Windows 10 freezing frequently (off topic)

[buggy]

I am curious as to whether many others on this forum have experienced a lot of random lockups of the OS in Windows 10 since the Anniversary Update a few months back.
It is happening to me a lot, sometimes dozens of times per day. I've tried a lot of things without any success. On Microsoft's site they acknowledge that a minority of machines have been experiencing this (they closed the thread after thousands of people posted that they have this problem), but this was a few months ago without any specific statement from MS saying that they have it solved or are still working on it. Even though there have been several updates since the Anniversary Update, there has been no silver bullet. They had suggested that a common thread may be PCs with the OS running on an SSD and data on a separate drive. I tested this by disconnecting all secondary and backup drives so that there was just the SSD running, and it still froze. At this point I just want to know if I am alone with this issue, or if many others are experiencing it. If the latter, then perhaps there is still hope that Microsoft will fix it . . . .
It is so disruptive that I even contemplated getting a new PC, but when I called my hardware vendor they said they are aware of the issue and there is no guarantee that the new PC won't have the same problem.

[glimpse]

hi there, sorry to hear Your experience & probably it's frustrating to sit on this issue. Actually I haven't heard about it yet, not sure if anyone mentioned in this forum either (doesn't mean that we do not have effected users though).

if I were You I would just try to get something like w7 installed as a backup OS on separate drive..- You might find it useful once in a while , let's say when You main system crash. My guess this issue will get at some point, but if it effects small percentage it probably going to get to the end of priority list..so I wouldn't hold my breath for it & look for alternative solution in a meantime.

[buggy]

Thank you Glimpse. I posted to see if it might be common to people running multiple GPUs on high-end machines, but apparently not . . .
Perhaps it is something about my particular machine, and not Windows, but it did coincide with the anniversary update, and the thread on the MS forum seemed to confirm that I am not alone.
I disabled my antivirus s/w today and it hasn't locked up, so perhaps there's hope in that. However, it has even frozen on the login screen, which is before the AV s/w has even loaded, so who knows. I'm crossing my fingers!
Happy Holidays!

[prehabitat]

Thank you Glimpse. I posted to see if it might be common to people running multiple GPUs on high-end machines, but apparently not . . .
Perhaps it is something about my particular machine, and not Windows, but it did coincide with the anniversary update, and the thread on the MS forum seemed to confirm that I am not alone.
I disabled my antivirus s/w today and it hasn't locked up, so perhaps there's hope in that. However, it has even frozen on the login screen, which is before the AV s/w has even loaded, so who knows. I'm crossing my fingers!
Happy Holidays!

I had that issue on my home workstation; so I rolled back to a previous update (because nothing else worked) I've since allowed it to install a bunch of updates and it's working...

Interestingly on my work machine the anniversary edition caused lockups, disappearing start menu (seemed to be a dual screen & RDP issue, and recreating my profile didn't fix it)then apps stopped working; nothing would happen when you click the icon to start them, not even an error or a blip on the CPU usage!
For the work machine I ended up creating a new windows10 install USB using the windows media creation thingy (uses the latest version available) and installing from scratch... it's a PITFA on a workstation because you needed to set up all your shortcuts, settings, symbolic links and workflow aids, but it works like a dream now.

Is your win10 an upgrade from win7? Or did you buy the pc with win10 preloaded?

[DylanSaunders]

I had that issue on a new Windows 7 PC. The whole thing would freeze up and nothing would work. Mouse, keyboard etc. wouldn't respond and the screen would be frozen. It could happen several time a day, or not happen for a couple of weeks, very intermittent. This went on for many months and I sent it back to the store I think three times. It turned out to be a faulty graphics card (GTX570). The store fitted a new card (GTX750) and the problem was solved.

[face_off]

Buggy - I have been getting Win10 lockups a few times a day off and on for 6 months. Very frustrating. Spoke to Acer phone support (since it's a new PC) and the best they can offer is to do a hard reset, requiring the reinstallation of all apps and data. The lockups come and go based on windows updates - so there is something in those updates triggering the problem. I have traced it back to either the onboard intel graphics card driver, or the Nvidia card driver, OR one of those cards overheating. I had resolved the issue prior to the Anniversary update, but then that update reset all my settings and the issue came back. Because I tried so many things to resolve the issue (and because it's an intermittent problem) it's hard to tell what the solution is. However, try hugely underclocking your card so it runs cooler.

Paul

[Savi089]

Yep i got the issue too. Sometimes the computer already crashes the second i try to send a scene to octane. Sadly my only solution was to use a cpu renderer like corona for now lol!

Here´s a forum thread in the official nvidia forums:

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topi ... ddmkm-/11/

I hope it somehow gets fixed because a lot of people still seem to have the issue after reinstalling win10 or even rolling back to way older builds. It´s quite infuriating to say the least..

[smicha]

Guys - here is the list of solutions steps that worked for me

1. Disable windows search in windows services.
2. Disable superfetch in windows services.
3. Disable connected user experiences and telemetry in windows services.
4. Disable in flash plugin in chrome (chrome://plugins)
5. Reinstall chipset drivers from website of your mobo producers.
6. Install intel management technology drivers for your ssd.

[Savi089]

Sadly that didn´t do the trick for me.. still crashing frequently. Anymore ideas are very welcome though

[roeland]

Yes, twice. Both times on a laptop, and both times even without the anniversary upgrade.

One of them is almost definitely has a faulty graphics chip, after fudging around for a while I forced it to use the generic VGA driver. As soon as it starts using the proper drivers it will start locking up again. (the hard part was stopping Windows Update from installing that driver).

The other one is a bit older, and the manufacturer didn't list that particular model as "tested with Windows 10". So I reverted that one to Windows 7.

--
Roeland