FIX: Random Freezes and Lockouts

Hello,My computer had been giving me a hard time with randomly freezing so that I had to almost always reboot the machine to get it going again only to freeze up yet again. I tried many recipes from all over the net, but to no avail whatsoever. In the beginning it was creating ghost images while playing recorded videos and breaking down watching You Tube videos.

It was also starting very sluggishly needing 5-7 minutes loading up. Quite frustrating and exasperating! I even changed my HDD to a new Hitachi 2 TB, attached a 1 TB SSD and made afresh install of Windows 10. Slow poke start vanished and is now 17 secs, but the freeze ups didn't, in fact went from the frying pan to the fire, having nineteen to the dozen frantic breakdowns a day. In addition I could get the Keyboard to working. It refused to write a search term in Chrome or write a command in any of the code editors. In variable I had to call on the touch screen keyboard to write anything. After a while then it would go on as if nothing had happened.

A couple of weeks back I read a random remark somewhere on the web and was very surprised that the Skylake processors were showing an unknown bug which was described as the same symptoms as my machine had been showing. It said that it was detected essentially on the Intel Core i7-6700K chip. My computer uses the Core i5-6600K chip.

So, I flashed the BIOS without much thought, got a version 3805 dated 05/07/2018 on the internet option, but later noticed the previous version was also version 3805 dated 05/07/2015. So in actuality, only the Year had changed. Nevertheless, anxiously started the machine to check and was pleased as a peach, the freeze ups were gone, vanished, perished! Even the Keyboard problem seems to have ameliorated, but it happens now and then only (perhaps need to update the Logitech driver?).

However, there is one little glitch, starting the computer after it shows the ASUS BIOS and it immediately after that shows on the black screen:
Checking Media Presence
Media Present .....
Start PXE over IPV 6
(I need to press Esc. 2-3 times and the start resumes)
Is there a way to rectify this?

There is actually a new BIOS version for the mother board - version 11.8.55.3510 dated 2018.00.27 available at ASUS, but this is not offered as an internet version. I downloaded and extracted this, but it does not give a .cab file in it, but a file ending with an 'S'.

Can someone please help me with this if at all the new BIOS flash is imperative?

I made this post purposely a little longer than I wanted to since I noticed many users are having the same problem.

Best regards,
Bit

First congrats on finding a fix . Second you can log on to your bios and turn off Boot From Network option and or set its boot order bellow hard drive . Third when it comes to Bios , when its not broken , don't fix it .

Thank you niGHTmAyor,

Straightened out the Boot Order and the machine is purring as never before!

Good night and best regards,

Bit

My HP freezes/locks up but its random, dont know when it will freeze/lock up. most of the time when it does it, I am away and its setting at idle.

@MrHudson

Please verify first if your computer is using a Skylake chip and having this bug. As flashing the BIOS unnecessarily is known to cause a lot of trouble and hassles. Here is how you may test for the bug:

How to test your PC for the Skylake bug | PCWorld

Intel High-Definition (HD) Graphics Driver - Braswell(Windows 10 v1803)
This is HP newest driver.

HP Firmware Pack (Intel Processors)

F.41 Rev.A

25.1 MB

Jun 26, 2018 Their newest BIOS.

Mine had been freezing/locking up since I bought back in Feb 2017.

Evidently you are not using Skylake and therefore you do not need to update your BIOS especially since it is of quite a recent date.

In your case it may not even be freeze ups as it seems your computer after you leave it idling goes to sleep or into hibernation, but is unable to wake from that. Please check and verify that Power Settings are in order.

You may also find a solution to your problem by going through other threads (several) dealing with the problem as it can have myriad reasons. There are six of them showing at the bottom of the page.

You can also a start a new thread and surely someone with knowledge about the problem will be able to help.

Best regards,

Bit

I had it twice freeze/lock up this morning, once at 2:10am and again at 10:24am while I was browsing. its random, you never know when its going to.
one time I left it on, had Pandora APP open playing music, woke upto funny noise, it frozed while playing music.