Windows 10: Computer freezes after the first start-up of the day, every day

I've been having this issue for a few weeks, but I'm not entirely sure when it started, so I cannot determine a concrete root cause. My computer freezes every day after the first start-up, requiring a hard shutdown. At the end of the night, I shut down my computer, and start it back up the next morning, which is when it freezes. It never freezes after booting it back up from the hard shutdown, and it never freezes after a restart. It's extremely rare for me to get freezes, crashes or BSoDs while using it; seems to only happen after the first start-up of the day.


It usually freezes within a few minutes after it has finished booting up and I've logged in. It seems to run normally at first, but then inevitably locks up. After logging in, I launch Task Manager after my start-up programs have loaded, so I can watch resource usage. The freezing doesn't seem to be related to high CPU usage or disk usage, and my memory has never come close to being maxed I have 32GB of RAM, for no particular reason.


When it freezes, it doesn't look like a full freeze. I can still move the cursor, and when hovering over taskbar icons, or top-bar buttons of open pages, they highlight as though they're still functioning. I can open the start menu, and it also appears to be functioning normally, but nothing in the menu works including trying to shut down or restart the system, and the menu window stays stuck on the screen. At this point, I am unable to minimize/maximize any open windows, and clicking icons/buttons will cause it to freeze fully. I can still move the cursor around, but nothing responds in any way. CTRL-ALT-DEL also does nothing. Initially, I figured it might just be a hangup, and it'd sort itself out eventually, but it doesn't. I've let it sit for up to 15 minutes after it freezes, and it never recovers. When it happens, I'm forced to do a hard shutdown; nothing else works.


Thinking it may just be from trying to use programs too soon after booting it which has never been an issue before, I tried logging on and then just letting it sit. When I came back to it, I found that it had frozen on the screen saver.


I've tried nearly every fix I could find on the internet.

- I started with deep scrub virus/malware scans, including boot scans. The only issue that's been detected is a corrupted archive for Microsoft Paint 3D, which I don't use.

- Since upgrading my RAM two years ago, I've run memory diagnostic scans semi-regularly to ensure I didn't damage anything. When the issue first started, I ran another one and it didn't detect any issues.

- I've run several chkdsk scans on both of my drives, and they have occasionally found errors, but have always been able to correct them. My most recent scans, if I recall correctly, did not find any issues.

- I've run several sfc scans, and the first few did find registry errors, but were able to correct them. My most recent scan did not detect anything.

- I've tried disabling the start-up programs listed in Task Manager haven't tried the safe boot disabling, and that didn't help.


My computer laptop has both an integrated GPU and another GPU I'll list specs below, and I originally thought the issue might be the integrated GPU somehow wearing out and becoming overburdened. I switched as much as I could to run through the other GPU, but that didn't seem to help.


I regularly check for driver updates, but noticed that the driver for my integrated GPU was several years old. Despite Windows telling me that it was the most recent driver, I checked Intel's page and found that it was way out of date. I had hoped updating that driver would solve the problem, but it didn't.


Thinking it may have to do with my SSD boot drive being overburdened, I switched several programs over to my HDD. The only difference I noticed was a slight reduction in performance from those programs. I also disabled indexing on the SSD, but that didn't help.


At one point, I had issues with Avast hogging a large amount of resources, but reinstalling the program seemed to fix that problem, and I keep a close eye on it. I've also stopped using Avast Clean-Up, as I read that it could cause problems in the registry.


I've tried reinstalling Windows via recovery settings, but it always fails. When I run the reinstall process, it seems to prepare correctly, but when it restarts, it gets locked on a black screen and nothing happens. I'm forced to do a hard shutdown I've let it sit for an upwards of 30 minutes, to make sure it wasn't running behind a blank screen. When starting it back up after that, I get a message saying that the reinstall was unsuccessful, and no changes were made. I'm guessing this means the reinstall files are corrupted. My next step is to download the reinstall package and throw it on a USB drive, and do a fresh installation that way. I'd really rather not have to do that, but I feel like I'm out of options and I can't keep doing this.


Laptop Specs:

- Windows 10 Home 64bit Version 1909

- CPU: Intel Core i7-6700HQ

- RAM: 32GB DDR4

- Integrated GPU: Intel HD Graphics 530

- Other GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 970M

- Boot Drive: SSD used for programs

- Second Drive: HDD used for storage


Windows Update says everything is fully updated I check daily.

:)

 

Computer freezes 5 - 9 times a day approximately

Hello

About a month ago, my computer started freezing randomly. I have Windows 10. After I uninstalled the latest Windows update, it was fine. For a few days, then the start button stopped working, as well as Cortana and the Wifi button. That was resolved on its
own with another automatic Windows update. A couple of days all was fine but then, a few days ago, it started freezing again. Mostly when it's not active but also when I watch videos. I googled but I didn't find a solution offered by anyone, including Microsoft
support, who had many different complicated suggestions about what to try but as far as I have seen, it didn't work for most people who asked. I also tried a few suggested things. Is it possible that the solution hasn't been found yet or have I just not managed
to find it? If there is still no solution, should I wait for a while, could I expect it in near future or should I transfer to Linux or Windows 7?

Thank you.

 

Lumia 920 freezes once a day.

Dear Jack,

Thanks a lot. I am doing exactly what you suggested. Now, after a hard reset, the phone has been running without freezing for about three days.

I haven't installed any apps yet. Maybe in a day or two I will start adding the most essential ones.

Danko

 

Computer Crashing Once Per Day

I have an issue that whenever I play a video or start a game, my computer will crash, I see a black screen and then it reboots. It happens once per day. Once it crashes, it wont crash for the rest of the day, even if I happen to shut down or restart the
computer. I shut down the computer every night.

Recently, for the past week, I have been putting the computer to sleep every night instead and I have not crashed once. Even after restarting the computer to install several programs I believed to have been causing the issue.

System Specs:

• MSI B450I motherboard
• Nvidia RTX 3070
• 16GB of RAM DDR4 3600
• AMD 3600 Processor

Troubleshooting steps:

• Cleaned the registry with CCleaner
• Tested Memory several times, no issues found
• Ran sfc /scannow, there was no corruption
• disabled all non essential startup processes and services, all the windows ones are active
• Updated all my hardware drivers, including video card and system board
• Ran stress tests of CPU, GPU, and Memory
• Replaced GTX 970 GPU