Win10 Troubleshooting

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Jonathan
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My wife's Win10 machine has started freezing. It's been doing it for a while but it's getting more common.

Symptoms: she'll be using it (and it doesn't get heavy use - mainly Chrome and Gmail) and it just stops. Only way to sort it is a power off.

Pattern: it SEEMS to do this about 3 times when she first uses it and then it's OK but that may not be solid

Where do I start looking for what is causing this? I have literally no idea on trouble shooting PCs.
 
Task manager - ctrl-alt-del and select task manager from the menu options. Run the machine with that open to see what programs are using up resources when it grinds to a halt.
 
Might not be the windows, if it is then it's a corrupted driver.
It could also be hardware. Does it get hot, fans working ok.
Any errors codes given, anything in windows event logs?
 
Might not be the windows, if it is then it's a corrupted driver.
It could also be hardware. Does it get hot, fans working ok.
Any errors codes given, anything in windows event logs?

No obvious fans screaming or computer getting hot. Where are the logs?
 
See the bit that says 'type here to search', enter Event Viewer. Anything in the system or application logs?

Does the PC crash with any blue screen and sad face with a code, or just hang.
Could be a corrupted driver? Possibly fix it by opening a command prompt (Start, scroll down the list of programs until you get to the Windows System folder, open this and Command Prompt icon is in there. Right click the icon, run as administrator) and running sfc /scannow
 
Thanks.

The hang is a freeze - the computer just stops responding. Mouse/keyboard doesn't work, screen doesn't refresh. No BSOD or similar - just nothing.

Application logs give errors on M$ cloud services (once or twice), Perflib and PerfNet (this may be it - there seems to be a pair of these near each hang) and occasionally a LOT of Bonjour errors (like 1 per second for 10 mins).

Appreciate the help - any next steps?
 
Ever tried a System Restore from before your troubles started?

It's at this point I should probably admit this has been going on for a while...... :) Maybe months actually. The start probably more or less coincides with installing Win10 and putting a new SSD in but I can't be sure that it was either of those.

I *think* it's getting worse (more reboots more often) but it might just be that we're using the machine more.
 
It's at this point I should probably admit this has been going on for a while...... :) Maybe months actually. The start probably more or less coincides with installing Win10 and putting a new SSD in but I can't be sure that it was either of those.

I *think* it's getting worse (more reboots more often) but it might just be that we're using the machine more.

When you installed the SSD was this a replacement for an existing drive or an addition?
When you installed it did you enable AHCI mode before installing Win 10?
I had a not dissimilar problem and eventually traced it to the SATA connections on the Motherboard, they were not "Clicking in " securely so I replaced all the cables and its been fine ever since.
 
When you installed the SSD was this a replacement for an existing drive or an addition?
When you installed it did you enable AHCI mode before installing Win 10?
I had a not dissimilar problem and eventually traced it to the SATA connections on the Motherboard, they were not "Clicking in " securely so I replaced all the cables and its been fine ever since.

VERY interesting....

It was a replacement for a spinning metal drive. I'd used the SSD in another machine before. I don't know what AHCI is so I probably didn't enable it.

Will check cables.
 
If it is a AHCI (Advanced Host Controller Interface) problem it is enabled in the BIOS, you also need to edit the registry, easy how to here, link is for Win 7 also works on Win 10, hope this helps.
Pete
 
An interesting / confusing feature of Win7 onwards is that driver crashes (I've seen this with GFX drivers0 that would have previously BSOD'd don't necessarily BSOD, they just hang the machine (often, but not always, it will come back to life).
So whilst you're not getting BSODs, it might still be happening. I would suggest getting a dump viewer and having a look. (I think I used BlueScreenView, but can't be certain now).
 
OK, more information....

1. Looks like AHCI is enabled - I must have done that before installing Win10.
2. The problem only appears to occur after a COLD boot. If you warm reboot, it's fine.
3. On booting, the machine works OK for about 3 mins. Then it becomes VERY unresponsive to the point where it looks like it has frozen. Task manager (when it eventually responds) doesn't show anything unusual. After 5 - 10 mins it's responding to keyboard very slowly. Just trying to restart it and Windows has crashed to a black screen and spinny pointer.
 
I had a similar issue with a Dell laptop running W10 a couple of weeks ago with it being almost completely unresponsive. When I did eventually manage to get into Task Manager it showed that CPU/Memory was virtually idle but the Disk utilisation was 100% with nothing really showing as using it,.
After monitoring it for a few days every time I started it it did eventually respond after about 30 minutes and then behave normally with disk usage down to normal levels.

On looking on the internet for solutions to this one of the items that came up repeatedly as a culprit for causing this was the Superfetch service within Windows, it appears this is a known issue in some W7/8/10 systems and the identical laptop I bought a month earlier doesn't have this issue.
As recommended in numerous 'fix' articles I stopped the Superfetch service and the laptop now runs normally.

It may not be the cause of your problem but might be worth checking.
 
Do far, everything seems to be pointing to perflib. This is throwing lots of errors. According to 1 forum, M$'s advice is "don't look in the error log"........

I've run System File Checker (which was an education in itself - who knew sudo wouldn't work on a PC....?) and it says everything is fine.
 
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