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Windows 10 Freezing - How to Fix?
I recently built a new PC and have been having some of the strangest freezes I've ever seen. When it happens my system doesn't immediately freeze entirely and the process is gradual. For example, I will notice that the system time is behind and I am not able to open anything pinned to the taskbar. If I catch it quick enough I might be able to get into the start menu to open a program from there but this isn't always the case and usually I can't get anything to open and the search feature doesn't work. At this point my opened applications begin to freeze up and I am not able to move, minimize, or maximize them and then everything locks up except for the mouse cursor. At this point my only option is to do a hard reboot. Outside of this annoying issue the machine runs well. Temperatures on my system don't usually exceed 65°C under load and I don't notice any performance issues that would indicate there's a problem until stuff is already in the process of locking up.
My troubleshooting steps so far:
1. Checked Event Viewer. There was not a single Error or Warning that seemed to be related to when the issue started. I did notice that there is a gap in what is reported however. For example, I'll see what was happening prior to when the freezing began and then all logging stops entirely until I do a hard shutdown. The last event logs I see leading up to the freeze are four identical Warnings with ID 10016 in a row but I did not see any warnings in Event Viewer when it froze prior to the most recent freeze. The four Warnings all say the exact same thing:
The application-specific permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID
{2593F8B9-4EAF-457C-B68A-50F6B8EA6B54}
and APPID
{15C20B67-12E7-4BB6-92BB-7AFF07997402}
to the user DESKTOP-75853RN\Jake Steel SID (S-1-5-21-1641939006-2086398312-2428281681-1001) from address LocalHost (Using LRPC) running in the application container Unavailable SID (Unavailable). This security permission can be modified using the Component Services administrative tool.
2. Ran sfc /scannow. It claimed to have repaired corrupted system files and if I check the cbs.log all I see that indicates anything was repaired is this:
2021-02-02 10:12:45, Info CSI 00000071 Warning: Overlap: Directory \??\C:\Windows\System32\drivers\en-US\ is owned twice or has its security set twice
Original owner: Microsoft-Windows-Foundation-Default-Security.Resources, version 10.0.19041.1, arch amd64, culture [l:5]'en-US', nonSxS, pkt {l:8 b:31bf3856ad364e35}
New owner: Microsoft-Windows-Foundation-Default-Security.Resources, version 10.0.19041.1, arch amd64, culture [l:5]'en-US', nonSxS, pkt {l:8 b:31bf3856ad364e35}
2021-02-02 10:12:45, Info CSI 00000072 Warning: Overlap: Directory \??\C:\Windows\System32\wbem\en-US\ is owned twice or has its security set twice
Original owner: Microsoft-Windows-Foundation-Default-Security.Resources, version 10.0.19041.1, arch amd64, culture [l:5]'en-US', nonSxS, pkt {l:8 b:31bf3856ad364e35}
New owner: Microsoft-Windows-Foundation-Default-Security.Resources, version 10.0.19041.1, arch amd64, culture [l:5]'en-US', nonSxS, pkt {l:8 b:31bf3856ad364e35}
2021-02-02 10:12:45, Info CSI 00000073 Warning: Overlap: Directory \??\C:\Windows\help\mui\0409\ is owned twice or has its security set twice
Original owner: Microsoft-Windows-Foundation-Default-Security.Resources, version 10.0.19041.1, arch amd64, culture [l:5]'en-US', nonSxS, pkt {l:8 b:31bf3856ad364e35}
New owner: Microsoft-Windows-Foundation-Default-Security.Resources, version 10.0.19041.1, arch amd64, culture [l:5]'en-US', nonSxS, pkt {l:8 b:31bf3856ad364e35}
3. Ran chkdsk /f. It had me restart the PC and ran the test prior to booting to the Windows 10 login screen. It went so fast that I didn't get to see if it found anything but I assume that if it doesn't tell you it found something then you're good to go?
4. Updated BIOS to the latest release found on motherboard manufacturer's website.
5. Ran Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) from Safe Mode. Booted back into Windows 10 normally, disconnected network cable so Windows didn't try to automatically download and install display drivers, then installed the latest Nvidia drivers manually (v461.40).
5a. When I got into Safe Mode I noticed that hovering the cursor over the taskbar showed the loading icon. Clicking the taskbar gave me a popup that read "Microsoft Windows - The application is not responding. The program may respond again if you wait. Do you want to end this process?". I let it sit for a few minutes and it eventually unfroze, but froze again at some point while in Safe Mode and I had to wait for it to sort itself out again.
6. Installed latest chipset for AMD Ryzen 5000 CPUs found on AMD's website to overwrite those I found and installed from my motherboard manufacturer's website.
7. Installed Linux (Pop_OS! x64) on a separate partition to see if it experienced any freezing and it did not. I was able to use Linux for 2 days without issue while I seem to be getting at least one lock up a day on Windows 10.
8. During the last two freezes that I was still somewhat able to do things in, I got Task Manager opened and attempted end/restart the explorer.exe process and dwm.exe process. With explorer.exe I could end the process but restarting it just brought me back to the same frozen taskbar, start menu, etc. Trying to end dwm.exe as it will automatically start again and refresh the desktop but it just locked everything up completely forcing a hard reboot.
9. Tried to remote into the frozen PC from another device but the connection never completes.
Has anyone experienced a similar issue to this before? What did you have to do to resolve it? I am currently running Windows 10 20H2 64-bit with two monitors, one is 1440p/144hz and the other is 1080p/60hz.
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