My PC occasionally becomes completely unresponsive while gaming, and it sometimes happens during ordinary desktop use too. The screen freezes for a few seconds before the system eventually responds again. I'm trying to identify the failing component before spending about ₹15,000 on a replacement graphics card.
My system has an AMD Ryzen 7 5700G, Gigabyte B550M DS3H AC motherboard, 32GB of DDR4-3200 memory, a Corsair CX650 power supply, a 1TB Lexar NM610PRO SSD, and a GTX 1050 Ti. Could the graphics card be failing, or is there another component or software issue I should test first? I'm not very experienced with PC troubleshooting, so I'd appreciate a sensible order of tests.
3 Answers
There are several possible causes here, including the GPU, processor, motherboard, power supply, memory, storage, malware, or Windows itself. Start by checking for malware and reviewing system errors. If those checks don’t reveal anything, a clean Windows installation can help rule out software problems. It’s also worth testing the SSD, since storage problems can cause temporary system-wide freezes.
Check temperatures before buying new hardware. Use a monitoring tool such as HWiNFO64 to watch the CPU, GPU, and motherboard temperatures while gaming. Overheating or aggressive thermal throttling can cause freezes, and this will help determine whether the graphics card is actually under abnormal stress.
The SSD is worth investigating, and CrystalDiskInfo can show whether its health or SMART data reports a problem. You can also temporarily lower the game’s graphics settings to see whether the issue changes. The GTX 1050 Ti’s limited VRAM could cause stuttering or crashes in some games, but a complete system freeze is not enough by itself to prove the GPU is failing.
When the freezes happen, Event Viewer records a stornvme 129 error. Does that point more toward the SSD or its connection than the graphics card?
The SSD or another drive could definitely be involved, especially if the freezes affect the entire system rather than just the game.