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

Yes when you do please post what the outcome was then mark the problem solved so that if anyone else has that trouble they know what to do and go about solving it

 

OK, time for an update. Basically I've spent the last few days trying to do some work and, every time the PC has frozen, I've tried something else. This morning I reached *28 hours* without a problem, and then the dreaded freeze happened again. So I can't, hand-on-heart, mark this as Solved.

A few things to observe (I may be repeating myself, but I'm going through my copious notes...!). It does seem to be a freeze rather than a crash as nothing seems to come up in the logs (NB. music stops, sometimes the desktop freezes, then the monitor goes black and switches off and the PC does not respond to anything other than a hardware reset). I've never had a freeze in Safe Mode - however, given that the PC can seem fine for many hours, I am not sure if that's helpful or not...

However, taking on board much of the advice given to me, I started with a clean boot (no non-MS services, manually disabled all Startup items). That *seemed* stable, so I started the process of trying to identify a culprit. Re-enabling Startup items caused a freeze, but then, so did (on a separate boot) re-enabling non-MS services instead. Could it be something in both? And then, on a whim, I disabled all the MS Services instead - and, though obviously the end result was FUBAR'd, it *seemed* stable too. And as soon as I re-enabled them, the freezes came back. Could it be an MS service to blame, and that I was 'lucky' when doing a clean boot?

Until today's freeze - and it took me hours of frustration to get to this point - I would have pointed the finger at the Power service. (I would disable 10 services at a time, wait for a crash, then disable another 10... The culprit seemed to be the Power service.) I certainly get best results (i.e. longest periods between freezes) with this disabled. But, as I say, it's not a solution, as it just happened again earlier. So perhaps it's just a coincidence - I'm not sure I'm any further forward, but would welcome any thoughts...

Incidentally, I've also installed Macrium Reflect to make some images (in itself it has made the PC no more or less stable). I've uninstalled and reinstalled my AV and firewall software of choice (Avast and Comodo) - again, made no difference one way or the other. I've uninstalled Start8, and installed Start10 instead (ditto). I've done what I think you could describe as a repair install from a DVD made from the latest ISO (ditto, though it was stable for almost 24 hours after that). I've turned off sleep mode, changed the power plan to High Performance, turned off hibernation, etc. (all this before I disabled the Power service, obviously) - ditto. I have, variously, disabled the Geolocation service, and re-enabled it via regedit (Windows 10 release notes - known issues) - ditto. I've run sfc/ scannow numerous times, and it doesn't find anything. Ditto the dism commands (Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth ; Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth ; Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth ).

It could, I guess, be a hardware problem, but it's odd that this happened when I upgraded. Windows 8.1 was rock solid. I don't have a Fast Boot on my BIOS (latest BIOS, though I appreciate my motherboard is ancient!). I ran several full memory tests, and they were fine.

I've fiddled around with different pagefile sizes. I've checked my scheduled tasks. I've run an anti-malware program. I've uninstalled Samsung Magician. I've reinstalled Samsung Magician and told it to make changes (Maximum Reliability). I've even, in my desperation, taken the side panel off my case, just to make sure it wasn't overheating!

Anyway, that's where I'm at. Does any of this make sense?! I need to go off and do some work now (currently 40 minutes since the last freeze), but any thoughts gratefully received. And thank you all for your suggestions thus far!

 

Hi, well done for trying so hard, & glad to hear you solved your non-booting to Win 10- nasty issue.

Have you ever tried a RAM test? I know you said it was stable under Win 8.. however... at this stage I think it's worth doing.

As you know some programs and services are related, and some programs create new services when installed- so your comment about programs vs services depends on exactly which ones you played with.

Apart from that, it does very much sound like you're something running that is in conflict or incompatible in some manner, which only careful trial and error is likely to resolve.


I also seem to remember reading sthg about a blank screensaver.. can't remember exactly- have a look at your screensaver settings anyway. (But your black screen is long term and random, so probably not relevant).

 

Yes, that had occurred to me. As mentioned, I tried a couple last week - the Windows one (that runs on boot) and... Something else... I'll probably try Memtest 86 next.

I've tried running with no screensaver, and I've put my usual one back, and neither made any difference, unfortunately. (Now 2 1/2 hours since last freeze...)

 

I'm not sure I'm any closer to a solution, but I'm pretty convinced I know what's causing the problem... And - hang onto your hats - it's something to do with the graphics driver. (I know...)

It almost froze this afternoon - everything stopped for a couple of seconds, including the music I was playing - but then recovered. And then about ten minutes later, it froze permanently. So I thought I'd have another look in the logs, and guess what I found...? (And I don't know how I've missed it before...) In the run-up to a freeze (i.e. just before I have to hit the power button - big red exclamation marks, etc.) the logs are littered with "Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered". So I'm guessing what's going on is that, eventually, the driver *doesn't* recover, takes other processes with it, and I have to reset.

Does this sound plausible? Is it coincidence that I seem to get less freezes if I disable the Power service? Does anyone have a solution? (Armed with this new insight I'm going to see what I can find, though I have a deadline to meet first.)

I have already made sure that the PCI Express Link setting (when the Power service is enabled) is set to off, and have completely uninstalled the graphics card drivers (manually, and then with Display Driver Uninstaller Download version 17.0.8.6) before installing the latest driver only. (It still froze after a bit, so I'm wondering whether an older driver is actually more stable in this regard.)

Anyway - any thoughts, gratefully received. Thanks for all help thus far!

 

You started to do a clean boot and you saw the PC was stable, you can not think to do 10 or 5 items at a time re-enabling them.
As hard as this is to determine, needs to be one at a time, if did 10 or 5, how would you know which one it was.
If open under run, type service.msc look down list, see which are starting automatically and are running, look for non microsoft items, like sound card, video card, etc...this is basically what you are doing in clean boot, shutting off the remainder non MS ones..

As far as that error "Display driver nvlddmkm stopped responding and has successfully recovered"

This error occurs when your computer thinks that your graphics card has stopped responding,the program that controls this is called "Timeout detection and recovery". Some causes are overheating (high temps ) from dust accumulated inside PC, driver errors,low power to card, Power Supply issues, RAM or the card in general is no good or going bad.

Back to what i was saying at the beginning need to take it one at a time, i know it is frustrating and issues like this are definitely not easy to find, since they are intermittent. Keep all startups off, disabled for now. If clean boot did show no freezes can possibly think it is from a non microsoft service that runs all the time, driver conflicts, outdated drivers or missing updates or incompatibilities.

Still can be a hardware issue as seen by card errors, but does not always mean it's the card as you see from cause of the NVIDIA error.

Memtest is used by many for RAM testing, not sure have another video card or PSU lying around to swap out with ones you have.
To me if it was stable in clean boot, i would start there first, then recommend more hardware tests.

 

Last time that hapened to me on a startup repair disc in win 7 when it wouldent load the hdd was toast ☻

No suprise to me though at the time it was starting to show bad sectors and the usual drive tools couldent fix some of them it was bad metal ☻

 

I hear what you're saying, but the trouble is, with this machine now seemingly capable of avoiding a freeze for up to 28 hours (!), it makes that sort of diagnosis impossible. How long do I wait before deciding each item is OK, and that it's then safe to move onto the next one? With getting on for 30 non-MS services, goodness knows how many MS ones, and over 30 start-up items, I simply had to enable them en mass in the first instance - to try to work out whether it was MS services, non-MS services, or start-up items - and then enabling selectively a bunch at a time. If I enable five or ten, and that causes problems, then in theory I know it's one of them, and that's a step in the right direction, and I can enable one at a time from that group.

However, I say, in theory, because of course I've never stayed even in Safe Mode for 28 hours, so for all I know, that might eventually freeze anyway. And I didn't get a freeze when I switched off all the MS services (but re-enabled the others, and all the start-ups), so I can't be sure the problem isn't *there*. The logs seem to indicate a graphics driver issue (though I know that could be caused by other issues, e.g. power getting to the GPU), and I can see that there's lots of people complaining about Windows 10 and particular drivers causing crashes/freezes/black screens (and nvlddmkm errors), so I'm painstakingly clean-installing all the Windows 10 drivers (353.62, 355.60, 355.82, 355.98), one by one, to see if any seem stable. It's worth a try.

I've also dusted the inside of the PC, checked there's no overheating reported by the GPU (or CPU), and have additionally Memtested the RAM. I've got no spare PSU or graphics card (though it would be interesting to get a cheap-ish AMD slotted in, just for comparison). As I said, Windows 8.1 was rock solid - doesn't mean something hasn't gone wrong on the hardware side, but it would be awfully bad luck!

Anyway, I need certain things to be enabled so I can work today, and then I'm off on hols. After that I might have time to go back to the beginning, but I'd have to check that Safe Mode was stable for 48 hours first. But maybe I'll have luck with one of the Nvidia drivers. You never know.

Thanks, as ever, for your help.

 

Trying to make sense out of what you meant by disabling power service. I do not see when you said it went for 28 hours with no freeze, that must of been a couple of posts back. You last said about disabling PCI Express settings and cleanly uninstalling Display driver and reinstalling newest one. So that still made it freeze as posted in post # 33 of yours. You said you never really stayed long enough in clean boot.

Remember this was an intermittent problem which yes makes it difficult to how long to wait when disabling services.
Now you are telling me you had 30 startup items, 30 non microsoft services ? Sounds bit too many for any system, as 30 startup would cause issues to most. Look at details tab in Task Manager, give you a good idea of what is running, microsoft and not microsoft. Can not disable all microsoft processes as system then will not function.

As said you can start out disabling startups all of them, most are not needed for the programs to function. Let it run for 24 hours, be from Task Manager Startup tab.Enable one at a time then. Can never find out which one if you do 5-10 at a time, because if it freezes then which one from 5 is it, making it tougher that way. Were talking about only non microsoft, work with that first always, as a clean boot, we are not disabling microsoft processes as you recall.
You disable microsoft processes then system becomes unresponsive.

As far as some processes are running and not shown on startup tab in task manager, but in Services.msc, like shown in details tab in task manager. Only way to set to manual or disable would be to go into services by either using run command and type services.msc or Task Manager Services tab, bottom link in blue, Open services.

There you will see all processes running or not running, some set to manual, some set to automatic. Only concern now would be non microsoft services as do not think it maybe due to microsoft service.


What logs are you looking at ,Event Viewer ? Oh, there are many who have had issues with Display drivers and windows 10, so you are not alone on that fact, just browse this forum you will see. So we are not ruling that out completely. Yes if you can try other older display drivers if you can and have means of getting them, i always keep the older ones backed up.


Truthfully in all this, does seem like yes it is something to do with your video card, just not sure if it is going bad, has a conflict with it's drivers, some other system drivers or some other hardware like RAM or PSU (low power) is causing this issue. This would seem to be because of the blank screen at times with a freeze, most would feel was the video card. What did Memtest show if you ran it ? Can try a Video benchmarking test, like Furmark FurMark: VGA Stress Test, Graphics Card and GPU Stability Test, Burn-in Test, OpenGL Benchmark and GPU Temperature | oZone3D.Net
Also ones like Valley Benchmark to stress the card see how it holds up UNIGINE Benchmarks

As far as testing the Power supply you will either need a Power Supply tester or if you know how to use a Multimeter to test it.

 

Thanks, again, for getting back to me. I thought I would put that right, and leave it in 'Clean Boot' mode for as long as possible. I clean booted yesterday afternoon (no Startups, no non-MS services), left it overnight, came to it early this morning, did a few things... And finally it froze, just over 12 hours after boot. I'm not sure what that tells us - other than that the problem isn't (just) a Startup or non-MS service, I guess - but it is interesting...

I do wonder whether one way forward is to make a new partition on my SSD, do a clean Windows 10 install into that (I believe it will pick up the key from the upgrade)... In other words, end up with a dual boot with two different versions of Windows 10...! And see whether the fresh install (I have the latest ISO on disk) is more stable than this upgrade. (And, if it is, I could gradually copy over/reinstall all my stuff. The useful bits, anyway. ;-) But at least I could, from time to time, boot into the upgrade to remind myself what I had. Anyway, getting ahead of myself...)

Yes, Event Viewer. By the way, I did clean installs of each Windows 10 Nvidia driver, and none seemed any more stable than another (so I've plumped for the most up-to-date one). Oh well, worth a try, but seemingly not a solution.

Anyway, holiday (and a final deadline) beckons, so I might not be able to do too much over the coming days, but we'll see. Thanks again!

 

...Or it might be easier just to treat myself to a graphics card of an AMD persuasion, and see if that works any better. It might not solve the problem, but at least I get an upgraded graphics card out of the deal. ;-)

 

PS. Did a clean install of the latest 358.50 Nvidia drivers earlier. Made no difference. :-(

 

Sounding then like a hardware issue, possibly video card as thought. Could be power supply, not sure about your RAM tests if done. Only other slim possibilities is the drive or some incompatibility with video card and or it's drivers. Too bad did not have a spare card as errors received from NVIDIA can point towards hardware. Try to recall screen was also blanking out on freeze up to, make it then more likely Video card or low power to the card.

 

It does seem more and more like a hardware (specifically graphics card) issue... :-( It would make sense of the seemingly random nature of the 'freezes' - and just bad luck (or new OS stresses?) that it happened exactly when I updated? I suppose I could boot into Windows 7, and see if that exhibits the same behaviour? That would be a clincher (at least in the sense of Windows 10 not being at fault...).

As you say, it might be a PSU issue - but it'll be easier to change graphics card first. Which is what I'll do on my return (after I've completed some more memory tests). I'll let you know how it goes.

Thanks again.

 

Not sure if this will help you but it sure helped me!

I was experiencing the exact same issues, LOOOONG boot times (up to 35 minutes!) and random freezing with a hard reboot the only option. My PC specs are way above what is needed so it definitely wasn't that.
Every reboot my PC wanted to scan & repair my "H" drive which is where I store my games & backups. It is not listed as a boot drive in the BIOS so the only thing I could put it down to was the backups that were causing an issue. I deleted all traces of the backups and rebooted and lo and behold, my PC was performing as it should've. Boot times were back to 15 seconds on my SSD and freezing is a thing of the past. (Haven't had a freeze in 3 days yet)

FYI, these are backups created by Windows Backup & Restore.