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

Not really same issue, strange how not being boot drive would cause you long boots and freezing. As far as drive, most likely had errors and were eventually fixed and upon boot may have caused issues. Still may have another underlying issue.

 

Well if clean boot shows no issues, good chance as said, usually a first step in a case like this, even Microsoft would tell you to do this if you went to them, seen it before online. Could try to stress the card to try to reproduce the issue . Yes, since have dual boot can try Windows 7 for awhile. Would not run right out and buy a card as of yet, know it has been quite sometime now with this issue and getting a bit frustrated. Also have to be aware buying another card have to make sure the PSU has proper amps and power to supply it and if PSU does have issues, then will do same thing regardless.

 

OK, very long story short - after my return from my holiday I pulled the trigger on a new graphics card - an ex-display item at a PC shop that's a tiny bit of an upgrade. (And I had another thorough dust while installing it, and found one of the case fans was pretty clogged, which I must have missed before.)

And I've not had a freeze in over a week. So I think that's that, it's solved.

So, it looks like the problem (in order of likelihood?) was either:

Unwell graphics card (and I guess upgrading to Windows 10 might have brought a minor/unobserved problem to the fore - a bit like changing a part on a classic car engine, which then has unforeseen ramifications elsewhere!)

or some weird Nvidia-ish driver issue (the new card is an AMD)

or too much heat building up in the case (unlikely, as I was monitoring it, but I suppose it's possible...)

Anyway, I will mark this as Solved. Thank you for your help!

I've lost far too much time on this to check whether the card is actually broken (I could install it in my daughter's PC, but she needs it for study, and I don't have any other desktops at the moment). However, I will be selling it on eBay - for Spares and Repair - to recoup a bit of the money spent on the new card. Perhaps the buyer will let me know if it works perfectly, and they've got a bargain (in which case, I'll try not to be too frustrated... ;-) ).

Of course, this being Windows, I've had one or two issues since (notably explorer.exe getting into a loop of crashing and restarting last week - that was a bit of a nightmare), and being an inveterate tinkerer, I subsequently put some slightly faster memory in as well... But that's a story for another day.

It seems to all be working at the moment, and finally I can get on with some work!

 

I understand you were busy and away, as it's has been 2 weeks ago and i had to try to review past 46 posts here to recall all we went through to determine your issues. As we mentioned this could of been a hardware issue, driver issue or conflict. Went the step of buying a new card to see if it resolves your issue now. If this was the case, Video card being the culprit i told you to try stressing the other card with a benchmark program first to try to reproduce the issue as this then would of gave us more of an idea about the video card you had. Could also be another hardware as i looked back i believe you did still have the issue during a clean boot which then would point towards hardware related.

Hoping it is not something else, but only time will tell for sure, Power Supply, etc.... Saying you added RAM which we thought was another cause of the issues, hopefully bought the correct type of RAM for your motherboard. Could of listed the AMD card you had purchased for us to make sure your PSU meets it's requirements. Overheating might of been mentioned before, as so much to reread but can be also a cause this is something should be done on a monthly basis with a desktop, clean inside of dust and dirt as it can damage sensitive electronics and fans by working them harder and overheating them.

Need more help you can post it here still i will know.

 

Seems I have been seeing a lot of "Freeze" issues lately, on my system it was caused by one of my main hard drives going bad. It would drop off the SATA bus, and only my mouse would work, I could not click on anything. I finally had to disconnect the drive. You might want to check all of your drives even USB's to see if any of them are dropping out.

 

I swapped an Nvidia (Gainward) 750 Ti Boost (2GB) out, and put an AMD (Sapphire) 270X (2GB) in. Yes, the PSU is powerful enough (a modular Corsair HX 620W). And the memory came direct from Crucial, and is an exact match for the motherboard. (Though I never got around to stress-testing the old card, I did continue to play games with it in place, and it seemed no more or less likely to 'freeze' than at any other point. In fact, I think it only froze once in-game - I'd have to check my notes.)


Anyway, as I say, not a single 'freeze' since replacing the Nvidia card.

Thank you.

 

My issue seems to have been linked to the graphics card (or its drivers, etc.) - slight difference with my freeze was that the mouse cursor would disappear also. Glad you got your problem sorted as well!

 

Your welcome ! Your specs here shows the GTX 650 Ti Boost, not one mentioned now as the 750 Ti. O.k. just trying to again go back and review this post and let you know what i thought. Basically can say we most likely eliminated 2 possible causes, RAM and Video Card for hardware issues by you doing this now. Can try playing a PC game that you feel will stress the system a bit, see how is goes a bit longer. Do regular maintenance on system monthly dusting the insdie of the case, update system and hardware drivers, weekly or so cleaning of history, temps, browser cache, eliminate non-useful startup items, run trim once a week or os on SSD and make sure to install windows updates.

 

Oops, my bad. I meant 650 Ti Boost. (There is no such thing as a 750 Ti Boost. ;-) )

All sensible and good advice. Have been playing games and generally using the PC as normal - with no issues. It was definitely something to do with the graphics card (or drivers - or dust!) as I only changed the memory a few days ago.

Anyway, phew. I think we got there in the end. Thanks again.

 

Most welcome ! As i did say similar as you, video card, RAM. Let's hope that was it, glad it was resolved, good luck and make use of the many tutorials here too.

 

Not quite, it happened again yesterday when I was using Internet explorer. It always happens when I use Internet explorer the whole system freezes up even though the mouse is working.

I don't know what the blazes is causing it. I switch back to Windows 7 for a couple of weeks but then my Windows 7 hard drive crashed. Which was I thought was the cause but it wasn't there is some other issue.

 

Best if you start another thread on this, see how we here can help to resolve your issues as this one is pretty much resolved to add to it, if you want to.

 

Yeah the thing that was baffling me was that the mouse still worked but the entire system was frozen solid.

 

I have a similar problem: random total freezes, hard reboot the only escape. The most interesting that I also have 650 Ti Boost. Will also try replacing it.

 

Let me know how you get on! That's quite a coincidence if you have an identical problem with your 650 Ti Boost...

Interestingly, I sold mine on eBay - to part-fund the new card - as "not working", and the buyer said he'd not had a single problem with it. (Not sure what OS he was using, but he may have got himself a bargain!)