OBS Streaming / Recording Crashes / Freezes PC

[DeBugOfen]

Hello fellow OBS Community,

I have a problem where when I use OBS to Stream / Record my PC randomly freezes and only a hard reset via powerbutton can restart my PC. I tried different things and nothing worked. I use a lot of scenes and nested scenes aswell as plugins. I checked the error logs in OBS and Windows and nothing there to find why it crashes the PC.

Important point: It only crashes with OBS on not anything else so no its not Hardware related it can run 24/7 without any problems tried it.

What I tried :

MemTest64
Different Streaming Settings
Different OBS installations (older, newer)
Reinstalled all graphic drivers
Different games
and more.

What I use:
OBS 31.0.1 (Portable)
Windows 10
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-13700K
Nvidia GTX 4090
64 GB G:Skill Trident Z5 DDR5-6400
M2 Windows SSD for windows (where OBS is located)

attached OBS Output Settings aswell as installed Plugins

I hope anybody can help me or has questions just say so I am greatfull for every bit of knowledge as I tried all my wits for the last 4 month and it is getting frustrated.

Greetings DeBugOfen

 

[koala]

Even if you don't want to hear it, but requiring a hard reset via power button is a hardware issue. OBS being the only app triggering this doesn't mean OBS is the reason, it's just the only app triggering the issue. Video processing and encoding is a very demanding operation, it's possible other apps simply don't request as much from the system as OBS.

Standard answer: check drivers, overclocking, overheating, power supply, expansion card seating, memory.

You have a i7-13700k - that's one of the CPUs that might have been permanently damaged by overheating. This is a manufacturing flaw of the 13th and 14th generation i5, i7 and i9 Intel CPUs. There are bios updates to mitigate this from all motherboard vendors, but if the CPU was damaged before the Bios update, you're out of luck and you might request a warranty exchange.

 

[DeBugOfen]

Even if you don't want to hear it, but requiring a hard reset via power button is a hardware issue. OBS being the only app triggering this doesn't mean OBS is the reason, it's just the only app triggering the issue. Video processing and encoding is a very demanding operation, it's possible other apps simply don't request as much from the system as OBS.

Standard answer: check drivers, overclocking, overheating, power supply, expansion card seating, memory.

You have a i7-13700k - that's one of the CPUs that might have been permanently damaged by overheating. This is a manufacturing flaw of the 13th and 14th generation i5, i7 and i9 Intel CPUs. There are bios updates to mitigate this from all motherboard vendors, but if the CPU was damaged before the Bios update, you're out of luck and you might request a warranty exchange.

Will try a GPU and CPU Test. I never Overclocked and my CPU and Case fan's are oversized for it but could be. I renderd videos with DaVinciResolve for days and my PC never crashed once from that so I highly doubt that this is a problem. Ontop of that my PC froze without streaming / recording while OBS was open so that is why my suspion for OBS is that high.

BIOS Updates are always up 2 date

Edit:

PSU: be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 Watt ATX

 

[rockbottom]

PSU is undersized. This example has a inexpensive mobo, isn't even complete & already @ 850W. Should have built it with 1200w or better. 1300W PSU in my system.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/xJGTzP

 

[koala]

850 W is actually a bit thin for this setup. RTX 4090 has up to 450 W, the i7-13700k up to 253 W. Tdp is 125 W, but on high CPU usage it has spikes up to 253 W. 450 + 253 = 703 W, which leaves us with 150 W for the rest of the system. Motherboard 50-80 W, 64 GB RAM about 10 W, SSD the same (or less). That's not much leeway, and if you keep in mind a power supply is not a monolithic device that just outputs 850 W but instead distributed over the several Volt outputs ( 12 V, 5 V, 3.3 V), you have overload as soon as one output is overloaded while another still could have much free W.

 

[DeBugOfen]

Okay PSU could be a problem. But why did it work for over 1,5 years and than the problem happens ONLY in OBS and ONLY when OBS is running ? I changed nothing on my hardware and streamed / recorded / rendered Videos whithout a problem a freeze or anything ?

 

[rockbottom]

It's undersized for sure. Maybe it's been abused for too long & is tapping out at this point? Might need further testing or could be something else. HAGS can causes issues, is that enabled? No log or mention of it above.

If you have a UPS, test it & make sure the battery is good. Or try bypassing it altogether & plug your PC directly to an outlet.

 

[koala]

But why did it work for over 1,5 years and than the problem happens

In this case, I would say the power supply isn't the issue. Only if the power supply itself became defective.
But this will emphasize the Intel CPU damage by overheating issue. It's not something you can control with fans and proper cooling - it's a design flaw in the CPUs that let parts of the CPU chip deep inside the CPU package overheat and get damaged. The Bios updates throttle the CPU under certain load conditions, so this special overheating doesn't take place any more, so the CPU is safe for the rest of its lifetime. But if your CPU was already damaged in the 2 years before the Bios update, it stays damaged.

I wasn't able to to check in detail, but I assume this Google search contains results that might help find a way to see if your own CPU is damaged or not. May be somewhere within all the results is a link to some app that checks for this special damage situation: https://www.google.com/search?q=intel+13th+and+14th+gen+issues+how+to+check