I upgraded my system from a Ryzen 5 3600 with a B450 motherboard and 16GB of DDR4-3200 memory to a Ryzen 5 7500F with a B650 motherboard and 32GB of DDR5-6000 CL36 memory. Since the upgrade, Valorant causes my PC to freeze for about five seconds, work normally for another five seconds, and then freeze again. The problem continues even after closing the game, although I don't notice it during normal use before launching Valorant. I moved my existing Windows installation over to the new hardware without reinstalling it. The SSD is also around eight years old and reports only 10% health in CrystalDiskInfo. Could the old Windows installation or failing SSD be causing this, and what should I check first?
1 Answer
The first thing to do is back up your important files immediately. A drive showing only 10% health is a serious warning sign, and the repeated freezes could be caused by the SSD struggling with reads or writes. After securing your data, perform a clean Windows installation and install the current motherboard chipset, network, audio, and other system drivers. Moving an existing installation to completely different hardware can leave behind conflicting drivers and configuration issues. If the freezing continues after a clean install, replace the SSD and test the system again.
I suspected the installation was part of the problem, but I was trying to avoid buying another SSD right now. I was mainly wondering why the issue didn’t appear on the old AM4 system.