Experiencing slight pause every four seconds

dalchina said:

1709- you can freely download that. E.g. see
Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk - Windows 10 Forums
post #3

Great, thanks! I'll download 1709 and install it.

dalchina said:

To swap between the two you could use two drives, or create a disk image of 1803 as now, clean install 1709, then restore your image of 1803.

Before you try that, make a note of the versions of as many of your drivers so you can compare them.

You can then extract those from 1709 for reuse, if that is of any help here.

Note: we strongly recommend all users use disk imaging routinely (eg. Macrium Reflect (free) + external storage for disk image sets).

Good idea about noting driver versions between 1709 (after I clean install it) and 1803 ... and potentially replacing the new drivers with the old. How do you suggest I go about noting the driver versions? Using Device Manager to manually look up each driver? Is there an easier way?

I'd like to resolve this before I re-install all of my apps. Since I'm doing clean installs each time, and on only one drive, is anything to be gained by using Macrium Reflect?

>>I followed the steps in the tutorial to back up the device drivers for both clean installs...

My driver folders (D:\Win10DeviceDriverBackup\1709 and D:\Win10DeviceDriverBackup\1803) are named:

• nv_ref_pubwu.inf_amd64_2e7fa54192fe16 (appears to be for NVIDIA Windows 10 (64 bit) Display)
• nvhda.inf_amd64_fd09272cf916c617 (appears to be for NVIDIA HDMI Audio)
• nvstusb.inf_amd64_13f03faeef8601fe (appears to be for NVIDIA Stereoscopic 3D USB controller)
• prnms001.inf_amd64_db986f156726d3d7 (appears to be for Microsoft XPS Document Writer)
• prnms009.inf_amd64_5812eb3d390ac060 (appears to be for Microsoft Print To PDF)
• unifhid.inf_amd64_3994342584154151 (appears to be for an ambiguous Logitech device(s))

The same six folders are present in both the 1709 and 1803 folders. Why would that be? And why aren't there more than six folders?

I compared the files' datestamps in each of the six folder pairs; for the three nv* and the unifhid folders, the contents are identical except for the the PNF (Precompiled Setup Information) files--which have a current datestamp. For the prnms* folders, the datestamps in 1803 are newer than those in 1709.

Restoring the drivers in the first two nv* directories didn't resolve the issue.

I'm not sure what device nvstusb corresponds to.

An error occurs when I try to restore the drivers in the prnms* directories, saying that 'the driver is either not digitally signed or not signed in the appropriate manner'.

I guessed and used unifhid to update the Human Interface Devices > Logitech USB Input Device. It didn't resolve the issue.

Any suggestions on how to proceed?

Thanks for the continued dialog!

D'oh! I opened the command prompt while logged on with an admin account but neglected to elevate it. I'll do that.

Wow, you list about 75 folders! Assuming I have a similar count, which device(s) in Device Manager do you suggest I start with ... and is there any way to know, for each device, which folder to point to so as to update the drivers from (other than reviewing the contents of the .INF in each folder)?

Thanks! I didn't have a chance to work on this yesterday but will research using these tools later today.

If/when I identify the problem driver and then restore an older copy of it I'll need to somehow ensure Windows doesn't automatically upgrade it again.

dalchina said:

Hi I've given you the way supported by tenforums tutorials, but in this instance I agree with you the result is impenetrable.

It's a long time since I did this, but I would now recommend one of the many (free) 3rd party tools available.

E.g. Drivermax (check boxes for all or selected drivers to back up and restore)
http://www.innovative-sol.com/driver...com/drivermax/

DriverBackup
DriverBackup! download | SourceForge.net

Best Free Windows Driver Backup and Restore | Gizmo's Freeware

I didn't find Drivermax and DriverBackup to be very helpful; their UIs and features were also ambiguous. After reading numerous driver utility reviews, I ended up installing/registering/purchasing Smart Driver Updater; it's very comprehensive (125 drivers from Win10 1709 backed up; see attached) but has yet to identify the culprit.

Installing the eight audio-related 1709 drivers on 1803 didn't help; nor did installing three other 1709 drivers (Ethernet, SSD, and HDD (for my secondary drive)).

So if this truly is a driver issue, the answer must be with one of the remaining 114 drivers. I installed all 114 but it resulted in an unbootable system.

What a mess!