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.

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