Windows 10: Freeze after meltdown/spectre patch ?

So after arriving home from holidays I noticed windows was installing the latest patches including the one for the recently discovered vulnerabilities.

After 1-3 days problems started to appear, my computer would randomly freeze, first I wouldnt be able to click anything, then the cursor would stop and finally the audio would stop, always in this particular order.

Already happened like 4 times and I cant find anything about this anywhere in event viewer.

Im running on an i5 2500k processor, is it possible that im affected by the reported freezes regarding the vulnerabilities patch ?

Cheers

:)

 

Windows Update Intel Patches for Meltdown & Spectre

URGENT - Please Microsoft:

1. Provide a List of Windows Updates that included the (bad) Intel Patches for Meltdown & Spectre (which Intel now say should NOT be installed).

2. Advise IF (and HOW) the Windows Updates that included (bad) Intel Patches for Meltdown & Spectre should be 'removed' by End Users?

3. If Microsoft Identifies (to it's Community) Windows Updates that included (bad) Intel Patches, can Users remove them - while still getting any other 'fixes' (that did NOT relate to Meltdown & Spectre) included in the Same Windows Updates that contained
the (bad) Patches for Meltdown & Spectre?

4. How do Users ensure that ant Windows Updates they remove - to 'eject' the (bad) Intel Patch for Meltdown & Spectre - are not 'automatically' re-installed' later - by Automatic Windows Updates, when Windows notices the 'removed updates' are not installed?

Note: I've looked at the Microsoft.com Descriptions of Numerous Recent Windows Updates and (although some refer to 'security') none seem to specifically mention Intel, Meltdown or Spectre - so I can't determine which Windows Updates included the 'bad' Intel
Patches.

 

Spectre and meltdown

Hi CMC69, below is a link that provides a list of the patches released and possibly installed on your system for Spectre and Meltdown:

https://www.techarp.com/guides/microsoft-spectr...

If these are installed, you can uninstall these from Control Panel - Programs and Features - View Installed Updates . . .

 

These are some performance impacts:
Understanding the performance impact of Spectre and Meltdown mitigations on Windows Systems Microsoft Secure

 

I am not worried/bothered by any performance loss, I just want to get rid of these random freezes that hinder my work.

I disabled INTEL C-STATE in bios + uninstalled the security patch, wish me luck

 

There are lots of things that can cause hangs and freezes.
Click control + alt + del simultaneously to open task manager and view the percentages for CPU, RAM, DISK

Place the computer in clean boot to see if there is improvement:
Perform a Clean Boot in Windows 10 to Troubleshoot Software Conflicts Performance Maintenance Tutorials
If there is then look for problem software
If there is no improvement then move to safe mode (with networking or with command prompt):
Boot into Safe Mode on Windows 10 Performance Maintenance Tutorials

There is a tool that can continuously record events that can be used in challenging cases: Windows performance recorder: WPR
The challenge will be to find someone in a timely manner that can interpret the results:
Windows performance recorder - Microsoft Community

 

Thanks a lot!

Will return with feedback

 

Well, today is 17th and I've using this PC daily without a single freeze/issue ever since I uninstalled that fantastic meltdown patch.

It is safe to say/confirm that, that was the culprit considering that after the patch was installed I'd get like AT LEAST 1 freeze a day

 

Great.
What steps did you make to prevent it from automatically re-installing during the next update?

 

All I did was pause updates, from what I can see its paused until feb 17th

 

I've always used the registry-based "metered" setting to disable updates.
There are other ways, but this one is simple and reliable.

The key is
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\NetworkList\DefaultMediaCost

The items are
Default
Ethernet
WiFi

For any of these items ...
A setting of "2" means metered. Updates will not happen.
A setting of "1" means not metered. Updates will proceed normally.

Set all three to a value of "2" to prevent updates.

 

Yes, it will stop Windows update, but...

Connecting a new flash drive may not be accessible, the system is unable to load drivers, if required. Even, if the system can mount the flash drive, it'll still complain about the metered connection.

The other aspect is Outlook 2016, that also complains about metered connections. So far, that's the two that I had noticed...

 

I spoke too soon it seems, so after pausing w10 updates, disabling c-states in bios and uninstalling the garbage meltdown patch my issues were fixed, for 10 days i had absolutely no freezes and everything ran perfectly!

Today sadly, ive encountered the very same freeze behavior as before uninstalling the patch.

Theres a specific pattern that I can’t quite crack at the moment, heres how it happens:

All freezes, pre-uninstalling the patch and post always occur when im browsing the web in mozilla firefox, always mozilla.

Second note, today after a period of 10 days without a problem, it froze again in the same manner, I was watching youtube (mozilla) and it happened after i booted Origin (wanted to play some battlefront 2). The weird thing is that i boot up origins everyday without an issue, i just dont understand what the heck is causing this. Ive tested my memory, gpu, cpu, ssd, all are fine...

 

I have the exact same problem. 21st of January the windows 10 meltdown patch was installed on my PC, after that I got constant freezes/reboots.

I uninstalled the patch and it was all good for a couple of days, then it started happening again. I even reinstalled windows 10 from scratch and the problem seems to persist.

Another thing in common is that I'm using Firefox (58.0) too, do you think this may be the cause of the problem? I'll try to use chrome for the next days to test it then

 

Thank god im not the only one! I was beginning to suspect a hidden hardware issue after basically excluding everything and running benchmarks on every hardware part.

Yes I am also using firefox 58.0, it's my day to day browser, what's weird is that it always freezes when im in mozilla and i think its somehow tied to it, not sure.. how but im suspecting mozilla. I will also try to temporarly switch to chrome and see if the problem persists.

Im so happy its not just me with this issue