Aurora R7, freezes and buzzing

@robo456  It would help if you could provide us with the specifications of your system to aid people in the Community in trying to assist you.  Are you overclocking your system?  Are you overclocking the GPU?  Which games is this occurring in, and does it ever occur outside of the games?  You ran the Dell/Alienware diagnostics I'm guessing?

Generally, I've found this issue can be caused by a number of things.   In my personal experience, I've found that an overheating NVidia GPU can definitely cause this problem, as well as the NVidia and Intel Chipset drivers.  I'd make sure you download the latest Intel and NVidia drivers from the support page and closely monitor the temperatures of your PC during your gaming.  You might even consider stress testing the GPU with Unigine Valley or Furmark; they'll let you know fairly quickly if you are having GPU issues. 

Here's the basics of the machine:

No overclocking at all (no CPU or GPU).  The only thing I added was a Samsung 960 512gb M.2 drive as my boot with a fresh Windows 10 install.  I downloaded the Alienware applications from my computer's support page.  Yes, I did run the diagnostic tool on the support page as well and everything passes.

I'll check the temps, but it does seem to happen with no strain on the machine.  I first noticed the issue trying to watch videos on YouTube, so I originally thought it was a Flash problem. Game-wise, I've been playing 7 Days to Die, World of Warcraft, and Fortnite.  It definitely seems to be more random now than when I first got it. (not sure if that was because I loaded newer drivers or whatnot)

I can definitely try the stresstest to see if I can force it to happen.  I'll report back.  Thanks.

--rob

Like @AlaskaWolf says, try those mentioned benchmarks to remove games from equation. The "Power Supply Test" in OCCT is good also.

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-General/Aurora-R6-Hard-Lockup-and-crash-while-gaming-SOLVED/td-p/5504111/page/2

Good work trying the "fresh Windows re-install". So, was that just an in-place Windows-10 Reset or did you wipe-away all the Dell stuff and clean-install from flash-drive created from Microsoft.com?

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-General/fixed/td-p/5627124

I wonder if it could be drivers? What did you load that didn't come from Microsoft or Windows-Update?

I wonder if that is what "over-heating throttling" looks like? CPUID's HW-Monitor is good. Min could be Idle and Max can be during gaming.

Too bad you don't have a SSD installed. Windows runs so-much smoother and so do games.

Any resolution on this Robo? I have a similar system (R7, M2 Boot Drive) I'm just recently starting to have this same issue pop up. Micro freezes 1-2 secs, While gaming (what I spend the majority of my time doing) but also while just watching youtube or netflix. 

Did all the basic stuff like update drivers, run basic diagnostics.

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@Yrrdead wrote:

I have a similar system (R7, M2 Boot Drive) I'm just recently starting to have this same issue pop up. Micro freezes 1-2 secs, While gaming (what I spend the majority of my time doing)

but also while just watching youtube or netflix. 

Did all the basic stuff like update drivers, run basic diagnostics.

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What about offline/non-gaming (but still heavy) work-flows like GPU Benchmarks and stress-tests?

What does event viewer say at the time of the momentary freeze?  I sometimes experience this issue on my R7; basically input or activity freezes momentarily for about a second or two. No audio or buzzing though.  Every time, it's always related to the GPU or video driver.

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@amstel78 wrote:

What does event viewer say at the time of the momentary freeze?  I sometimes experience this issue on my R7; basically input or activity freezes momentarily for about a second or two. No audio or buzzing though.  Every time, it's always related to the GPU or video driver.

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First, this is technically not an nVidia issue. The atikmdag.sys error is the exact same issue, only for AMD GPU based systems . These errors are triggered by a Windows service called 'Timeout Detection and Recovery' (TDR). I first started seeing these errors on Windows 7, TDR is a feature of the WDDM driver model that was actually implemented first in Windows Vista (which I despised, so I never used). TDR is supposed to help stop BSOD's by resetting the GPU and/or driver when there is an issue or long delay. If the problem happens multiple times in a row, a BSOD usually will occur.

Common issues that I have seen cause TDR to trigger:

• Faulty graphics card
• Faulty or mismatched RAM causing incorrect memory timings or voltages *****
• Insufficient or problematic power supply supplying incorrect voltage levels to the motherboard
• Corrupt driver installation or poorly implemented driver
• Unstable overclocks (both GPU or CPU)
• Overheating
• Driver conflicts

Now, my R7 is pretty much identical, it's a dual 1080 GPU, with a 8700K CPU, and 64Gb of matched 2666MHz RAM. The only time I had the nvlddmkm error crop up was when I was experimenting with RAM trying to find stable non-Dell alternative RAM for the R7.  Once I found a good matched set of RAM for my R7, the problem disappeared and I haven't seen the nvlddmkm error again.  As the R7's motherboard has been shown to be extremely RAM sensitive, I would personally look at my RAM first.  Next, I'd try a different GPU to rule out the possibility of a GPU hardware failure.

GPU seems fine.  Error happens most often when running OCCT's PSU test with the GPU at stock clocks. Strangely enough, the error still happens but less frequently when the card is overclocked.  Other times, I've noticed it will briefly lock up when watching YouTube.  It's never locked up when gaming though.

As you said; could be memory related although I've never encountered any other RAM related faults. Personally I think the issue is more software related than it is hardware.

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@amstel78 wrote:

 running OCCT's PSU test with the GPU at stock clocks.

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That's my favorite stress-test.

I've run it 30-60 minutes straight several times. Never a problem. Never a crash or error.

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-General-Read-Only/Aurora-R6-Hard-Lockup-and-crash-while-gaming-SOLVED/m-p/5504134/highlight/true#M6110

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@amstel78 wrote:

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@Tesla1856 wrote:

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@amstel78 wrote:

 running OCCT's PSU test with the GPU at stock clocks.

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That's my favorite stress-test.

I've run it 30-60 minutes straight several times. Never a problem. Never a crash or error.

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-General-Read-Only/Aurora-R6-Hard-Lockup-and-crash-while-gaming-SOLVED/m-p/5504134/highlight/true#M6110

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Only OCCT will cause frequent Nvidia driver faults in event viewer. Not sure why. Gaming for several hours at 4k with both CPU and GPU OC'd also doesn't cause any errors to pop up in the logs. 

 

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Interesting.

I've also run it on some other fairly high-end machines (also Intel i7 with dedicated GPU) and it works fine.

Only explanation I can think of is that OCCT pushes BOTH very hard concurrently ... CPU and GPU to max . Not something you want to leave running unattended.  :Surprise:

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@Tesla1856 wrote:

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@amstel78 wrote:

 running OCCT's PSU test with the GPU at stock clocks.

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That's my favorite stress-test.

I've run it 30-60 minutes straight several times. Never a problem. Never a crash or error.

https://www.dell.com/community/Alienware-General-Read-Only/Aurora-R6-Hard-Lockup-and-crash-while-gaming-SOLVED/m-p/5504134/highlight/true#M6110

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Only OCCT will cause frequent Nvidia driver faults in event viewer. Not sure why. Gaming for several hours at 4k with both CPU and GPU OC'd also doesn't cause any errors to pop up in the logs. 

I think I can rule out PSU at this time; have run the stress test several times already with no crashes. I decided to focus on the PS due to earlier concerns stemming from random kernel-power 41 errors. 

Sorry didn't have my alerts turned on. I just dl'd occt. So i'll run a few of their diagnostics and report back. I feel like frequency of errors has increased and freezes are around 3-3.5secs. Next error I will also grab a screenshot of the event log.

I too am experiencing the issue of momentary freezes on my Alienware R7 desktop PC running Windows 10 Pro.  These freezes last from 1 to 3 seconds.  The frequency of their occurrence appears to be increasing.  My R7 is about 5 months old.  It did not exhibit this freezing behavior initially.  However, in the last one to two months, it's exhibiting this annoying momentary freezing behavior.  It somehow recovers on its own and I'm able to continue working until the next occurrence (luckily the duration between occurrences is long ... at least for now).

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@TinkerTony wrote:

I too am experiencing the issue of momentary freezes on my Alienware R7 desktop PC running Windows 10 Pro.  These freezes last from 1 to 3 seconds.  The frequency of their occurrence appears to be increasing.  My R7 is about 5 months old.  It did not exhibit this freezing behavior initially.  However, in the last one to two months, it's exhibiting this annoying momentary freezing behavior.  It somehow recovers on its own and I'm able to continue working until the next occurrence (luckily the duration between occurrences is long ... at least for now).

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What does Windows Reliability Report show? How about red-critical errors?