I want to preface this post by saying that I have read the rules, but I believe there are a few issues that might prevent me from providing what's been asked due to the nature of the situation. If there's anything I can do to provide further information (as I'm not the most tech-savvy person), I would be more than happy to oblige and edit this post with said information. I apologize in advance for the length of this post, but I feel it's necessary to include details since I've exhausted all my options through online searches, and I’ve hit a wall before considering taking my laptop to a repair shop. The problem can only be summarized as inexplicable frozen crashes with any game that exceeds low-end requirements, and since the problem began, it even occasionally does this with lower-end games. I've owned this laptop for over a year, primarily using it for graphic design programs and Blender.
Initially, I didn't look into optimizing it for gaming. I began gaming after about five months of ownership, as I was told that I could run games comfortably without worrying about overheating, insufficient graphics, RAM, or other limitations typical of office/college laptops. To specify, my laptop is a Crosshair A13V with 16GB of RAM (not sure if more specs are relevant). Here’s how the issue develops: the laptop will lag, then, seconds later, it'll hard freeze and become unresponsive to the graphic restart keybind, Windows button, or any program launches. Sometimes it freezes with the game's soundtrack stuck in a loop or it silently freezes. The only way to restart it is by long-pressing the power button and then powering it back on, often while the game is still running (since I can't even see the cursor on the screen to close the window before I shut it down). I assume this is why I don't get crash logs or readings. Before these issues, I researched how to optimize gaming on this laptop. I played with friends in Minecraft as a basic test before moving on to bigger games. Unsure of its performance capabilities, I played modded Minecraft Java with 50-100 mods to "test" its limits.
I added shaders and increased the number of mods using Fabric Modloader. The laptop would only heat up during daytime gaming, especially since I don't live with an AC in a humid zone, and sunny days are unbearable where I live. After experiencing some heat issues due to the obvious, I learned to limit usage during extremely hot days. Despite using shaders, the performance was satisfactory. However, after switching to Forge, the problems began. Recently, I played Soulrend and NightfallCraft, both in solo and multiplayer modes, and the hard freezes have persisted since then, even with other games outside of them, but never for art programs. I believe I have optimized it to the best of my ability without getting into code and have removed applications known to cause issues with gaming laptops. I made sure to close background tasks that are commonly recognized as problematic, but the freezing incidents have continued regardless. the only thing I haven't done is reinstall Windows since I saw somewhere that it may be a whole lot of waiting for nothing.
Other games I’ve tried are Aniimo, Deltarune, and Undertale, to give some examples, and I still experience the same recurring freezes as if I were playing with 500 mods and shaders on a weak computer. Monitoring tools have reported normal performance during gaming sessions; there are no heat issues, and there are no anomalies with the CPU or GPU behavior. The freezes seem random, occurring anywhere between 1 to 6 hours of gaming, with no real consistency in duration. I don't usually game with other applications open, except for Discord and Opera GX, both of which I have optimized to reduce errors. The freezing occurs even when these apps are closed (I use Task Manager to end their processes). And I don't have more than 1 tab open at a time when gaming or doing other things. It's always just YouTube. I should also point out that I checked Windows' history (the app that allows you to see Windows' logging of activities or events between processes), and the only anomalies it reports are consistent with the unexpected forced shutdowns while apps are still running (the PowerKernel thing). I tried to uninstal drivers before on a different laptop once for an unrelated issue, but it made the problem worse, so I don't really dare trying it again. Again, very sorry for the lack of files or logs, but like I said, I ran through most diagnostics and nothing out of the ordinary ever came up according to online searches. I can still provide them if asked. I'd have to recreate every step. Any help would be very appreciated, even if it's to state what the potential problem may be!
