Windows freezing every 2 seconds for a second at the time

Hey peeps!

I'm helping a friend update her HP laptop (15-n204eo) to Win10 from 8.
Problem is that after the update, the computer freezes every 1-2 seconds for 1-2 seconds. It is constant and never stops.

Drivers are up to date and so it Windows itself. I've tried a fresh install as well, but same problem.
We did not have these issues in Win8.

Any thoughts?

My computer runs very hot and turns off or freezes this is one of the most common problems. Most likely this problem is heat related.



Any laptop has a cooling module which includes two parts: the heat sink and cooling fan. When it works, the processor (CPU) heats up and the heat sing heats up too. At some temperature level, the fan kicks in and cools down the heatsink. The problem starts when the cooling module collects too much dust inside. The dust kills normal airflow inside the cooling module. Eventually, the processor overheats and the laptop turns off unexpectedly or freezes.

This problem can be fixed by cleaning the cooling module.

Cleaning the cooling module.

Some laptops give you an easy access to the heatsink and fan. In laptops like that you can access the cooling module through the bottom cover.
In my example I had to remove the cooling module. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to remove the fan and access the heatsink.
In some models you can remove the fan without separating the heatsink from the CPU.
After I removed the fan, I found a thick layer of dust inside. Cleaning it up will fix the overheating problem.


Apply thermal paste on the processor.

You should apply new thermal paste before installing the heat sink back in place.

For HP computers open the HP website > software and drivers > enter product or serial number > view drivers/software/firmware
Look for UEFI hardware diagnostics > download and install
Or download and install from this HP website for the latest version:
HP PC Hardware Diagnostics | HP® Official Site

Instead of installing another option is to use a flash drive.
For the computer once it is installed > power on and repetitively click the F2 or F10 key to open the BIOS diagnostics or BIOS menu respectively.
For the flash drive > power on and repetitively click the F9 key to open the boot menu to boot to the external USB hard drive.

Run the loop until failure mode overnight.
If it has made 2 loops the next day (duration is impacted most by RAM and Drive) then click the keyboard escape key and check the log to confirm the pass. If there is any problem with the hardware the testing is designed to automatically abort. So if the battery is bad the test would abort early and there would be very little hardware testing.

Once you have ruled out hardware problems with the HP UEFI diagnostics you can then look for problematic applications/software by placing the computer in clean boot:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...indows-10.aspx

If the freezing disappears using clean boot then it is likely one of the non-Microsoft services. This can be troubleshooted to narrow down or isolate the problematic service.

If the freezing does not improve with clean boot then move to safe mode, safe mode with networking, or safe mode with command prompt.

Report into the thread:
1) The results of the HP UEFI diagnostics
2) The change in hangs/freezes with clean boot
3) The change in hangs/freezes with safe mode

johanruda said:

I solved it eventually.

I tried deactivating devices one after another in the Device Manager and noticed that the freezing stopped when I deactivated one of the two graphics cards.
AMD generic drivers didn't work with those properly, not even the newest one from HP, so I tried an old driver from 2015 and that solved it.

Also disabled Windows Update from updating drivers so she won't have the problem pop up again in the future.

YES!
You were correct :)
A slight enhancement of your solution..
I took your advice and went to AMD website to look for old driver versions of those two AMD HD8400 and AMD 8600M drivers.
But once i came to their website i decided to download Radeon Crimson and that in turn when installing, updated my drivers (which i already had updated in vain, from windows update..).
So now the system doesn't hang for a short second, every 2 seconds.

Good job, thank's again!

I realize this is an old thread but I spent 4 days trying to solve this problem and this is the only place I found the correct answer. I had to find an AMD video driver earlier than 2016 and it immediately fixed the problem

THANK YOU!

I just wanted to leave a note of appreciation for the OP on this thread. I just put an SSD and clean install of Windows 10 on a HP 15 laptop AMD A6 laptop.

It froze every couple of seconds for about a second

Following this thread, I visited HP's website and downloaded the published graphics driver (which was a 2015 version) and now it NO LONGER FREEZES!

Thanks so much for this thread - I hope it also helps others.

Just to add a new comment. My old laptop -ThinkPad Levono 11e- after an upgrade to SSD and new memory, it started acting exactly as described above. I installed the AMD Radeon Crimson and all the updates that come with it, and solved the problem. It does not freeze every 2 seconds anymore !!!
Here is a list of a few things that I tried before this solution: fresh Windows 10 reset (keeping my files & deleting all of them), power management change, scanning multiple times for all the hardware and software.
Thank you for post about using the 'old' AMD Radeon driver!

Registering only to express my gratitude to OP.
Had an old Lenovo (I guess from 2014/-15) I figured would be useful for my daughter when getting classes from home in these quarantine times. It was running win 8.1 but hopelessly bogged down with all kinds of haphazard apps (my wife had been using it for school / work but finally "tossed it" for a newer HP model).
SO, I decided to clean it up and do the upgrade to Windows 10 (i don't like the 8 / 8.1, I guess that is fair to say in this forum ^^).
Anyway, it was working fine in 8.1, after I had uninstalled all the crap and done the usual "dad fixing pc and feels like a pro" stuff. Upgraded to win10 - and was disappointed to see that it didn't quite cope?! Seemed to freeze every few seconds, much like in the old days when trying a new game on your old machine and realizing it weren't up for it.
Not the complete freeze and crash - just the annoying lag of the cursor (and everything else).
Strange, since both the CPU & Ram were about double the minimum requirements, and I wasn't running any apps or anything, I had thought it would be fine for the simple stuff, so figured it was all the windows update going on in the background.

Alas, I still had the annoying problem after all that was over. Working in a way, but exceedingly annoying.

I had made sure all the drivers were up to date before installing win 10 so I didn't even think of that being the issue... Doing the driver update on the AMD radeon did the trick (actually only had to do the usual automatic update, and it was rolled back to 2015 version through the standard "update driver" routine in devmng.

Thank you OP, surely you saved me countless hours of fruitless mocking about with regedits and malware checks (I am sure that was where i was heading eventually if I hadn't come across your post )

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

blubottl said:

Registering only to express my gratitude to OP.
Had an old Lenovo (I guess from 2014/-15) I figured would be useful for my daughter when getting classes from home in these quarantine times. It was running win 8.1 but hopelessly bogged down with all kinds of haphazard apps (my wife had been using it for school / work but finally "tossed it" for a newer HP model).
SO, I decided to clean it up and do the upgrade to Windows 10 (i don't like the 8 / 8.1, I guess that is fair to say in this forum ^^).
Anyway, it was working fine in 8.1, after I had uninstalled all the crap and done the usual "dad fixing pc and feels like a pro" stuff. Upgraded to win10 - and was disappointed to see that it didn't quite cope?! Seemed to freeze every few seconds, much like in the old days when trying a new game on your old machine and realizing it weren't up for it.
Not the complete freeze and crash - just the annoying lag of the cursor (and everything else).
Strange, since both the CPU & Ram were about double the minimum requirements, and I wasn't running any apps or anything, I had thought it would be fine for the simple stuff, so figured it was all the windows update going on in the background.

Alas, I still had the annoying problem after all that was over. Working in a way, but exceedingly annoying.

I had made sure all the drivers were up to date before installing win 10 so I didn't even think of that being the issue... Doing the driver update on the AMD radeon did the trick (actually only had to do the usual automatic update, and it was rolled back to 2015 version through the standard "update driver" routine in devmng.

Thank you OP, surely you saved me countless hours of fruitless mocking about with regedits and malware checks (I am sure that was where i was heading eventually if I hadn't come across your post )

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I am having a real headache with the same problem. I cannot find the old 2015 amd radeon video driver anywhere! Please help me! I am really desperate you guys are my only hope

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Brother, where can I find that driver? I am having the same problem here and it's a real headache. I am really desperste please help me I beg you