OBS freezes entire computer and leaves no event log

[CuppaTeaRex]

I've found a couple of posts of people having this issue, but none had any sort of resolution that I could find. When running OBS my computer will randomly, completely freeze.

The issue only occurs with OBS. I've been using Streamlabs Desktop for a couple of days now and it's not had any issues so far.
It happens randomly, sometimes within minutes of starting up the program, sometimes it can run for hours with no incident. Doesn't seem to matter if I'm actively streaming or not either, as I've had it freeze before even getting a chance to start a stream, or through testing just leaving OBS up for a couple hours not live. Also does not matter if I'm streaming something directly off the computer or using an Elgato to record another PC or Console.
Having task manager up shows me that nothing in my PC is even close to hitting any kind of stress limit, with my CPU and RAM usually around 20% and GPU only hitting around 30% while actively streaming, or maybe at most ~80% if playing a more demanding game. I'm able to play games on it which are much more demanding than OBS and have never had it freeze.
Once the freeze happens, I have to force power off the PC. Windows Watchdog doesn't activate, even leaving it for 30+ minutes. If any audio is playing at the time, that gets hung up too and creates a very annoying buzzing noise. After the reboot, checking Event Viewer shows nothing having gone wrong other than me force powering off the PC.

I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling OBS several times, it didn't help. I've replaced both SSDs in my computer (good excuse to upgrade some storage to see if that'd fix it), meaning a while new, fresh Windows install and fully reinstalling all my drivers, and it's still happening. I'm at a loss as to how to even diagnose what's going on with it. I'd greatly appreciate even any points in the right direction for how to figure out what's going on.

PC Specs:
Intel i9 11900k
32GB RAM
EVGA 3080ti
2TB and 4TB NVME SSDs

Another piece of possibly relevant information is that this is a two-person streaming setup, so there are two microphones, two webcams, and two Elgatos plugged in. All of which works perfectly fine together aside from the crashes.

 

[koala]

Once the freeze happens, I have to force power off the PC. Windows Watchdog doesn't activate, even leaving it for 30+ minutes. If any audio is playing at the time, that gets hung up too and creates a very annoying buzzing noise.

A computer completely freezing this way is a hardware or driver issue. You already reinstalled Windows from scratch including all drivers, so this leaves us with the hardware. Some component isn't working properly. May be overheating, overclocking, bad memory. If it's a custom built computer, check seating of expansion cards and power connectors. Might be insufficient power supply, either defective or insufficient in the first place. If it's custom built, there might be an incompatibility between components. Make sure the RAM modules are on the RAM compatibility list of the mainboard. Or some other defective component such as the GPU.

OBS or some OBS configuration isn't the issue. It's only making the existing issue visible. If you find some configuration within OBS to make the freeze going away, you're not fixing the issue - it will surface again sooner or later until it is actually fixed from the hardware side.

 

[CuppaTeaRex]

A computer completely freezing this way is a hardware or driver issue. You already reinstalled Windows from scratch including all drivers, so this leaves us with the hardware. Some component isn't working properly. May be overheating, overclocking, bad memory. If it's a custom built computer, check seating of expansion cards and power connectors. Might be insufficient power supply, either defective or insufficient in the first place. If it's custom built, there might be an incompatibility between components. Make sure the RAM modules are on the RAM compatibility list of the mainboard. Or some other defective component such as the GPU.

OBS or some OBS configuration isn't the issue. It's only making the existing issue visible. If you find some configuration within OBS to make the freeze going away, you're not fixing the issue - it will surface again sooner or later until it is actually fixed from the hardware side.

Definitely isn't overheating, overclocking, and the memory tested good. I've disassembled and reassembled the thing about twice since the problem started, so doesn't seem like a seating issue. If it's hardware, which I do agree it probably is, I've no idea how to narrow it down to one thing or another at this point.

Only reason I'm suspicious of it being something OBS side is because I never had the problem until I updated OBS. Coming up on having done that close to a year ago now. I'd been putting off updating it for a while and when I finally did update, suddenly it started freezing.

 

[PaiSand]

If OBS don't produce the crash report then most probaly the issue is on other side.
Please attach a log file form the moment this happens. Look inside Help menu. Yes, there's a Help menu in OBS with helpfull stuff.

You should also check the windows error reports where should be recorded (not always) the moment it crashed and what caused the freezing.

 

[CuppaTeaRex]

If OBS don't produce the crash report then most probaly the issue is on other side.
Please attach a log file form the moment this happens. Look inside Help menu. Yes, there's a Help menu in OBS with helpfull stuff.

You should also check the windows error reports where should be recorded (not always) the moment it crashed and what caused the freezing.

Unfortunately Windows only reports the error of the PC being powered down incorrectly, and nothing beyond that. I'll run OBS again to try and get it to freeze again so I can get a fresh log file from it. Unfortunately I've been messing with OBS so much lately that I have dozens of logs per day, so I'm unsure which corresponds to the freeze.

 

[koala]

It's tedious and frustrating to narrow down hardware issue. The best way is to change parts one by one and see if the issue goes away after the change. The problem is that one usually don't have an identical second PC to exchange parts with.
I would start with all the external USB devices. Disconnect everything except the vital ones (mouse+keyboard). Connect both directly and disconnect any hub.
Then any expansion cards. Remove them (temporarily).
Then the GPU. I don't know how dependent you are on the RTX 3080 for your OBS usage, but your CPU has a iGPU, so if you don't entirely rely on the RTX 3080, remove it and use the iGPU instead, then see what happens with the freezing.

May be you have a spare power supply. Change it.

The most difficult thing to change is probably CPU+mainboard. If you change this, you essentially change the whole PC. But it's some component for sure, whatever it might be, because other OBS users don't report freezing issues like you.

 

[PaiSand]

Unfortunately I've been messing with OBS so much lately

Stop right there.
Run the Auto-configuration Wizard and apply the settings it gives. Do NOT change anything. Restart OBS (!important)
Notice you're now on simple output mode. Keep it this way. Now test it as is.
Now look inside Help menu. Upload the current log file and paste the url to the log in here. Click on the Analize button to start troubleshooting common issues.

Use the presets to test a better quality. Repeat the upload and analyze.
With this you eliminate any possible issue comming from a bad configuration in OBS, which will confirm hardware or driver issues.