tab--the area where it says what's on the tab will be replaced by a full line like this:

============ (It will be a solid line though--not with ='s)

3. If I try to load any new program--it won't load at all and it will instant crash--regardless of what it is.
4. I get no error messages at all or PC lag or anything obvious and noticeable.
5. If I'm running a PC game and I have an emulator or two open--like Bluestacks/LD Player/etc., the emulator and game on it will still run alright until I close it. Then, the emulators won't load again either.

6. If I try to shut down the PC--it will hang, the cursor will spin "Busy" and I have to physically reboot it via the power button.
7. This occurs completely at random. Sometimes, I can use the PC for 1-2 months without it happening. Other times, it happens 2x in a row in the same day.

(So far, I've gone 1 week without it happening. When it last happened, it happened twice in a day and then prior to that--I went almost 3 months without it.)

I ran the full system file scan thing last year. It said it found some corrupted data and repaired it. This did nothing to stop this issue though. Device Manager shows nothing unusual. I have up-to-date GPU drivers.

I have no idea how to diagnose this issue. It's driving me nuts because it's so random but whenever it occurs--I have to physically reboot the system or it will just become dysfunctional and partially non-responsive.

Reset graphic card settings from graphics card control panel if its AMD also reset Shader Cache and reboot your system.

In this guide, you will learn the steps to perform a clean boot on Windows 11 and Windows 10 to help you troubleshoot and determine conflicts in your setup.

I agree with using clean boot but since it happens so seldom and randomly it would be hard to run in clean boot for an indefinite period of time waiting on it to happen just as you can't know if any other troubleshooting steps helps the situation without just waiting to see if it happens again..

Troubleshooting should always be done with all overclocking turned off.

Look in Reliability Monitor and Event Viewer at the time of the freeze to see if it will lead you to the cause. Though you are not having BSOD, if any logs are being created at the time of these crashes, gather them per these instructions, zip them, upload the zipped file to any cloud provider, and share a link here so @zbook or one of the others can analyze them. If logs are being generated they can advise you better how to proceed better than I can.. BSOD - Posting Instructions

Otherwise, Here are general suggestions of things to try, though, in no particular order.

1. I always jump to updating graphics card and graphics software right off the bat. What I find strange though is there has been no update for that particular card on Gigabytes site since 2021 while on Nvidia's site it has been updated multiple times since then, the last being this past month. Always use DDU in safe mode to remove both drivers and Nvidia software. Then restart in normal mode and install most current driver/software.

2. Update UEFI bios

3. Make sure you have no corrupt system files that is causing this problem. Open a command prompt as administrator and type sfc /scannow
Pay attention to the scan results to see if SFC found anything it could not repair. If it found corruption it could not fix followup with this command (note the spaces)
dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
Restart computer

4. Test your ram using Memtest86, running at least 8 passes.

5. Monitor your temps.

6. Do a repair install. Repair Install Windows 11 with an In-place Upgrade Tutorial

glasskuter said:

6. Do a repair install. Repair Install Windows 11 with an In-place Upgrade Tutorial

Click to expand...

I would agree with this step. It is fairly easy, and you don’t loose any of your files. However, try the graphics-related aforementioned options first; but don’t do anything too obtrusive before an In-place upgrade.

I installed newer drivers sometime in the middle of the year to see if it would fix it. It didn't. I'm using Nvidia 531.61, Driver Type: DHC (and Nvidia's control panel lists all sorts of other stuff that may or may not matter at all.) I don't Overclock stuff that I know of. I've never really adjusted the GPU with software since getting a working one. (The First one arrived dead on arrival and had to be RMA'ed because it was causing pink lines and system reboots lol.)

You can run a Clean Boot and leave it this way. If you want to get to the bottom of it, then Add a Service or Startup Item at a time, run it for a while, if nothing changes, then add some more stuff until the computer starts to Freeze then you will know the culprit.
It is inconvenient to troubleshoot your computer, but it is necessary if you want to get to the bottom of it.

Yeah. The problem in this instance is sometimes the problem doesn't occur for a month or more. It's not like most people's crash issues where it's happening constantly all day long. I don't know if it would even be possible to monitor it for that long of a potential time gap. Like for example: Last week I tried playing Dragon Age Inquisition. I had the crash 2x in a 24 hr span. Before that, I played Horizon Zero Dawn for about 2-3 weeks and it never happened once.

Most have offered good advice. I will offer a few more tips...........
When it comes to running SFC my take on this is to run the DISM command with the above added switches first then run SFC. If you run SFC and it finds errors then run DISM then you end up running SFC again. My $0.02 worth on that one.

Also I will suggest generally speaking errors like you're seeing I would tend to lean toward a graphics issue. So as mentioned DDU, completely, your current Nvidia drivers. Run DDU in Safe Mode and tell it to Clean and then Shut down. Let the system power down then turn off the power supply. Let the system sit for a few minutes, then reboot and reinstall the latest Nvidia drivers. There have been times when DDU doesn't completely clean things unless the system is fully powered down. It's rare but hey it happens.

Next I'd pull your memory and reinstall.

As someone mentioned look under your Event Logs and and see if you can match any odd errors being logged at an approximate time a lockup occurs.

Don't ignore the possibility of a drive going bad. So you might check the drive(s) using the various tools available. Also ensure cables to everything are fully connected. CPU power, 24 pin power, SATA connectors and especially the GPU power.