# Brand new ASUS ROG Strix Z690-E Gaming WiFi/32GB DDR5/3070ti/12700k issues with intermittent freezing in Windows



## beakhole (10 mo ago)

Hey all. Trying to troubleshoot some issues with random Windows freezing with a brand new build with a Z690-E. I am willing to try anything to try to figure out what is causing these constant freezes in Windows.

I was lucky enough to win a newegg shuffle fairly recently with a ASUS ROG Strix Z690-E Gaming WiFi bundled with CORSAIR Dominator Platinum RGB 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5. I purchased a 12700K to go with it and was also lucky enough to acquire an Asus RTX 3070ti TUF GPU. All seemed to be going well. It is powered by a 750 watt EVGA PSU. I have 2 NVME Western Digital drives as well, in M2_2 (WD Black) and M2_3 (WD Green).

Today was build day and I have been plagued with issues with Windows freezing randomly with the brand new build. The first freeze actually occurred when booting from the install thumb drive right in the very first windows install menu, but I rebooted and was able to complete the Windows 10 installation. By freeze I mean keyboard and mouse input stop working and it appears to be completely frozen until reboot.

Once inside the fresh Windows install, however, the intermittent freezes continued. Sometimes it's 1 minute inside windows and it freezes, and sometimes it's 10 minutes or more, but it always freezes and requires me to hard reboot.

I have tried the following:

Used EZ Flash to update the BIOS to the latest (Version 1003)
Was able to install latest chipset and LAN drivers before freeze
Was able to briefly look into Windows Event Viewer before the freeze to see some warnings, which listed *"A corrected hardware error has occurred. PCI Express Root Port"*. I should also note that error logs appear to be made for the hard reboots too, something along the lines of "Windows was shutdown not normally." which leads me to believe something is still running during the freezes when I hard reboot even though I have no control.
Tried using XMP 1 with the RAM, which properly clocked it at its advertised speeds and timings (5800, 36-36-36-76, 1.25v), and also tried leaving it at "Auto" which set it at 4800, and even down clocked it to 4000 just to see if it helped the freezing - the freezing kept happening regardless of how the RAM was set.
I am able to access BIOS just fine, and there is no freezing there, only in Windows. BIOS recognizes all the hardware I have in it just fine. I've also been able to monitor temperatures while in Windows and nothing is overheating. I read that over-tightening the CPU cooler (a NH-C14S in my case) could cause issues, so I have made sure it is not remotely close to being over tightened (if anything, it is too loose now, but I make sure to monitor temps closely and it is not getting too hot). I did notice this board has 2 CPU 12v power connectors, so I connected both (even though I have no plans to overclock). In the manual it basically said you could connect either both, or just 1, so I just connected both to be safe.

Does anyone have some clues to point me towards a possible resolution? Is it a bad board? I don't know where to go from here. I've just been reseating things and poking around in BIOS, but the freezing will not stop.


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## SpywareDr (Jun 15, 2013)

Does sound it may be flaky/failing hardware ... which software cannot fix of course. But, what you might want to try first is performing a Clean Boot. If everything is working fine now you can keep it this way or, you can add one Startup item and/or Service at a time until it freeze again. When it does you will have hopefully? found your culprit.

Let us know ...


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## beakhole (10 mo ago)

So I did try a couple other things that basically rules out software or OS entirely. I originally had my M2 drive positioned like this:


http://imgur.com/RHvEERV

 , but I figured maybe changing them around would help, so I moved my drives to M2_1 and M2_2. Then, I completely wiped the drives and installed a brand new Windows 11 install on the M2_1 drive. It seemed more stable at first, and ran for a good hour, but then I experienced freezes and stuttering again. I also experienced 1 freeze while entering the product key in the Windows 11 installer menus, before any OS was actually installed. All of the hardware is brand new for this build.

This seems like something wrong with the z690-E? Maybe a small possibility of bad RAM, but probably the chipset?


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## SpywareDr (Jun 15, 2013)

I agree, sounds more like flaky/failing hardware now. What I'd do is take it back down to bare bones out on a table. Nothing but 
motherboard (on a non-conductive surface)
CPU (w/heatsink & fan)
RAM
PSU
video (including monitor)
keyboard and mouse

Now see if it will boot into the BIOS/UEFI. If not, try a different PSU and/or RAM. Once you do get into the BIOS/UEFI reset it to factory defaults.

If it's bootable now, try running an Operating System (*nix) from a bootable USB flash drive. Exercise it some (web) and then leave it running overnight.

If it's still where you left it the night before, power down, hook up your drive with Windows on it and try the same, (exercise it, web, games, whatever), and leave it running overnight.

If it's fine the next morning, power down and reassemble everything back in the case. As you continue beyond the bare minimum though, only add one or two pieces of hardware at a time and then test to make sure what was added isn't causing problems. You get the idea ...


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## beakhole (10 mo ago)

Yep, on it. I have done a lighter version of that already, but not as complete as you list (I've run it only using the integrated graphics for example, where the 3070ti was fully removed, and still got freezes). The only hardware I have not removed or tried one at a time is RAM, but that is because it requires me to remove the CPU Cooler each time since things are so cramped on this MOBO, so I have been avoiding it . I will keep trying to narrow it down more in the meantime, let me know if anything else comes to mind. 

Also, ASUS has agreed to a motherboard RMA, so that is on the table, but I am trying to still see if I can get it working before I go that route.


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## SpywareDr (Jun 15, 2013)

Understood. Nothing else comes to mind at the moment, but if it does I will let you know. Hopefully someone else with another idea or two may drop in here soon.

If you do have to pull out the motherboard, you might try what I suggested above. It has worked for me on several occasions.


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