PC keeps freezing

Alright, so I’ve run into a bit of a headache here.
I installed a second motherboard, an ASUS ROG gaming motherboard,
Everything seemed perfectly fine on day one, but today the whole system started freezing up on me. It doesn't matter if I'm just sitting in the BIOS or working in macOS; sometimes I'll boot it up, it runs for maybe 15 to 20 minutes, and then—boom—total freeze. Everything just locks up and I can't move a single thing.
The weird part is that when I swapped my old motherboard back in, everything worked flawlessly again,
which pretty much rules out any issues with my RAM sticks.
It might be worth mentioning that I actually tried to overclock this thing—specifically trying to unlock that fourth core on my AMD Athlon II X3—but I had no luck. Just in case, I went ahead and reset the BIOS to factory settings...
For context, the rest of my build consists of an AMD Athlon II X3, 2x4GB Kingston DDR3 at 1333MHz, a Corsair 480W power supply, and an MSI dual fan HD6670 1GB GDDR5 graphics card.
Since I picked this motherboard up used, there's no chance of a return. Honestly, I didn't spend a fortune on it, so if the thing is just a lemon, I'm not even going to stress about it too much.😁

So, at this point, it looks like the issue might actually be with the motherboard.

I’ve actually had a few colleagues suggest I dive into the BIOS settings and try disabling things like the LAN card or the onboard audio, just in case one of those components is causing the instability. I’ve also been weighing the idea of flashing the BIOS... honestly, at this point, I'm feeling a bit lost on what my next move should even be.

Thomas Wells5 said:I’ve actually had a few colleagues suggest I dive into the BIOS settings and try disabling things like the LAN card or the onboard audio, just in case one of those components is causing the instability. I’ve also been weighing the idea of flashing the BIOS... honestly, at this point, I'm feeling a bit lost on what my next move should even be.

Stupid question, but if you swap out the motherboard, do you have to reinstall macOS?

And honestly, just try creating a flash BIOS. There’s really nothing to be afraid of—just don't be one of those unlucky people who accidentally trips over a cord or pulls the plug right in the middle of the process. If you kill the power during a flash, you can kiss that ASUS ROG gaming motherboard goodbye 😁
.
Oh, and it would probably be a good idea to format the drive too, since we're dealing with a different chipset on this board
.

I haven't even bothered upgrading to a new macOS yet, but honestly, I don't think that's even the core issue here. It’s just completely nonsensical—the system froze two or three times right in the BIOS. If the freezes were happening exclusively within macOS, I'd just wipe it and reinstall, but that's not what's happening. To be perfectly blunt, I just didn't have the willpower left. I've been wrestling with this rig all day long, and frankly, I'm exhausted. I ended up just swapping my old motherboard back in so I can gather some actual advice and hopefully get back to work tomorrow or the day after. We'll see if this thing is salvageable or if I should just write it off as a total loss.

Thomas Wells5 said:I haven't even bothered upgrading to a new macOS yet, but honestly, I don't think that's even the core issue here. It’s just completely nonsensical—the system froze two or three times right in the BIOS. If the freezes were happening exclusively within macOS, I'd just wipe it and reinstall, but that's not what's happening. To be perfectly blunt, I just didn't have the willpower left. I've been wrestling with this rig all day long, and frankly, I'm exhausted. I ended up just swapping my old motherboard back in so I can gather some actual advice and hopefully get back to work tomorrow or the day after. We'll see if this thing is salvageable or if I should just write it off as a total loss.

In all my years of experience, I've never had macOS run fine on one motherboard and then act up on a completely different one. You really need to do a clean install.

It makes zero sense to me that it would be freezing up right in the BIOS... but I guess I'll give it another shot and try reinstalling macOS

If it’s freezing up even in the BIOS, I wouldn't be telling you to run an update. If it hangs right in the middle of the process, 👋motherboard
is toast.

That’s exactly what I’m worried about—that it might just freeze up right in the middle of the whole process.

Could we be looking at a power supply issue here? Is it possible the unit is just too weak to handle this board? It runs perfectly fine on my old MSI setup.

The motherboard won't have any impact on your PC's power consumption; it makes no difference.

Are you even sure your RAM isn't the culprit here? You should try to double-check it somehow—I know it sucks since the freezing makes it impossible to even run MemTest properly. If it turns out the RAM is actually fine, then take a look at your slots and test them all one by one. Also, definitely do a clean install of macOS.

Look, I already pointed out earlier that my RAM is working perfectly fine on the current board I'm using... I haven't exactly heard of anyone managing to completely wreck a RAM bank just by messing with it, though I did try swapping the slots around, and the exact same issue kept popping up anyway.

Sure, I can get on that—but the real question is whether they’re actually legit. In my experience, those things are usually the culprit behind 90% of freezes and random crashes. Better double-check.

graniteharbor85 said:Sure, I can get on that—but the real question is whether they’re actually legit. In my experience, those things are usually the culprit behind 90% of freezes and random crashes. Better double-check.

Not necessarily. It’s not always the RAM causing the issue. A faulty motherboard is just as likely to be the reason things go south.

Thomas Wells5, take a long look at that "new" board. See if there are any bulging capacitors or anything else looking sketchy.

I’ve gone over her with a magnifying glass, checking every single solder joint and every capacitor, and honestly, everything looks perfectly fine to me.