Windows 10: Computer stutters, single beep, freezes -- Meltdown or dying hardware?

Just in the past month or so, I've been experiencing pretty frequent computer freezes requiring hard resets (I disabled the option to Automatically restart on system failure).

I always play certain games in windowed mode so I can multitask (already a bad idea I know), but only recently in the past month, I've had my entire system stutter, a single beep come from the motherboard, then it freezes up, with what ever game sound playing also freezing up to make an ugly static buzzing sound.

Usually after a hard reset, this problem doesn't occur again until the next day or so when I get back on.


I'm wondering if this is a result of the performance slow-down from the Spectre/Meltdown patch, or just old, failing hardware. If it is hardware, I strongly suspect it to be the RAM or CPU, which are the oldest pieces of my system. These are my current specs

intel i7 - 3770, 3.40GHz
Corsair Vengeance 16 GB RAM 1600mhz ddr3
Nvidia GTX 780 gpu
ASRock ddr3 lga-1155 z77 extreme4-M motherboard
Corsair hx 750 watt PSU



I don't know what the symptoms of "performance slowdowns" are of the Meltdown patch, and I read that Haswell cpus (mine is apparently just before Haswell) see "higher reboots" but I'm not sure if that's what I'm seeing (as I disabled the Automatic reboot on system failure) or something different.

Some months earlier I'd been experiencing similar system reboot due to what I thought was overheating. Then I cleaned out my computer tower and the problem went away until this year, where it's become fairly regular once-a-day.

:)

 

Computer stuttering then freezing

Solved. Apologies to Microsoft for the misdirected anger. Win10 is great.



Now someone write Bitdefender an angry email telling them they suck. I'm actually so tired.

Location: Bitdefender>Modules>Firewall>Settings

PS: You don't need that "Block port scans" thing on, I think it's for servers or something, not regular home PCs.

 

Computer stuttering then freezing

im having the same problems, i bought this PC two weeks ago and updated about a week ago, been having these problems ever since, please fricken fix this, kinda hard to do schoolwork and work if my pc keeps lagging and cutting out **** i need to hear.

its really **** annoying when im trying to do **** on my computer that i cant do anywhere else and suddenly my pc is like
oh **** you kayla you cant do this **** because our
update is garbage

 

Is the beep a long or short beep? According to AsRock.....a single beep code refers to memory.
ASRock > FAQ

That said....check your RAM sticks physically and that they are fully seated into the RAM slots. Next would be to run memtest to see if you have any bad RAM sticks.

Do you have all the latest updated drivers installed for your mobo?

For you overheating issue...what type of CPU cooler do you have installled? What type of thermal pasted did you use? How much thermal pasted did you use?

 

The obvious things to do are servicing jobs, from your comments, like CMOS settings battery, checking on temperatures of CPU chipset, graphics card etc, noise of fans and/or lower maximum speed, varying speed maybe a clue to fan bearing wear.
Just cleaning fans won't fix them. They are mechanical components subject to wear. May need replacement.
Scan the HDD.

As far as the security patches on that CPU, probably partially done, nothing will happen. It's the second round of patches to come that might affect it.

 

1) Please update the specs in the "My Computer" section:

System Specs - Fill in at Ten Forums:
System Specs - Fill in at Ten Forums Site Use Tutorials
In the left corner below in your post you find 'My System Specs'.
After clicking it you can find a link a little below that says 'Update your System Spec', click on this link to get to the page where you can fill in your system specs.
System Info - See Your System Specs - Windows 7 Help Forums


Include PSU. cooler, case, peripherals and anything attached to the computer by wired or wireless (mouse, keyboard, headset, printer, xbox, etc.)

2) Run this version of the log collector and post a zip into this thread:
log collector v2-beta08.zip

 

It was a short beep. As for the Ram sticks, I haven't actually touched them in years, and they snap in to the motherboard. I haven't run Memtest on them recently. I have all the latest updated drivers. The thermal paste is the same that came with the CPU originally, and actually there was a point several years ago where I removed the CPU heatsink but did not replace the paste. I don't think overheating is an issue, though.


I also feel it's worth mentioning that this only seems to happen once a day. As in, when it happens the first time and I restart my computer, I can try to replicate it, running high memory load, and it won't happen.

 

It happened again, as if on cue about half an hour into a game, this time without any warning or beeps. As well, for the first time it actually gave me a BSOD with the message VIDEO_SCHEDULER_INTERNAL_ERROR, which according to google searches refers to a graphics card problem


But given that the previous freezes have seemingly been memory related, could it be one, the other, or both?


At this point, I'm planning to get a new motherboard so I can support a newer model CPU and RAM, but if the video card is starting to fail as well, I don't think I could afford to replace it. The GPU's temperature has never gone above 85 degrees C under heavy load.



Everything is up to date according to Windows Update, and I'm currently downloading the most recent driver for my graphics card, but given the pattern of these freezes (namely happening once a day), I may not know if this solves the issue.


EDIT: It happened again, about 50 minutes later. This time, entirely new; it started to stutter in-game, but if I tabbed out, everything was still normal. Then I went back in-game and everything froze, the entire system unresponsive, but the sound went on as normal.