Screen freeze (usually while simming)

[deeknow]

Haven't been doing much flying lately, esp. longer haul, as a couple months back near the end of summer my gaming machine started freezing mid-flight and no amount of three-finger-saluting, general gesticulation or rage-keyboard-bashing would regain control. Only way to get the machine back has been to power down with a long power button press and fire it back up.

Didn't seem to matter what airport, which aircraft, what scenery settings or whatever else was running at the time, the symptoms were pretty much the same. Locked screen, no mouse movement and no apparent keyboard response. Fans didn't seem to be running excessively highly, and occurred in various ambient conditions (hot days, and cool)

Taking a look at the event viewer logs after a restart eventually showed the same pattern. Some sort of Kernel panic

(for searchability text reads...)
Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll
Faulting application path: C:\Windows\system32\dwm.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\KERNELBASE.dll
Source: Application Error
Event ID: 1000



No super useful user application logs or detail..

Event Name: APPCRASH
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0
Problem signature:
P1: dwm.exe
P4: KERNELBASE.dll
Source: Windows Error Reporting
Event ID: 1001



Just a sudden halt of the desktop service...

The Desktop Window Manager process has exited
Primary display device ID: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER)
Source: Dwminit



Wasn't able to find any super useful recommendations on the interwebs re solutions, but most common suggestions were to check Windows updates (all good), GPU drivers (all up to date, various updates over a few months), over-temps in the CPU or GPU (not really an issue, monitored using HWMonitor and usually fine at time of crash)

Most alarmingly as far as hit to the pocket was the suggestion that it could be the GPU drawing too much power or the PSU not able to sustain it. So it was I headed into my local PC hardware chain store and picked up a replacement ATX PSU (850W, Gold rated) and a basic case that could accommodate it.

Gutted the innards of the old MiniITX case...



Cracked open the new ITX case which has a bit more room and better cooling options (Phanteks Eclipse 200a, $110nzd)...



Whacked in the new ATX PSU (Corsair RM850e Modular, 850w, $212nzd)...



And jobs-a-good-n....



Don't wanna jinx it, but have been on the machine most of the weekend (cr4p weather up North last few days), and so far so good, been using all levels of graphics settings in P3D and MSFS, used all manner of aircraft at various heavy airports, and no crashes at all.

Thought I'd post something here at NZFF in case others are googling for similar issues in future.

[Charl]

Whew well done that man.
I thought you were going to tell us you just blew the dust out

[Aharon]

That is very impressive presentation accompanied by photos

Regards,

Aharon

[deeknow]

Thanks guys. And yeah Charl the dust is a feature ... I like to call it "weathering" I did give the new build a bit of a dust off when I transferred the innards. Pleased to report a week later now and been using it each day for a few hours at a time and not a single lock-up since

Confident enough now so this morning I did a bunch of cable routing and tidying and closed the case up. Here's the tradesman's entrance



And here's the front of house. I used the riser cable and bracket from the old case to flip the GPU vertical as should get better cooling I hope, plus it LOOKS cooler. Am left w a wee open gap above the outside edge of where the GPU connects to the case but don't think dust will be an issue as a result. The case has reasonable airflow, two fans drawing in from the front, one connected to the AIO (cooling the CPU) the other passing direct over the GPU which can also draw air up from the floor which has a large filtered opening, and all the warm stuff ejecting out the back of the GPU itself via its own fans. There's room above the GPU for a small 82mm fan which I MIGHT look at if run into any trouble over summer.

[Aharon]

That is impressive computer rig!!

Regards,

Aharon