Windows 10: Browser Tabs, Applications and Desktop Icons Refresh Constantly while Focused

I will first describe the machine, please see bullet points starting a few paragraphs down for an actual summary of the issue.


I am running on the latest standard release of Windows 10 Education edition. I'm also running the latest BIOS version for my Asus TUF GAMING X570-PRO WI-FI motherboard, with a 3080 GPU with the latest drivers from Nvidia and a 5950x CPU. See all components here: https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/37491924. I have been using running the machine with DOCP and PBO options enabled + set to their default values, but I've continued experiencing the same issues even when running all of the hardware using only the stock BIOS settings. I also didn't experience any hardware issues running Cinebench R23 or any other benchmarks/stress tests. Also I believe that the power supply is stable/consistent/sufficient, and haven't experienced any elevated temperatures either before or while facing this issue.


This issue happens intermittently for between a few seconds to 20+ minutes at a time although typically for ~1-5 minutes at time. This issue generally happens within 30 seconds of restarting the PC I've tried restarting multiple times throughout this process, and the issue is delayed for maybe 5-30 minutes after starting the PC if the PSU was physically shut off or switched off or otherwise disconnected from the wall outlet after shutting down Windows and before starting it back up again.

While the issue is active, the following things happen on various applications:

• When notepad is open and focused, it will constantly print the current date/time in the form of "12/29/20201:54 PM " 30+ times per second 1819+ times per minute.
• When focused on the desktop, all of the desktop icons will refresh constantly many times per second.
• When focused on the task manager, it will refresh the list of processes and their CPU/GPU/Memory/etc. usage many times per second with Desktop Window Manager and Client Server Runtime Process using a total of 5-10% of the CPU [5950x] and 20-30% of the GPU [RTX 3080 with the latest standard Nvidia drivers, and also with all of their drivers uninstalled and using just the default Windows video drivers and again still after a clean install of the Nvidia drivers].
• When on any browser Chrome, Edge, Internet Explorer, the current page will refresh on keyup immediately upon letting go of any key on the keyboard, no matter where the focus is within the browser this doesn't happen on websites designed to record which keys are being pressed and ignore refresh shortcuts such as F5 or ctrl-R, and such websites still accurately record exactly which keys are pressed when actually pressing the keys. Websites that keep track of unsaved changes e.g. this answers.microsoft.com question forum will warn you about unsaved changes on keyup instead of immediately refreshing.
• Built in Windows start-menu search still lets you type and search without any apparent issues, but actually selecting a result requires either double clicking or pressing enter as opposed to the normal single clicking
• Windows File Explorer: on the quick access/navigation pane, you can still left click navigate and right click open menus, however in the main File Explorer window, you can only select items by clicking directly on the icon image as opposed to anywhere in the highlighted blue square around them or while the focus is on another app, and the only way to actually interact with any of the items is to focus elsewhere and then right click open a menu. Keyboard navigation between elements works as expected, but when holding shift and selecting multiple items via keyboard navigation, they become un-highlighted/deselected as soon as you let go of the shift key, with a blue outline returning to the first item in the folder at that time.
• Also when you open applications that weren't already open, they will open in the background rather than in focus.
• On Sublime Text 3, everything functions normally except for clicking and dragging the mouse to select text, which instead moves the text cursor to wherever you initially clicked.

• Windows defender reported no viruses after running full scans, and seemingly had no report after running the Offline Scan.

The PC has been functioning properly since I built it ~2 weeks ago until yesterday. Yesterday I installed Python 3.9, PyCharm Community, and Zoom, and also set up a webcam for the first time on this PC. The issues started a few hours after all of that, and persisted even after uninstalling all of those programs/disconnecting the webcam. The only other software installation/update that happened yesterday was apparently a .NET Update Preview. Uninstalling that update didn't fix the bug either. I also uninstalled the C++ RunTime libraries for good measure, restarting between each uninstallation, and this didn't fix the bugs either.



Running `sfc /scannow` revealed and fixed a corrupted OneDrive file, but this had no impact on the bug. `dism /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth` ran successfully as well, and again had no impact on the bug.


This issue still persisted after uninstalling all 3rd party software including applications that have been running fine since installing them a couple of weeks ago. The only Regedit I've made was several days ago, adding a single key/value in order to display the seconds in the clock on the taskbar, which worked fine, but after seeing the datetime pasted in Notepad I figured I'd undo that for safe measure. Deleting this one key also did not fix the issue. I have not attempted a fresh/clean installation of Windows and will probably try this next unless anyone knows of a faster or easier solution to try first.



Another user apparently faced some of the exact same issues 7 months ago while running an Insider edition "Windows 10 Pro fast ring version 2004 19628.1." See their bug post at this linkhttps://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/...ing_any_key_causes_desktopbrowser_to_refresh/ and uploaded video demonstrating the desktop icon issue herehttps://reddit.com/link/gl2bml/video/bt9kjjqay6z41/player. The behavior looks the same on my computer, except I see the desktop icons refreshing constantly instead of disappearing all together. It doesn't look like anyone replied to that user's post and they deleted their account, so I'm not sure if they ever ended up resolving the issue, and I haven't really found any other forum posts documenting this same issue.


Thank you for reading and please let me know if you've faced the same bugs or have any advice!

:)

 

Desktop constantly refreshing

Hi, some ideas here:
Windows 10 Taskbar and Desktop Constantly Refreshing - Microsoft Community
BEST FIX: Stop Windows 10 Taskbar and Desktop Refreshing - Appuals.com

Another observation:
Windows 10 Desktop Constant Refresh: how can I stop the constant refreshing? - Windows Central Forums
...had the constant refresh problem
Fixed it thus: First switching off WiFi, then right click on start button, select the shutdown sign off and select shutdown
Then boot pc as normal - leave to do all its stuff - suggest about a couple of minutes - switch wifi back on and all was as it should be.

Another:
Uninstall IDT Audio (if installed).

System Restore can be unreliable. Restore now doesn't work for me with a particular message which has rarely been reported.

Having read the above, if no help, then basics:
a. Does it happen in Safe Mode?
b. Does it happen after a clean boot?

 

No application focused after switching desktop


As the title says, after switching desktops, no application is focused. This is extremely annoying, because additional ALT+TAB is required just to start typing. I was excited about this feature and it looks really great, but this small bug makes it almost unusable for me.

 

Desktop icons

Greg,

I deleted IconCache but when I went to see if it worked by moving an icon on my desktop and then right clicked to refresh, the icon did not move back. It seems like there is a step missing where I need to save the positions of the icons on my desktop. Any
other suggestions?

Lou