Well it had to happen, didn't it!  Ashampoo's AV caused an issue with creating new folders everywhere except in My Documents, and then it was only possible when pressing Ctrl> shift > N all together.  I spent much of my day researching to see if I could find a solution, but alas, none of the suggestions from my search worked... and there were a few of them.

I was just about to give up and ask the folks here at WC if they may have an idea, then I saw a suggestion which simply said "disable or remove your AV".  I removed the AV as disabling it failed to work, and whitelisting Explorer, etc, did nothing, either  After rebooting I was able to create new folders agtain....YaY.

Anyway, I shall inform Ashampoo of the issue and hopefully they'll quickly fix it.

With the freeze ups while converting video, I tried using Handbrake last night and my PC froze within a couple of minutes.  I then went to Ashampoo's video converter and no issues... even the freeware AnyVideo Converter runs okay. 

What I noticed with Handbrake is that the CPU started around 2% - 3% but climbed dramatically a minute or so into the conversion to over 95%.  The CPU temp went up to 70+ and that's when everything froze up.

While converting with AnyVideo Converter and Ashampoo's version, I kept an eye on the CPU cycles and temps, but neither program pushed much above 15% usage and temps mostly stayed around 39c - 40c.

The conclusion!  Handbrake is a resource hog and I've uninstalled it.  Even the RAM usage jumped to over 50% and when you have 64Gb installed you have to wonder how one program could use so much.

Just thought I'd let everyone know that if they experience freeze ups with Handbrake to try another program, such as AnyVideo Converter if you're looking for a free one, or Ahampoo's affordable offering for US 21 bucks.... and if you're interested, they have other paid for programs plus several freeware versions for various multimedia tasks as well as PC care and optimisation.

Another thing that probably contributed to the more recent freeze ups is a dial on the MSI X399 SLI Plus motherboard that allows gamers to easily overclock their machines without having to mess around in the BIOS.   I must have inadvertantly turned it up while I was working inside the case the other day, thus overclocking my machine without realising it.

I wondered why the CPU temps were suddenly spiking above 60c when they were much lower earlier in the piece. Now I know and I've corrected it.  It took a bit of online research and it seems other owners of the AMD Ryzen Threadripper 2920x were having similar concerns about their CPU temps. 

According to the AMD community forums, the 2920x can run into 60c temps quite naturally and can spike at 68c without issue, though with properly installed liquid cooling, temps can be somewhat lower.  With a better understanding of things I am going to place the radiator fans under the top cover to reduce my CPU temps even further.

As for Handbrake, it still pushes my CPU temps up, so out it goes.

Well so much for relocating the radiator fans to inside the top cover for more efficient cooling.  There's not enough clearance between the frame and the cover.  Oh well, it'll take a bit more effort, but I'll relocate the radiator to the frame behind the 20cm front fans, thus killing two birds with one stone. 

The front fans will bring a cooler external airflow to the radiator from outside the case, and the current radiator fans will then be repurposed to sit nicely under the top frame, thus bringing cooler external air to the interior of the case.

Ah, the trials and tribulations of a PC builder.