Windows 10: Windows 10 upgrade - random freezes and PC becomes unresponsive

The screen went black about a minute after running Don't Sleep (thanks for the tip!). It's like my machine has an Irony Sensor installed.

Anyway, I am within a spit of giving up on Windows 10 altogether. So near, and yet...

 

Hi, don't despair quite yet.. it took me a few days and interventions to get control of high CPU use + 2 upgrade attempts 'cos of a program I had installed in Win 8.1. Then more effort to make it look reasonable from borderless windows with white title bars at that time.

Now you said it's ok in Safe Mode.
Really before making lots of test changes, use disk imaging e.g. Macrium Reflect so you can easily get back to where you were- and create the boot disk for that program.

(Hopefully you have a disk image of Win 8.1 before you upgraded)

Now, I'm wondering about scheduled tasks. Something that kicks in say hourly based on the time you quoted?
Have a look and see if anything is triggered that might be incompatible. Disable any tasks that might fit.

Try Sysinternals Autoruns and examine your startups- check there's nothing that looks obscure. You could try disabling all startups in task man, and disabling anything else you reasonably can via Autoruns.

 

You really need to try clean boot now, as you have not really tried this yet.This will determine better then making another user account in my opinion. Determine more if the cause is from software conflict (running at starting up), software drivers conflict, as you are eliminating all other processes except Microsoft. Plus you have to run it for awhile as this issue is not consistent all the time,but random.This is not an easy issue to figure out, take each step at a time. Also been no BSOD errors to analyze i also see.

http://windowsinstructed.com/clean-boot-windows-windows/

Check the Event Viewer from Custom, Administrator Events, to see if it was being logged there or any other information can help you determine the cause.

If turned off sleep mode and you changed the Power Plan to High performance in Power Options. Also suggest to turn off hibernation, can do so from Admin command prompt, copy and pasting this
powercfg -h off

If later you want to turn it back on, use this powercfg -h on

I would not rule out this could be also a hardware issue, Video card, Power Supply or Hard drive.
Possibility leaning towards the Video Card. Been awhile since i seen a motherboard with no integrated GPU.

As there are tests can do to check hardware, but i would first use clean boot.

Motherboard is an older model ASUS P5N32-E SLI, with 1.8GHZ CPU and DDR2 RAM. Back from 2006, so if running a lot on this can be cause to some of your issues along with being a new OS and no new drivers for system past Windows 8.1, as i told you before to look for updates. Windows 10 may have some within OS,but other may need to be researched from there respected Manufactirer's web site.

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/P5N32E_SLI/HelpDesk_Download/

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards...pecifications/

If it is possible, do not think so, but if you do have Fast boot on this BIOS, go into the BIOS and disable it.

 

Thanks for getting back to me. I got up early this morning to try to work through your suggestions (having had another unhelpful 'chat' with a MS support person last night) but unfortunately have rendered my PC near-useless. I went into MSConfig but accidentally ticked the box "Use original boot configuration" under Selective startup. (Arggh, so cross with myself.) This then presented me with my old boot screen - Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 8.1 with Media Center - but no Windows 10. Via Change defaults... - Choose other options - Troubleshoot - Start-up Settings, I was at least able to bring up the screen that gives you Safe Mode as an option.

I booted into Safe Mode - which was Windows 10 - and went back to MSConfig and eventually found a way to deselect 'Use original boot configuration' (it was greyed out for a while). However, on restart, it still showed me the old options, i.e. no sign of Windows 10 Pro. The only way I can currently boot into Windows 10 is via Safe Mode.

So, before I continue with your excellent suggestions, how do I sort out my boot problem?

Many thanks for your help (everyone).

 

Microsoft chap has said there's no alternative (because there's no Refresh option under Settings - Update & Security - Recovery) but to reinstall Windows 8.0, then upgrade to 8.1 and then Windows 10. Balls to that, frankly.

Any ideas? Given that I can still - sort of - boot into Windows 10, the correct MBR, etc., must still be on my C drive somewhere, surely? I've tried booting with a Windows 10 DVD and using the Repair option (but it then thinks it's a Windows 8 machine...) and making changes with Bootsect, but to no avail.

I really, really don't want to go down the thermonuclear route...

(Am pondering the Reset or Roll Back options... I've got nothing to lose.)

 

Funny mine was doing that before I upgraded from windows 8.1 but since BIOS and drivers been updated in windows 10 have not had one freeze or any problem for 3 weeks.

 

Since messing up my MBR (or whatever it is in Windows 10), I dream of having a machine that freezes occasionally... Glad to hear your machine got sorted, though. Having lost two days of work, I'm considering a flamthrower and going back to a typewriter.

 

Hi, to try to fix your start problem, have you tried using a Win 10 boot disk (which you can quite readily create if you don't have one, tutorial on this site e.g.) and use Startup Repair? I assume tho' the MS chap would have thought of that. Worth trying if you have no disk images.

One real lesson from all this is to use e.g. Macrium Reflect or similar on a regular basis so you can revert to a working situation exactly as was.

 

Yeah, I tried that myself - Start-up Repair then wants you to select an operating system, but still Windows 10 isn't there (it only lists 7 and various versions of 8). And, unsurprisingly, even if you click through, it says it couldn't repair anything.

Thanks for your reply, though. I keep regular disk images, but they're MS ones and Windows recovery (etc.) sees them as being linked to Operating Systems I don't have any more... :-(

 

Hi, there's a suggestion here- ok, it's not Win 10, but the principle is exactly the same-
Startup repair menu doesn't see an operating system Solved - Windows 7 Help Forums

You'll need a bootable disk for a partition manager. That will let you see if the correct partitions are marked appropriately.

 

I missed the part from the beginning that you were dual booting with Windows 7.

Saying you can only enter Windows 10 from safe mode, but you can get to the desktop and it is windows 7, 8, 8.1 ? How were you able to enter safe mode ?

Unchecking Use Original Boot did not work ? When you said was no signs of it in MSCONFIG, did you check the Boot tab and did not see it there ? As it can be then set as default there.

Not familiar with dual boot,know it uses 2 partitions on a disk drive or 2 disk drives.As this shows you about it and how to enter the other OS,is this where you also tried to get back into windows 10 ?
http://www.howtogeek.com/197647/how-to-dual-boot-windows-10-with-windows-7-or-8/


Refresh on MBR (legacy) install like yours i believe, it can only be done through the OS using Advanced recovery options in Windows 10, not from booting from a Windows 10 disc, this can only be done from a UEFI BIOS. Refresh would be one option, as we know refresh will not loose any settings, but will loose any installed programs other option you can do a clean install on that partition too. In Safe mode, if this is only way you can get to Windows 10, can try accessing Advanced Recovery options, select reset, take option for refresh. Hope you always kept backups of important files on external device and even as said system images, Rule #1.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2...dows-10-a.html

 

Thanks for your message! I'm pleased to say I've got Windows 10 working again - and no need to re-install windows 8, as per the MS chap's suggestion...! See below for more details. Anyway, I'm having a look at Macrium Reflect as we speak. ;-) I was trusting Windows to do this itself, but will now investigate other ways of keeping disk images.

Thanks again.

 

I can recommend macrium reflect as used it myself and got it in a folder ready to load again if needed

 

Believe it or not, this machine was originally running Vista, which was upgraded to 7. I then did a fresh install of Windows 8 when my old SSD C: drive broke, but managed to dual boot - not that I ever use Windows 7...

I could load Windows 7, but the 'mentions' of Windows 8 are erroneous as I'd upgraded to 10. So I wasn't able to boot into 8, but was able to use the Change Defaults... - Choose Other Options - Troubleshoot - Start-up Settings method from the boot menu to get into Windows 10 Safe Mode. That's how I knew Windows 10 was still there, somehow... ;-)

I was eventually able to uncheck Use Original Boot Menu, but the damage had been done...

...Anyway, I was able to get Windows 10 working again. I downloaded EasyBCD (EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies) and Dual-boot Repair 10 (Dual-boot Repair Windows 10). The latter saw that there was a Windows 10 installation that wasn't a boot option, but Automatic Repair didn't work. So I used EasyBCD to create a new (Windows 7/8!) entry, and made sure that everything was pointing to the C: and not D: drives. I then used Dual-boot Repair to Repair MBR & Boot Records, and to Repair BCD. I'm not absolutely sure I needed all of these steps, but, one way or another, it worked!

I'm now, much to my great relief, back in Windows 10, and shall be sending suitable contributions to the makers of those two programs. ;-) I'm also very grateful for everyone's help here. It was a waste of a day, but I'm now back on track... (If I'd done what the MS chap had suggested, though... (shivers))

I'm now returning to my original problem, and have successfully performed a clean boot. The PC was still working when I came down this morning, so I'm now convinced - as per your original thought - that it's something loading (either via Services, or via Startup) that doesn't agree with Windows 10. I'm going through these items in groups of about five until I can force a 'freeze', and hope (eventually) to be able to isolate the culprit.

I've also uninstalled and am in the process of reinstalling my AV and Firewall software.

I'll let you know when I have a solution. Thanks again!

 

I shall definitely install ASAP. I've just upgraded my NAS to 2TB, so I have no excuse, really.