I started to use my old laptop (2019year) for specific tasks. Usually, I plug the laptop into my 32inch display and work this way. But after 2-3 minutes of work my laptop hanged. The display was with a huge quantity of noise. But without external display it worked perfectly. There are 2 video adapters - an internal video from Intel and NVidia GeForce 1050.

A small tip of the future solution – I had 20Gb memory installed, 16 Gb + 4Gb.

The potential reasons:

  1. Switch between internal and discrete cards
  2. Drivers of the adapters
  3. Power adapter and cables
  4. Memory

Switch between internal and discrete cards

A very common reason of the hanging – the switch between the video adapters. At first, I disabled Nvidia 1050 card, but Intel adapter didn’t want to work with the external display. Then I disabled the Intel adapter. 3-4 minutes and it hangs.

Figure 1. PC hangs with an external display

Drivers of the adapters

At first, I installed the latest versions of the drivers. The problem with the hanging was going on. Then I installed Nvidia driver from 2024 year, but it also didn’t help me.

Power adapter and cables

I didn’t really think, that it can help. And it didn’t 🙂 The temperature of the CPU was normal. Benchmark had only green indicators.

Memory

When drivers can’t solve the problem, try to unplug some devices. I don’t use something external, so I started with the memory. I unplugged a slot with 4Gb DDR and executed the benchmark. Voila! It worked!

I installed 4Gb again and it hung. I replaced the 4Gb slots, but the result remained the same.

What’s the problem with memory? 16Gb is 3200Hz frequency, but 4Gb – 2400Hz. It’s the most common reason for the problem.

Besides the frequency, the problem can be initiated by different timings with DDR slots. This information is a system one, you need special software to get this data. I use CPU-Z.

Figure 2. Information about memory within CPU-Z

For example, I understand that my 16Gb slot is not high quality. It has timings, which are actual for DDR-2400.

Figure 3. SPD information

In SPD tab you can see the detailed information about each memory module in the computer - the size, maximum speed, manufacturer, model number and production date.