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Windows freezing for few seconds at a time since undervolting CPU
AMD FX-8350 CPU
Gigabyte GA-970A-D3P - AMD 970 Motherboard
I tried undervolting my overheating CPU, by only 0.025v (from 1.375 to 1.35) in the BIOS, in hopes that this bodged fix would at least help for a little while before I could afford to buy new parts, however after booting back into Windows, it started to freeze for a few seconds on the occasion - strangely enough only when I open a browser like Edge or Chrome. So I reset the volts back to normal, but the issue persists.
I did the first thing I could think of whenever I mess something up in the motherboard, which is to factory reset it. No luck. I took the CMOS battery out and left it for 5 minutes before putting it back in. No luck. I tested with a different GPU (unfortunately no onboard graphics on my mobo) and the issue still persisted.
Fearing for the worst that my CPU might be fried, I booted into Ultimate Boot CD and ran some stress tests on the CPU. Oddly enough the CPU didn't even get as remotely hot as it usually does during games etc despite the stress testers describing that they 'run the CPU at 100%'. So instead I opted for running a live edition of Linux Mint.
Bizarrely, I have not been able to replicate the freezing in Linux Mint. I had about 20 tabs in Firefox open playing YouTube videos and running sites that I deem as 'CPU hungry', and played one the smallest game I have in my Steam library that I thought would be intensive enough for the CPU and GPU - Half-Life 2.
So I went back into Windows and tried concentrating more on the freezes themselves, it seems that the mouse still moves during these freezes, and on the rare occasions I would hear a beep too, the kind of beep that suggests the IO is full and needs to finish tasks before proceeding (I'm sure you techies know what kind of beep I mean!)
Therefore I had the thought that the issue might be the OS drive or even the OS itself. I completely pulled out that drive and installed a clean Windows 10 on my secondary drive, hopefully ruling out that the issue would be related to the drive or the OS. Unfortunately even after re-installing Windows on a completely separate drive, all I had to do was open Edge and the same freezing occurred again.
I find it really bewildering because I cannot replicate the issue at all in Linux Mint, yet it happens in a clean Windows installation. Is Linux really that much less resourceful than Windows on the CPU? Did I damage the CPU by undervolting it? Is there any other way I can reset the motherboard or CPU incase it is still storing the old voltage somewhere?
Regardless, I'm really hoping someone can offer some help or advice as I really do not want to buy a new CPU and/or motherboard until I have more confidence that one of those are the culprit. Thank you so much for reading my large post and an even bigger thanks for anyone that replies with help or advice! :)