Windows freezing up for anybody else?

In summary: Windows will fill disks up eventually with updates, temp files, WER directory entries, and all manner of other overhead.
  • #1
jim hardy
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Freezes got so frequent and long, two or three minutes maybe 5x per hour, i was about to get out the splitting maul again.
upload_2017-10-15_6-34-41.jpeg

Battery stopped it from going through that one.

This one's a desktop. Setting Control Panel / Windows updates to "Never Check for Updates" stopped the freezes immediately.

Now on to
"Black Screen after Startup or Sleep"
i have to cycle monitor power three or four times to get a display .
Security Essentials and Avast both report no problems or virus.
Anybody else having the same troubles?
 
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  • #2
jim hardy said:
Freezes got so frequent and long, two or three minutes maybe 5x per hour, i was about to get out the splitting maul again.
View attachment 213074
Battery stopped it from going through that one.

This one's a desktop. Setting Control Panel / Windows updates to "Never Check for Updates" stopped the freezes immediately.

Now on to
"Black Screen after Startup or Sleep"
i have to cycle monitor power three or four times to get a display .
Security Essentials and Avast both report no problems or virus.
Anybody else having the same troubles?

Which version of Windows is it?
 
  • #3
QuantumQuest said:
Which version of Windows is it?
That may be difficult to tell - post mortem - after applying the splitting maul. :D

For the record, I have a company laptop that wants to connect to the company network for updates, which only works if my VPN is up. If it's not, I can get annoyingly long timeouts.
And my 2nd screen in my dual monitor setup tends to go black every now and then after sleep mode (Windows 7).
To be fair, the monitor problem is worse with Linux Ubuntu.
 
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  • #4
jim hardy said:
Security Essentials and Avast both report no problems or virus.
Running two antivirus programs at the same time will cause problems. They lock the files that they are examining and, if they grab the same file, it's freeze time...
 
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  • #5
If you take a systems approach, diagnosing any of this stuff by remote control is utterly doomed to complete failure. Anything good is the result of random chance.
A simple example on the software side, the same applies with hardware.

Suppose you have eight or ten applications - programs - on your machine. The machine is five years old and is Windoze 7. Some programs were actually written for previous Windows versions - like Vista. Browser helpers may have been written for IE 10 and you are now running IE 11. You have updated your antimalware, but some of its base code may be written in system primitives (NT libraries). Some system calls are "subverted" in patches because of security concerns later on.

Hardware is like the example above - older hardware with newer drivers or the other way around newer hardware older drivers.

There is an almost infinite set of combinations of software, hardware, specific patches, and extra added crap from the internet that accidentally got put on the system.

One other factor - ancient cpus, buses, and disks with really slow throughput generally clog up with new software bloat and slow down. Newer versions of things with extra features require more horsepower than the box really has, but the vendor has gotten it to run on old hardware so says it is fine. Maybe not for you with your very unique mishmash of hardware/software.

Your best software choice is to wipe the disk, then reinstall windows 7 from your Windows disk, apply the zillions of updates, and then see where you are. At this point make a full backup, and save it in a safe place. NO extra browsers like Chrome or Mozilla, free software, printers, nothing. If it boots and runs well then try a very slow increment of software or even hardware (Ex: printer software often is mostly not drivers but applications many of which are there to get you to buy proprietary ink, HP is bad for this). You want enough free space for a fixed size swap file (see windows documentation) and still have at least 50% or more free space. Internet temp files like streaming content - e.g., Pandora - can eat up space so watch what you do in adding back new features.

Windows will fill disks up eventually with updates, temp files, WER directory entries, and all manner of other overhead.

I ran 40 Solaris 10 machines for 15 years in production and development environments. The only issues were occasional hardware error events and the junk data that developers "had" to leave on the system. We applied lots of patches, no problems. Windows servers were the same. Perfecto after long years. This means you and I are our own worst enemies when we have turned a nice piece of laptop hardware into junk in 5 years.
 
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  • #6
jim mcnamara said:
Your best software choice is to wipe the disk, then reinstall windows 7 from your Windows disk, apply the zillions of updates, and then see where you are.
Long story short, I believe Windows is actually pretty stable and predictable.
It's just that we only need 1 or 2 badly written programs or drivers, and our system starts exhibiting unstable behavior - under certain circumstances.
It can be a quite a challenge to figure out which ones those are.
At least when starting from a clean slate, we can expect a responsive system.
 
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  • #7
@jim hardy and I seem to like posting long stories. :wink:
 
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  • #8
jim hardy said:
Setting Control Panel / Windows updates to "Never Check for Updates" stopped the freezes immediately.
This sounds like a network connection issue. If windows update tries to check for updates online but it can't get through, this might cause something to hang up. I actually had a mac machine do this once. It's also possible that the update service is somehow severely corrupted, but I'm not sure how that would happen.
jim hardy said:
"Black Screen after Startup or Sleep"
i have to cycle monitor power three or four times to get a display .
This sounds like the problem may be the monitor. The video card sends a signal to the monitor to wake up. Perhaps after cycling the monitor a few times, it finally recognizes the signal.
jim hardy said:
Security Essentials and Avast both report no problems or virus.
It can be problematic having two or more antivirus programs running at the same time. Get rid of Avast. Security essentials is a very good antivirus program and is well optimized, the same is not true for Avast.
 
  • #9
NFuller said:
This sounds like a network connection issue. If windows update tries to check for updates online but it can't get through, this might cause something to hang up. I actually had a mac machine do this once. It's also possible that the update service is somehow severely corrupted, but I'm not sure how that would happen.
The network interface is deeply wired into the kernel to provide 'nice' and 'transparent' I/O behavior.
Unfortunately, since the kernel is typically single-threaded, it means that if the network interface to the internet is unresponsive, we tend to get long freezes (up to ~90 seconds) before the network interface realizes that no response is coming forth.
This can for instance happen if the response has to come from a VPN connection that is not up.
And it doesn't help if the system tries to 'recover' by retrying - it just means that we have to wait for another timeout.
 
  • #10
QuantumQuest said:
Which version of Windows is it?
upload_2017-10-15_13-18-3.png


thanks for the reply
 
  • #11
NFuller said:
This sounds like the problem may be the monitor. The video card sends a signal to the monitor to wake up. Perhaps after cycling the monitor a few times, it finally recognizes the signal.

Monitor wakes up showing desktop, flickers about 10 hz for a second or two then goes back dark. That doesn't seem like hardware more like two programs fighting over who's on first.Avast is gone now. No change.
.
 
  • #12
jim hardy said:
Monitor wakes up showing desktop, flickers about 10 hz for a second or two then goes back dark. That doesn't seem like hardware more like two programs fighting over who's on first.
That sounds exactly like a hardware failure. Flickering in particular can indicate a bad video cable, video connector, or that the monitor is going out. The fact that cycling the monitor's power a few times remedies the problem means that software cannot be the cause.
 
  • #13
Also, is there a reason you are still using windows 7? I believe you can update to windows 10 for free so long as you have a valid copy of windows 7 or 8. Using the most modern version of windows may fix some of the update issues.
 
  • #14
NFuller said:
Also, is there a reason you are still using windows 7? I believe you can update to windows 10 for free so long as you have a valid copy of windows 7 or 8. Using the most modern version of windows may fix some of the update issues.
I tried windows 10 and HATED it. It's an over-automated presumptuous and ill mannered pest, puts thing wherever it pleases , moves all my pictures, sneaks in at night and changes things around, calculator is a bad joke on science,
fortunately was able to undo the involuntary windows 10 "upgrade" that happened on this machine.

I got a Windows7 Pro disk for my laptop . When get a new battery will install it .

SO yes there's a reason i liked Windows 7, got accustomed to where things are in it, it ran fine for years but seems now to be suffering terminal 'update poisoning'.

IMHO the Tower of Babel myth was prescient of the software industry, a logical extrapolation on Human Nature .

I'm a Grumpy Old Man today, eh ?

Doing my best Walter Matthau..,
old jim
 
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  • #15
jim hardy said:
I tried windows 10 and HATED it. It's an over-automated presumptuous and ill mannered pest, puts thing wherever it pleases , moves all my pictures, sneaks in at night and changes things around, calculator is a bad joke on science,
fortunately was able to undo the involuntary windows 10 "upgrade" that happened on this machine.
I feel your pain. :wink: After spending some time digging through windows internals, I was finally able to tame windows 10 and get it to function like an actual operating system. Unfortunately, most of us are bound to the whim of Microsoft and their "brilliant" ideas. Unless of course, you are a true anarchist and are using *NIX.

If you still have the install disk and you still can't get the update nonsense and other software issues to stop, then a reformat may be the last resort.
 
  • #16
NFuller said:
The fact that cycling the monitor's power a few times remedies the problem means that software cannot be the cause.
Not true. A race condition in the software could show the same symptoms.

Just checking.
You have a desktop and not a laptop (as in the picture ;))?
A single monitor?
No funky stuff with badly connected cables? (All connectors 'click' or are otherwise screwed tightly and without defects?)
No connected scanners, printers, or other peripherals?
And no (custom) drivers for any of those? (I used to have a scanner that had a driver that caused freezes.)
A regular network interface card that is hardwired? And no other funky network stuff?
And no clue that any of the behavior was first introduced when attaching a new peripheral, or installing new drivers/software?
 
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  • #17
I like Serena said:
Not true. A race condition in the software could show the same symptoms.
That is very highly unlikely. Software does not care what the monitor is doing. When a program wants to display something, the OS pushes it into VRAM and the video card updates its video output. It is possible that the video driver is crashing, but cycling the monitor would not affect this. Also driver problems tend to produce flickering on the order of once every few seconds not at 10Hz as jim described.
 
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  • #18
@jim hardy you mentioned that you have a laptop. If that is working, you could plug your monitor into the laptop and see if the problem goes away. If it does, then its something in your desktop. If it doesn't, then it's the monitor or video cable.
 
  • #19
I like Serena said:
Not true. A race condition in the software could show the same symptoms.

My thoughts exactly.

Just checking.
You have a desktop and not a laptop (as in the picture ;))? Yes, desktop
A single monitor? Yes
No funky stuff with badly connected cables? (All connectors 'click' or are otherwise screwed tightly and without defects?) Checked that many times
No connected scanners, printers, or other peripherals? A Canon printer / scanner I've had for years . This started about 2 weeks ago after another round of uninvited midnight microshaft updates half of which report failed .
And no (custom) drivers for any of those? (I used to have a scanner that had a driver that caused freezes.) Mostly microsoft drivers, re-installed the Intel chipset drivers a few days ago on advice at Intel's support site .
A regular network interface card that is hardwired? And no other funky network stuff? Ethernet cable into the back of the telephone company's router
And no clue that any of the behavior was first introduced when attaching a new peripheral, or installing new drivers/software?
It started immediately after an automatic software update. That's why i suspect 'dueling programmers'.
 
  • #20
On the premise that two different programs are trying to set up the monitor differently during the wakeup process
I tried removing conflicting monitor resolutions in REGEDIT by renaming any that weren't 1280X1024 to DELETED ( so they'd be easy to restore)
FreezesRegedit.jpg

i did them one or two at a time
in hopes that would render them unusable to the operating system
to no avail
maybe i'll try renaming all but one and see what happens.

i have no idea what those things do

Of course Acrobat Thunderbird and Firefox self update too

Security Essentials is the only antivirus on now. Will try a restart .now.

old jim
 
  • #21
Sounds as if that update might be 'a' or 'the' culprit.
Windows creates restore points when installing anything, meaning we can undo the update, if only to verify if it was causing the problem.
A quick google shows me this and this.

Alternatively, we can boot in such a way that only the bare minimum of drivers and programs are activated, and we can selectively indicate what else we want to start.
That way we can verify if the problem is caused by faulty drivers or software.
 
  • #22
Started up fine this time except for this piece of ambiguity

upload_2017-10-15_14-31-1.png


Maybe my last tweak on the registry entries did something - will advise after a few more starts.

I like @I like Serena 's approach to troubleshooting this.

NFuller said:
It is possible that the video driver is crashing, but cycling the monitor would not affect this. Also driver problems tend to produce flickering on the order of once every few seconds not at 10Hz as jim described.
It'll cycle at whatever is the rate conflicting programs change its settings.
that it settles out after three or four wakeups to the computer from the monitor tells me it takes a while for the software to reach equilibrium. If i wait several minutes it takes only one power off-on cycle. To me that precludes a cable problem

Judging by the horrific list of processes that Task Manager shows, startup time must be a whirling dervish reminiscent of Mozart's "Tuning Up"


It's liveable but annoying . Complaints at microsoft community site about this date back to least 2009.
 

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  • #23
Don't think i have a restore point early enough.
upload_2017-10-15_14-45-50.png
 
  • #24
Wow, Jim! What a mess. I have nothing useful to offer, but I hope you get it all fixed soon.
 
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  • #25
Does the monitor still act up when booting into safe mode? Do you have a dedicated graphics card or are you using integrated graphics?
 
  • #26
jim hardy said:
Judging by the horrific list of processes that Task Manager shows, startup time must be a whirling dervish reminiscent of Mozart's "Tuning Up"


It's liveable but annoying . Complaints at microsoft community site about this date back to least 2009.

It usually pays off to clear/delete all programs that are automatically started.
That is, everything that is in the menu All Programs/Startup.
And all registry entries in:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
None of the stuff that you need is in either of those, but they do tend to collect garbage that doesn't get deleted, and they slow your system down unnecessarily.
It may even fix your problem. ;)
 
  • #27
I like Serena said:
It usually pays off to clear/delete all programs that are automatically started.
That is, everything that is in the menu All Programs/Startup. It was empty
And all registry entries in:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run It had only a blank entry
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run Renamed all four entries to "NoLonger--old name" so can put them back
None of the stuff that you need is in either of those, but they do tend to collect garbage that doesn't get deleted, and they slow your system down unnecessarily.
It may even fix your problem. ;)

we shall see

dont know how to boot in safe mode per NFuller's suggestion but will experiment.
 
  • #28
Hmmm

@I like Serena :biggrin::smile::bow::oldlove::partytime:

just had a successful wakeup from sleep with no flickering screen and no power cycle required. First one in weeks.

Will see if it holds.

What do those do ?

Thanks a Million!

old jim
 
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  • #29
For the record, I do see a checkbox labeled Show more restore points...

jim hardy said:
dont know how to boot in safe mode per NFuller's suggestion but will experiment.
It's explained for instance here (first google hit).
This is the absolute basis - it loads absolutely nothing that may be suspect, and it is double checked that there are no corruptions (such as viruses).

jim hardy said:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run Renamed all four entries to "NoLonger--old name" so can put them back
That may not be good enough.
The key names are irrelevant - it's about the Data that's behind them that identify the programs that are supposed to be started.
I usually use File/Export to export the entries so that I might import them again, after which I delete everything in there.
(And I have never felt the need to import anything again. ;))
 
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  • #30
jim hardy said:
I tried windows 10 and HATED it. It's an over-automated presumptuous and ill mannered pest, puts thing wherever it pleases , moves all my pictures, sneaks in at night and changes things around, calculator is a bad joke on science
Personally, I think you are giving it way more credit than it deserves and have hardly even begun to point out its flaws. #IHATEITMORETHANYOUDO
 
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  • #31
I want to make a few comments too, noting that the contributions on the thread are already excellent.

Borg said:
Running two antivirus programs at the same time will cause problems. They lock the files that they are examining and, if they grab the same file, it's freeze time...

This is absolutely essential. As I read the OP, I initially thought that there was one antivirus on a permanent basis and jim hardy just disabled it and run another one in order to check for malware. Two antivirus programs running both at the same time is just a source of various problems and also there will be a lot of false positive and some (maybe many) undetected real alarms.

I like Serena said:
Long story short, I believe Windows is actually pretty stable and predictable.
It's just that we only need 1 or 2 badly written programs or drivers, and our system starts exhibiting unstable behavior - under certain circumstances.

As I have already run and develop on Windows platforms for years - I use also Linux in my work, I wouldn't disagree with this but the real problem for every single version of Windows is Microsoft policies. Now, while these are very protective and well designed for many cases there is a lot of cases that they aren't. I cannot really count the number of cases that I got in need of finding / devising some workaround and this is certainly a bad thing for an OS.

The Windows version that jim hardy runs has been proven to be a stable one - taking the various SP's and updates into account. I can confirm this too as I have already a machine with this OS for seven years with no problem at all.

I think that for both problems mentioned, the source(s) can potentially be various things. The safe way to go is to boot in safe mode and see what the behavior of the system is. Then you can begin to see if it is software (maybe faulty / corrupted drivers, conflicting programs etc.) or hardware (faulty or not anymore compatible with the OS). Trying to modify the registry - I have personally done it a lot of times in older versions of Windows, is not of much help in a vast number of cases, as there may be the same or correlated settings in various places of the registry.
 
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  • #32
Just had a second successful wakeup from sleep
system seems to be noticeably better now.i think i'll delete those things @I like Serena suggested deleting
and go back & un-rename the ones i did on my own up in Regedit Graphics list one at a time
\
but first will try that safe mode boot(sleep a while)

i'm back now in safe mode

QuantumQuest said:
This is absolutely essential. As I read the OP, I initially thought that there was one antivirus on a permanent basis and jim hardy just disabled it and run another one in order to check for malware.
That's indeed what i had done
ran Malware Bytes too, it reported clean, but uninstalled it as well just in case. I'm NOT a software guru by any stretch.

Startup was flawless, i even cycled monitor power afterward just to see if it caused any upset which it did not .

Most likely candidate is those four entries where @I like Serena suggested deleting - i only renamed them so i think i'll go back and delete.

Thanks Folks
I don't know what we fixed but it has either removed or masked the symptoms.

@phinds Thanks for validating my opinion of Windows (Shutters?) 10 and that awful busybody Cortana .
 
  • #33
Thanks all, going to put this machine in sleep and go defrost the freezer. Got to make use of the daylight and the cool day.

old jim
 
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  • #34
jim hardy said:
@phinds Thanks for validating my opinion of Windows (Shutters?) 10 and that awful busybody Cortana .
I spent several hours just figuring out how to delete as much of the voluminous crap as possible and disabling as much as possible those things that Windows just won't LET you get rid of (like Cortana). Even with all that, I refuse to put Win10 on my workhorse workstation. The laptop only gets used a few times a year so I can live with Win10 instead of paying an extra #100 to retrofit it w/ Win7
 
  • #35
I bought a Win7 pro disk from a retired microsoft employee
just can't abide ten's irrationality
......
Deleted those files in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
but Windows wouldn't allow the Default REGSZ (value not set) deletion

we shall see if black screen comes back.

Am getting popups telling me to change my Windows update setting back from "Never" - i guess they still snoop around anyway.

.................
Boring Anecdote Alert -
After we got the plant computer running in 1973 we did not ever update the operating system, to the vendor's considerable dismay.
It ran well until 2002 oops 1992 when we replaced it..
29 oops 19 years was i think not a bad run for an old Data General Nova 840 with magnetic core memory .
It did give trouble though when the moving head disk developed seek errors due to a defective op-amp in the head positioning servo loop. Its slew rate deteriorated so at max head speed the drive sometimes lost count of the track number and had to recalibrate itself to track zero...
Once in a while it would fail to notice the mistake. That's where i learned about the assembly language command "LED" - Load and Execute Data.
The only symptom was an occasional crash. Once it reprinted a report from a year earlier and that was the tipoff that we needed. We knew printer output was spooled to disk so that had to be a disk error.
Sure enough the disk diagnostic showed trouble on long track seeks but only at highest speed. Oscilloscope showed degraded rise and fall times at the opamp output that caused a race in downstream logic.

Moral of that boring anecdote -
Software ?
1. If it isn't broke don't fix it.
2. Do it right the first time.
That Windows has accrued so many thousands of updates does not create in me, well, let's just say 'a sense of well being' .

old jim
 
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<h2>1. Why does my Windows keep freezing up?</h2><p>There can be several reasons why Windows freezes up, such as outdated drivers, insufficient memory, malware or viruses, or hardware issues. It is important to troubleshoot the specific cause to find a solution.</p><h2>2. How can I prevent my Windows from freezing up?</h2><p>To prevent Windows from freezing up, make sure you regularly update your operating system and drivers, run regular virus scans, and avoid running too many programs at once. You can also try increasing your computer's memory or upgrading to a faster processor.</p><h2>3. Can a faulty hardware component cause Windows to freeze up?</h2><p>Yes, a faulty hardware component, such as a failing hard drive or overheating processor, can cause Windows to freeze up. It is important to regularly check and maintain your computer's hardware to prevent freezing issues.</p><h2>4. Is there a way to fix a frozen Windows without restarting my computer?</h2><p>Yes, you can try pressing the Ctrl + Alt + Delete keys simultaneously to open the Task Manager and end any unresponsive programs. You can also try running a System File Checker scan to repair any corrupted system files.</p><h2>5. Why does my Windows only freeze when I'm using certain programs?</h2><p>Certain programs may be more resource-intensive and can cause Windows to freeze if your computer does not have enough memory or processing power. You may need to upgrade your computer's hardware or limit the number of programs you use at once to prevent freezing.</p>

1. Why does my Windows keep freezing up?

There can be several reasons why Windows freezes up, such as outdated drivers, insufficient memory, malware or viruses, or hardware issues. It is important to troubleshoot the specific cause to find a solution.

2. How can I prevent my Windows from freezing up?

To prevent Windows from freezing up, make sure you regularly update your operating system and drivers, run regular virus scans, and avoid running too many programs at once. You can also try increasing your computer's memory or upgrading to a faster processor.

3. Can a faulty hardware component cause Windows to freeze up?

Yes, a faulty hardware component, such as a failing hard drive or overheating processor, can cause Windows to freeze up. It is important to regularly check and maintain your computer's hardware to prevent freezing issues.

4. Is there a way to fix a frozen Windows without restarting my computer?

Yes, you can try pressing the Ctrl + Alt + Delete keys simultaneously to open the Task Manager and end any unresponsive programs. You can also try running a System File Checker scan to repair any corrupted system files.

5. Why does my Windows only freeze when I'm using certain programs?

Certain programs may be more resource-intensive and can cause Windows to freeze if your computer does not have enough memory or processing power. You may need to upgrade your computer's hardware or limit the number of programs you use at once to prevent freezing.

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