Windows 10 Issues

Hello FredJ,

It must be very frustrating for you because that is a good build spec and should provide good gaming performance. I see that you do not know anything about the motherboard, that actually could turn out to be quite critical and I would guess you have not updated any of the motherboard drivers if you do not know what make or model it is. The first thing I would suggest is that you find out from whoever built it what the board is (or look inside and see what you can read off the motherboard labels) and then update the drivers from the manufacturer's website. This may go a long way towards sorting out all your problems. The graphics card will also have regularly updated drivers and you might need to install the latest version for this.

Please review what you find and we can take it from there.

Can't he just restart the computer and during the cycle period constantly press F2 or delete? That should take hime to the BIOS where he will be able to determine the make and model of his motherboard.

@FredJ

Motherboard Make and model
From a command prompt ADMIN enter:
wmic baseboard get product,Manufacturer,version,serialnumber

2nd Choice would be to download a program called Speccy which will give you lots more information. Its Free.
http://www.piriform.com/speccy

I have updated my specs after doing a bit of research. My motherboard is a Gigabyte H87-D3H. Below is a link for drivers, but I'm not sure which of those are up to date on my computer. Which one(s) should I install, if any?

GIGABYTE - Motherboard - Socket 1150 - GA-H87-D3H (rev. 1.x)


As for the graphics card, the drivers are up to date, and for Minecraft I have updated Java about a week ago.

Let me know if I forgot something else.

IMPORTANT UPDATE

I think I may have identified the issue, but I would require extra expertise that I do not have. After explaining my issues to one of my coworkers, he told me it could be a RAM related issue, possibly failure. Just to be sure, I used the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool to see if anythign came up. Upon completion, I booted up Minecraft and it was running at well over 150 FPS, according to the F3 menu.

Something I hadn't mentioned before that I noticed about Minecraft, which I never thought would be an issue, is how it never seemed to use most of it's allocated memory, usually remaining below 25%. Since the restart, I've been able to use shaders and still perform above 35 FPS, and the memory was used up easily above 60%.

Last night, I had shut down my computer for fear of a blackout (there was a storm in the area) and lo and behold, Minecraft's performance was down in the dust again. One quick Memory Diagnostic later, back to normal above 150 FPS.

I'm guessing it has something to do with my RAM not properly being used to it's fullest, but I would rather hear it from people who know better than from my less educated self diagnostic.

Thanks to everyone who has helped me so far. I've been able to learn more about my computer in the past three days than in the last two to three years.

UPDATE 2016-03-03

I'm still getting occasional Blue Screen crashes, but I'm never there to see them happen. Since I last updated, I've updated my BIOS, which was a few versions late. Otherwise, everything is up to date. I'm still looking for help.

Further to CountMike's advice, do the following to see the BSODs and the STOP value.

Rt click the windows icon bottom left and then click 'Control Panel'. Next click 'System' then click the 'Advanced' tab. Now click 'Settings' under 'Startup and Recovery'. Uncheck 'Automatically restart' under 'System failure'.

Now the BSOD will stay on the screen after a crash and you will be able to note the STOP number.

UPDATE 2016-03-16

There were two issues that contributed to my computer's poor performance.
1. My CPU needed cleaning
2. The Fast Start-up feature

Every time I shut down my computer and later turned it back on, I had the freezing issues, but never after restarting. The aforementioned Fast Start-up feature, which is only used upon shutting down, caused my computer to have between 10 and 14% of CPU usage for System Interrupts. When I restarted, the feature wasn't used and CPU usage was 0.1% at its highest. Turning off the feature solved the issue.

Thanks to everyone for your help!