Windows 10 will randomly freeze, requiring a hard reset

SaberLilly · Jul 27, 2019

I don't know what's causing this....I just don't, I know its not the hard drive as its a relatively fresh install of Windows 10 on a brand new SSD, all the drivers for the hardware are up to date, it also kept doing the same thing with linux installed, I'm at my wit's end and I just have no idea.

Lacius · Jul 27, 2019

SaberLilly said:
I don't know what's causing this....I just don't, I know its not the hard drive as its a relatively fresh install of Windows 10 on a brand new SSD, all the drivers for the hardware are up to date, it also kept doing the same thing with linux installed, I'm at my wit's end and I just have no idea.

New hard drives have an early "infant mortality rate." In fact, new hard drives and hard drives that are several years old have about the same failure rate. The lowest failure rate is in the middle.

It sounds like your problem is the hard drive.

Edit: I know this chart applies to HDD's and not SSD's, but the principle is approximately the same.

Originality · Jul 28, 2019

When you say random freeze, do you mean a crash (everything stops working) or a pause (freezes for a short bit then continues)? Does the screen stay the same, turn blue, or a random colour? And what temperatures are your CPU and other components running at the time?

If it’s the screen just stays the same and gets stuck and nothing responds (not even the mouse) then it sounds like part of the digital backbone (communication between CPU, Storage, memory and graphics) is having issues. Usually this means firmwares or hardware, but could also be a power failure (I’ve seen this happen with cheap Chinese PSUs) or thermal issues (insufficient airflow or badly applied thermal paste).

Check for the latest updates on your graphics card, check for firmware updates for your SSD and motherboard, and consider using a USB boot to run SecurErase on your SSD before installing Windows fresh on it. If it still happens after all that, reduce the system down to a minimum configuration (remove graphics card if possible, all except 1 stick of RAM, all except boot SSD, 1 Monitor, test, them move RAM to another slot and test).

SaberLilly · Jul 28, 2019

Originality said:
When you say random freeze, do you mean a crash (everything stops working) or a pause (freezes for a short bit then continues)? Does the screen stay the same, turn blue, or a random colour? And what temperatures are your CPU and other components running at the time?

If it’s the screen just stays the same and gets stuck and nothing responds (not even the mouse) then it sounds like part of the digital backbone (communication between CPU, Storage, memory and graphics) is having issues. Usually this means firmwares or hardware, but could also be a power failure (I’ve seen this happen with cheap Chinese PSUs) or thermal issues (insufficient airflow or badly applied thermal paste).

Check for the latest updates on your graphics card, check for firmware updates for your SSD and motherboard, and consider using a USB boot to run SecurErase on your SSD before installing Windows fresh on it. If it still happens after all that, reduce the system down to a minimum configuration (remove graphics card if possible, all except 1 stick of RAM, all except boot SSD, 1 Monitor, test, them move RAM to another slot and test).

Oh, Stupid me forgot to mention this is a toshiba satellite laptop, one of those "ultralight" ones where everything is soldered to the board, and the only user removable parts are the CMOS battery, Wi-fi card and hard drive.
as for "random freeze" I mean the computer entirely freezes, like pulling a gameboy game out of a gameboy.
right now the temps are okay, CPU usually stays at 120/130f, but given its a passively cooled quad core this is fine, the hard drive itself never really gets above 100f or so. I wouldn't be surprised if the graphics were to blame as its got those weird Intel HD graphics for Atom Z37xx processor graphics, even though the processor is a Pentium. I'll look into drivers for the hardware and possible firmware updates for the SSD as when I got the machine it was running the latest BIOS revision.

Youkai · Jul 29, 2019

Possibly any entry in the Event Viewer ?
I know usually there are no entrys when there is not a "proper" crash but maybe you are lucky as this would help you pinpoint the problem.

Another option would be to use some PE CD or Stick so that you could try for a few hours and see if it happens with this as well (if it also happens with a PE then it is not the SSD) if it doesn't happen there is a chance that Lacius is right but there is so much that could possibly cause this ... then again driver and ram would usually result in a Blue Screen.

zxr750j · Jul 29, 2019

Send an email to Toshiba, chances are they already dealt with this problem numerous times...

SaberLilly · Jul 29, 2019

Youkai said:
Possibly any entry in the Event Viewer ?
I know usually there are no entrys when there is not a "proper" crash but maybe you are lucky as this would help you pinpoint the problem.

Another option would be to use some PE CD or Stick so that you could try for a few hours and see if it happens with this as well (if it also happens with a PE then it is not the SSD) if it doesn't happen there is a chance that Lacius is right but there is so much that could possibly cause this ... then again driver and ram would usually result in a Blue Screen.

yeah there doesn't seem to be anything in the event log aside from some "The previous shutdown at X on X was unexpected"
The really odd thing though is the inconsistent nature of it, sometimes a freeze will happen once a day, other days it can happen 4 or more, some days there won't be any.

zxr750j said:
Send an email to Toshiba, chances are they already dealt with this problem numerous times...

This computer hasn't had a warranty in like 5 years. Don't think Toshiba is going to help me with this

merhabaq · Oct 22, 2019

About a month prior my personal computer [windows] began solidifying haphazardly with the turning blue circle and mouse clicks not doing anything. The mouse cursor stays utilitarian. Ctl-Alt-Erase sits idle and the best way to get out is to hold the power button and do a hard reset. Boots up fine and works normally...until it happens again haphazardly and I rehash the cycle. I'm not getting any blunder messages or blue screens or anything.

Originality · Oct 25, 2019

merhabaq said:
About a month prior my personal computer [windows] began solidifying haphazardly with the turning blue circle and mouse clicks not doing anything. The mouse cursor stays utilitarian. Ctl-Alt-Erase sits idle and the best way to get out is to hold the power button and do a hard reset. Boots up fine and works normally...until it happens again haphazardly and I rehash the cycle. I'm not getting any blunder messages or blue screens or anything.

It’s usually better to create your own thread for this rather than bringing up a dead thread.

Your issue sounds like drive issues. The circle going round means it’s trying to load something to memory, but either your drive is being thrashed with other access requests and it’s struggling to catch up, or it’s run into a read error (bad sectors, etc) and doesn’t know what to do.

What you should do is check the SMART report on the drive to see if there’s any obvious signs of imminent failure. If not, run check disk to scan for corrupted sectors or bad file indexes and try fixing them. If all else fails, consider getting a new drive and migrating your data across.

Windows 10 will randomly freeze, requiring a hard reset

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