Windows 10 upgrade - random freezes and PC becomes unresponsive

SirDigbyChicken said:

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.

jds63 said:

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.

Dragonmts said:

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.

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.

SirDigbyChicken said:

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.

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.

jds63 said:

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!

SirDigbyChicken said:

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.

jds63 said:

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.

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.

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

Thank you.

XweAponX said:

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.

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!