Windows 10: why my laptop keeps freezing and graphic driver crashing

so for past few days, whenever i play valorant: either my graphic driver crashes or my whole laptop freezes so i have to restart it using the physical power button my pc specs: core i7 1065G7 intel iris plus + mx330 on hp envy 17m-cg0013d

:)

 

Thinkpad Edge Series Laptop Keeps Freezing on Windows 10 - Intel HD Graphics 520

Like some other questions on this site, this is about Windows 10 freezing up, by freezing up, I mean that the Control Alt Delete key will not bring up the screen that lets me open the task manager. The screen is on. This is not a blue screen of death (BSOD). The only thing I can do when it freezes is hold the power button for about 10 seconds, which does a hard power off. After I power back on, there is nothing in the Event Viewer that helps me determine what is going on, but I do notice that there are no entries in the System log for the last 10 or 15 minutes before the crash. This made me wonder if it's a disk problem.

What makes me think it's NOT a disk problem is that 90% of the crashes occurred while running a developer tool that I use (Embarcadero Delphi), and occurs when resetting the debugger, which terminates its child process (a win32 gdi app). Having that process terminate, and its windows disappear, was the most common ways to hang my system. This hang does not reproduce when I moved back to Windows 7, only on Windows 10.

What I have figured out is that the freeze is either specific to Windows 10 itself or its drivers, as it does not occur on windows 7 on the same hardware, which tends to indicate it's NOT a hardware problem with my laptop:

1. The case where the laptop freezes and dies is when it's booted up into Windows 10 version 1703, build 15063.540, 64 bit.
   
2. The laptop does not freeze when booted from another hard disk that I have that has Windows 7, 64 bit, on it.
   

Both disks I have which I can boot this machine from have 64 bit Windows versions on them, either win7 or win10.

I have installed all the Thinkpad bios updates for this model, and gotten latest drivers from Lenovo and Intel websites and have all Windows updates installed. sfc /scannow did not detect any problems with image integrity.

The freezes are hard to establish a pattern for. I have had seven to ten freezes per day, an I have had weeks without freezes.

My question is:

1. Does anyone have any theory which I can test or steps I can use to troubleshoot or track down the cause of this freeze?
   
2. Is there anything I can run that will help me determine why the system is freezing up? I believe there is a hard crash occuring in the Windows kernel level. can I prove this or disprove this idea in any way?
   

Things which I have also done which have not helped:

a. It is possible to turn of Hyper-Threading in the bios, I have turned it off.

b. It is possible in Windows to disable the USB power savings modes, as some people report this causes crashes with certain Intel/Lenovo laptops. This is off, and the freezes still happen. (old control panel -> power options -> advanced settings -> usb settings -> usb selective suspend setting -> on battery = disabled, plugged in = disabled)

Some hardware notes:

1. This thinkpad, like many edge series thinkpads has Intel integrated graphics and AMD Radeon graphics as well. The intel graphics are the primary graphics and all 2D apps seem to use that video driver exclusively. Installing and updating the radeon drivers has no effect on the crashes, and removing them completely has no effect on the crashes.
   
2. It seems to me that a bug in the Intel HD 520 graphics drivers is highly likely.
   

 

Custom Driver : Intel HD Graphics & ATI Combo (Alpha) - by nIGHTmAYOR

according to laptop support page they do list an old downloadable driver for intel for windows 7 , weather this is related to there being several variants of that laptop or this laptop has switchable graphics i may just suggest you reset the bios and see if things change , if yes you may be able to apply step 2 , if not then apply step 4 and call it today , you are still better off being on the high performance gpu .

Out of curiosity can you take a snap shot from Settings > System > Display. Scroll down and click the “Graphics Settings” ?

 

Intel HD Graphics 4600 driver keeps crashing

Hi,

Thank you for posting your query on Microsoft Community. Let me assist you.

Provide us with the below details for better clarity on the issue.

• What is the make and model of the computer?
• Are you facing the issue on a local or the Microsoft user account?
• Is the issue specific to Solitaire?

Method 1:

I suggest you to perform a Driver Roll Back so that the driver goes back to the previous state and check if the issue is resolved.

Steps:-

• Press “Windows + X” and select Device Manager.
• Select Display Adapter and expand the driver icon.
• Right click on the driver icon and click on Properties.
• Go to Driver tab.
• Select Roll Back Driver.

If you still face the issue, uninstall and reinstall the driver and check the status of the issue.

Method 2: Uninstall and Reinstall the Graphics Card Drivers.

Steps:-

• Press “Windows Logo” + “X” keys on the keyboard.
• Click on “Device Manager” from that list.
• Search for the Graphics Card from the device list, right click on it and then select “Uninstall”. On the un-installation window, if you have an option: “Delete the driver software for this device” you may select that
  and then remove the corrupted drivers from the computer.
• Follow the on-screen instructions to complete it and then restart the computer if prompted.

After the restart, please go ahead with the next steps to install the latest drivers and check if that resolves the issue.

Hope this information is helpful. Please do let us know if you need further assistance, we’ll be glad to assist you.