Random freezing in facebook machine

I've never had problems solving issues before, but this one has me stumped.

Wifey has a Facebook machine.

MSI B450i with Athlon 200GE, overcooled with a Wraith Stealth (no, seriously, have you ever seen the stock cooler for a 200GE? The Stealth is massive by comparison).
Using onboard graphics, no GPU.
2x4GB Corsair LPX 2666, on default settings so 2133. Obviously no overclock on the little Athlon either.
Cheap 240GB SSD - Adata I think, or something similar.
2TB Data spinner.
It has been in an Antec ISK-110 until earlier today, vesa mounted to a 1080P Phillips VA panel.

This rig has been unchanged for a year or more, worked perfectly until a few days ago.

She started getting random freezes loading Facebook pages - particularly but not exclusively some of their flash based games - often, as in every couple of minutes.
I've tried:
Reinstalled Windows (10 Pro).
Updated BIOS.
Changed SSD's.
Uninstalled and updated Chrome.
Switched from Chrome back to Edge and back again.
A dozen passes of Memtest via USB boot (passed no problem).
Thorough clean of the system including reapplying TIM. Original TIM seemed fine.

Still freezing.

I was messing about under the desk yesterday and bumped the power brick. It exploded. Took out the internal PSU board in the ISK-110 along the way (I tried another power brick but nothing worked).

OK, seems like I have found the issue right?

Borrowed a different case and power supply from Akh-Horus. Its a shuttle, proprietary gear but it works. Proprietary PSU only has a 20 pin ATX connector but that's no big deal, using onboard graphics, low power CPU, only the couple of drives? CPU has 8 pin connector, no problems there.

Fired it all up. Same issues!!

Freezes after a couple of minutes max in Facebook. If I CTRL/ALT/DEL it will let me into the task manager, I close all instances of Chrome (multiple instances open, don't know why?) and reopen it again, but the same thing happens as soon as I try Facebook again. Note: I get the same behaviour if I use Edge instead.

I was running the radio, on Chrome, an hour ago (ABC online) and it hard locked after about 3 minutes. I had coretemp open at the time, temps are in the 20's. Restarted, tried Facebook again, froze immediately.

Closed all the Chrome instances again, and the radio has now been running for about an hour no problem. Open Facebook.. freezes again.

My rig, albeit a much higher end machine, sitting next to hers is having no issues with Facebook, Chrome or anything else. Same Windows version, same Chrome version, same Flash version. Both connected wirelessly to router up till yesterday, I've even tried hooking her up to a LAN cable but that made no difference either.

I don't know where to go from here. CPU? Motherboard?

Fucking thing is driving me nuts.

Any ideas?

 

I heard about B450I's wifi card may cause BSOD issues in other places, maybe try remove the wifi card and its driver?

 

Not getting BSOD's but worth a try I guess. I'll give it a shot in the morning.

 

Mobo . I didn't look last night but any chance there is a scorch mark or damage that is visible?

 

"tried chrome & edge" & i thought you were smart lol
try waterfox & opera
its just facebook, its like the plague

 

Any development?

 

I don't see the point in installing a whole bunch of browsers on the off chance one of them might not have the issue. You might think waterfox and opera are great, some people think IOS is great too.
The point being that if its a browser issue - specific to her computer as she has no problems with either Chrome or Edge going to the same pages on my rig - then its unlikely to be both, again particularly because the problems don't occur on my rig. FWIW neither of us would usually ever use Edge, I just wanted to see if there was an issue with her Chrome installation.
Its not Facebook either or she would have the same problems on my rig, which she doesn't.
Its not polite to make disparaging remarks about peoples choice of browser, please refrain. Personally I think opera sucks, but I won't judge you for using it.

Nah mate haven't even looked today. I hooked up Ash's laptop to her monitor, keyboard and mouse. It will do until I can save up enough fucks.

 

So what software updates occurred at approx the same time... any notifications or error codes present in event viewer?


JSmith

 

yeh. could be a software problem. take it back to a former restore point is what i have done on numerous occasions in the past. (due to a software corruption issue - not recently though)

or run the system from a separate install of windoze (if u have a spare ssd floating around)

if that doesn't fix it, then hardware isolation tests.

 

I will say for a start, that Flash is and always has been a shitter, and there's never been any shortage of people who ultimately traced random issues back to Flash sucking.

--

Another easy try-it-it-might-work measure would be the enabling and disabling of ublock origin on problematic pages, to see if ad flooding or similar could be degrading performance.

--

That aside. As a troubleshooting measure, the following simple process will set aside most of your existing software subsystems, allowing you to potentially eliminate them as the cause.

Burn the Ubuntu ISO to a flash drive using Rufus, boot with it and choose the option "Try Ubuntu" (this won't install anything, or affect your existing system), and have a quick blast with the pre-installed Firefox. See if the problem persists. If it does persist, then you will be able to logically say the problem isn't Windows, isn't Windows drivers, isn't Chrome, isn't Windows malware of any kind, etc etc...

Which will narrow things down a lot in one fell swoop.

 

None. The only thing that has changed at all in recent times is that I replace the normal aerial 'ears' with a remote aerial, with a cord and high gain antennae to improve reception by placing the antennae in a more suitable spot. It worked great when I installed it.. I actually have an identical remote antennae on my own rig which has worked great for over a year. Since that was the only thing that has been altered in any way, I thought maybe the new one was faulty? So I went back to the original antennae but that made no difference at all. Not seeing any notification or error codes in event viewer either, although 'flash player needs to be updated' has been a regularly recurring theme in her rig since I built the thing, something which just never happens in my own rig.

There are no restore points. This installation is only about 3 months old, and literally never has any software added to it. She runs bare Win10 Pro, with the only additional software being GOM player, Start 10 and Chrome. I use the same software on my rig, also 10 Pro, but I have of course a lot of other software installed.

I tried a different SSD, with a new installation of Win10 and absolutely no extra software added. No dice. AFTER I'd messed with doing all that, I even updated the BIOS, but that didn't help either.
I'm really convinced that there is a hardware issue, and thus far the suggestion to remove the Wifi module appears to be the most likely fix, although I haven't done it yet.

You'll get no argument from me there. The sooner Facebook games gets with the times and uses HTML5 the better...

Tried and makes no difference. The only adblock installed is the Chrome YouTube Adblocker, but in the process of reinstalling Windows I've tried not signing her into Chrome, so no adblocker, and it happens on Edge too.

Yeah that's one thing I haven't tried. I'll try her on a Ubuntu Live install and see what happens. She won't use Linux of any variety, but it will of course help me to ensure that its not a software problem.

So tonight, I'll try first running a Linux Live install, and if that doesn't help, I'll remove the Wifi module. Although I have tried using just a LAN cable, and disabled the Wifi, if Linux Live doesn't help then it totally could be a faulty Wifi adapter causing some issue. Those seem to be my best options at this point.

 

Can't get any live distro of linux to run at all on it yet Something something firmware missing...

Removing the Wifi card and drivers has no effect.

I think I might try sticking my 2700X into it in the morning and see if I can rule out a CPU issue.

 

Try one stick of ram. If it still happens try the other stick. I had a similar issue recently and it was a doggy ram stick

 

Tried that too. And tried both sticks individually in both dimms.

 

OK so I have finally got Ubuntu installed and running. All works perfectly, so its not a hardware issue as far as I can tell. What has me fucked is what is wrong with Win 10? Same version as the one on my rig, both with the same updates, etc. I'm over it, she is going to be running Ubuntu for awhile until I could be bothered trying again. At least she has a working rig now.

I'll wait for her new PSU (a Pico to replace the dead PSU in her ISK-110) to arrive from China and have another go when I stick that in.

 

Wife has to be happy, now she has a working rig, again.
If my Wife's computer stops, she gets very agro, till I can get it going again.

 

She is happy its working. She isn't happy its running on Linux. Since almost everything she does is in Chrome and Chromium is identical, I'm not sure I see her point

Yeah she hates it when it isn't working right. No pressure she insists but why do I feel so damn pressured?

Oh well, at least she is up and running again for now.. until the next crisis..

 

Haha my missues was like that didnt want to run linux however after, the third time her windows 10 machine started acting up couple times due to corrupted updates and once due to scareware/malware I installed ubuntu. She only used it for facebook, browsing and a bit of netflix she got used to it eventually.

She recently had to work at home with her work laptop, they run SAP through a browser remotely and windows crashed while updating and wouldn't connect to her works server after restoring, she was FFS why cant they run linux.

EDIT: Also now I would install Zorin OS for a windows users, its very quick and the interface is very much windowish.

 

The only real issue with the Ubuntu installation is that I can't create shortcuts to her data drive, so she has to go with like 3 clicks instead of one to get to the data drive. She spends 95% of her time on PC playing Facebook games and watching YouTube, so Chromium is all she really cares about.

Chromium is perfect because I could just log her in like Chrome, the login persists so no more to do, and she got all of her Chrome shortcuts back, so for 95% of the time there is zero difference. Oh, and I can't adjust her favourite desktop background to fit properly, that's pissing her off a bit.

She is auto logging in, but she immediately gets a keychain prompt for some unidentified process, so she is having to use a password occasionally. Fucking walled gardens , that is annoying her a bit but she'll get over it.

I nuked Win 10 in the process, she isn't dual booting, she is now running Ubuntu only.

 

So software only and not mechanical? That has to be a relief . Was going to come drop off a tiny desk top I have in the cupboard.