OS randomly deciding not to open up programs or perform tasks.

[Deleted member 2266243]

Hello,
I have built my own PC in December 2015, and installed Windows 10 on it (Not an upgrade from Win7/8, straight up Windows 10 professional).

I have recently started having problems, one of which was high temperatures on my CPU, and the other of which, seemingly unrelated, has to do with (According to a friend) my OS. He can't really pinpoint the issue and suggested me posting here.

The problem goes as follows:

I have not yet found a way to test the circumstances, but sometimes, more often than not, after turning on my PC and logging to my Microsoft account, my computer may not allow me to open any programs. Double clicking an icon will start the right background process for such program, but it will never go forth from there.

Normally, I can open programs as soon as I start it up. It'll open them up just fine, no errors, nothing suspicious. But after some undetermined time (I'd estimate anything from 5 minutes, and up,) I cannot open up programs anymore. I can bring up my Start menu, but hitting "shut down" will do nothing, except for the button's animation. Restart and such also do not work. Attempting ctrl+alt+delete does nothing either.

I must say, though, that those programs that are already open before I'm unable to open more, still work perfectly fine, and I can save documents without trouble, as well as open new tabs and load websites if I have already opened my browser.

The only way I have been able to deal with the issue is hitting the reset button on my tower, logging back in, opening any programs I know I will use, and if I need to open a new one later, I'll have to reset again.

I have noticed, that on some occasions this weird bug does not happen at all, and the computer works as it should. But I have not determined any difference in what I do in both situations. It seems to come out of thin air.

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Aside from that, on a maybe related note, I have noted Cortana not being really good at what she is meant to do, and never answering questions but rather just looks them up on Bing. Some research led me to people saying that to fix that, you have to reinstall Windows 10. I don't know if that is related or helps understand the issue.

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My PC's specs are as follows:

Intel core i7 4790k (Stock cooler, that's why I have problems with temps. Not overclocked of course, 4.0 GHz)

EVGA Nvidia GTX 960

4X4 16 GB HyperX DDR3 RAM

MSI H97 Gaming motherboard

Thermaltake TR2 700w

Seagate Barracuda 1TB HDD / Kingston SSDNow V300 120GB SSD

OS: Windows 10 Professional

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Also, the programs I have on startup are Steam, Discord, and some driver programs to edit RGB mouse, keyboard and such. Added to that, I normally open up a game at a time, and my browser in a normal day. It really does not feel like I would be stressing the hardware. Temperatures on Speccy don't show anything out of the normal when I have these programs open.

If anyone would happen to know what could be going on, and how to fix it, I would greatly appreciate it. Reinstalling the OS may not be that hard since I have it (along with some other lightweight programs I can easily backup) on my SSD.

Thank you.

PS: If you need more details, I'll be happy to answer. I don't know much in terms of this stuff, so I can easily be missing out on obvious information.

 

[gardenman]

This could be a multitude of different problems and IMHO it's going to be difficult to figure out. My suggestions may or may not help. I'm sure someone else could help you better, but since you have no answers yet, here's my 2 cents...

This kinda sounds like a malware infection. Download Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, update it and do a full scan.

Also try running a command prompt (run as admin) and type:
SFC /scannow
This might help with the Cortana problems. Reply back with any error messages you encounter.

A few other suggestions:

* Try a Clean Boot and see if you still have the same problems.
It could be a conflicting program or driver and this would help
narrow it down.
* Look up any errors in the Event Viewer.
* Do a memory test. Run Windows Memory Diagnostic in start menu.
It could potentially be bad memory.

Write back and let the community know how these things went. Then maybe someone can help you.

 

[Deleted member 2266243]

This could be a multitude of different problems and IMHO it's going to be difficult to figure out. My suggestions may or may not help. I'm sure someone else could help you better, but since you have no answers yet, here's my 2 cents...

This kinda sounds like a malware infection. Download Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, update it and do a full scan.

Also try running a command prompt (run as admin) and type:
SFC /scannow
This might help with the Cortana problems. Reply back with any error messages you encounter.

A few other suggestions:

* Try a Clean Boot and see if you still have the same problems.
It could be a conflicting program or driver and this would help
narrow it down.
* Look up any errors in the Event Viewer.
* Do a memory test. Run Windows Memory Diagnostic in start menu.
It could potentially be bad memory.

Write back and let the community know how these things went. Then maybe someone can help you.

Hey! Thank you for responding.

Here are the results, writing them as every scan finishes:

SFC /scannow showed no integrity violations.

Event Viewer showed some recurring errors with Perflib, and I noticed a few errors about "Apps," even fewer named "SecurityCenter." I also found one named "Nvidia OpenGL driver" which happened I'd say roughly about the time the issue started. That could be linked to the issue if you said conflicting drivers could cause it.

Malwarebytes updated and has shown no threats on either Registry, Memory, Startup, or System.

The memory diagnostic tool found no errors.

A clean boot, and trying to open programs and close them for about 15-20 minutes showed no issues and worked as intended. Then again, I have previously stated it will sometimes work as intended without a clean boot. So I'm not sure if that will really give much insight.

I think the main suspect may be the opengl driver if it is possible a driver is causing this.

 

[gardenman]

Hi, I wouldn't worry about the Perflib errors. I attempted to fix my perflib errors and once you fix one, others pop up. They seem to be harmless.

Provide more info about the OpenGL and SecurityCenter errors.

Have you tried another NVidia driver yet? If you have the latest one, try one from the last month or two. Consider going into Device Manager and doing a Roll Back Driver. Win Update will automatically update the driver and you said your problems just started recently. If that doesn't work and if you don't have the latest driver, update to it now.

I'm assuming that you have tried to disable any security software to see if that is the problem too. If not, try that out.

The fact that you had no problems in the clean boot makes me think that maybe there is a software conflict. If the computer has this problem 4 out of 5 times on a normal boot and 0 out of 5 times in a clean boot, then the problem is definitely a conflicting software that is being loaded at startup. Try the clean boot a few more times just to see if the problem shows up or not. If it doesn't, then that will help you narrow down the problem.

 

[Deleted member 2266243]

Hi, I wouldn't worry about the Perflib errors. I attempted to fix my perflib errors and once you fix one, others pop up. They seem to be harmless.

Provide more info about the OpenGL and SecurityCenter errors.

Have you tried another NVidia driver yet? If you have the latest one, try one from the last month or two. Consider going into Device Manager and doing a Roll Back Driver. Win Update will automatically update the driver and you said your problems just started recently. If that doesn't work and if you don't have the latest driver, update to it now.

I'm assuming that you have tried to disable any security software to see if that is the problem too. If not, try that out.

The fact that you had no problems in the clean boot makes me think that maybe there is a software conflict. If the computer has this problem 4 out of 5 times on a normal boot and 0 out of 5 times in a clean boot, then the problem is definitely a conflicting software that is being loaded at startup. Try the clean boot a few more times just to see if the problem shows up or not. If it doesn't, then that will help you narrow down the problem.

The Security center details (Event data) show

Windows Defender
SECURITY_PRODUCT_STATE_ON
BA060000

After some quick research I found on many people it is linked to other antivirus programs. But I rely on Windows Defender itself and never installed anything else (Except for the recent addition of Malwarebytes, but these errors are from before).
-------------------------

The Nvidia OpenGL Driver error Event Data shows this:

The GPU has been disconnected and this application may become unresponsive. Error code: 10 (pid=8896 tid=6276 javaw.exe 64bit) Visit http://www.nvidia.com/page/support.html for more information.

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Update: I have tried a total of 5 times by starting on clean boot and using my PC as usual, and at random intervals attempting to open/close programs. Everything worked as intended. I guess it has to be a conflicting program then.

 

[gardenman]

Thats good news that it's not happening in clean boot. I assume by "clean boot", you opened msconfig.exe and went to the Services tab, hid all Microsoft Services at the bottom, then disabled what was left. Is that correct?

If so, do that again, but this time, leave half of them enabled. Do a ummm.... "half way clean boot". If things freeze up on you again, then you know it's one of those programs that was just enabled. If things do not freeze up on you, then it's one of the programs that was left unchecked.

Keep adding more programs to the checked list until you find out which program it is.

I know this is a pain in the rear to do this, but eventually you will find out which program it is that is causing the freeze and be able to disable it permanently.

Once I hide all of the Microsoft Services, I am left with only 18 services. Start by disabling the most suspect looking programs.

Write back if you eventually find out which program is causing the programs for you and let everyone know (in case someone else in the future has this problem.)

 

[Deleted member 2266243]

Thats good news that it's not happening in clean boot. I assume by "clean boot", you opened msconfig.exe and went to the Services tab, hid all Microsoft Services at the bottom, then disabled what was left. Is that correct?

If so, do that again, but this time, leave half of them enabled. Do a ummm.... "half way clean boot". If things freeze up on you again, then you know it's one of those programs that was just enabled. If things do not freeze up on you, then it's one of the programs that was left unchecked.

Keep adding more programs to the checked list until you find out which program it is.

I know this is a pain in the rear to do this, but eventually you will find out which program it is that is causing the freeze and be able to disable it permanently.

Once I hide all of the Microsoft Services, I am left with only 18 services. Start by disabling the most suspect looking programs.

Write back if you eventually find out which program is causing the programs for you and let everyone know (in case someone else in the future has this problem.)

Okay, doing so right now.

And yes, I did as you said for clean boot (Had to look it up in the microsoft website) and also disabled all programs that open on startup. Currently disabled 7/15 of the non-windows services. Testing begins again. I'll update this comment once I finish, hopefully having fixed or found the issue.

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I have not yet found the source. I managed to get the glitch (first time in the day) on the second iteration of "half-clean boots." The three main suspects are Adobe Acrobat Update Service, BattlEye Service, Hi-Rez Studios Authenticate and Update service, and, because I failed to write it down properly, either "Google update service (gupdate)" or "Google update service (gupdatem)". I wrote down only "google update service, but I highly doubt that is the issue. What I did find, is that after adding those 4 which I had not added, the glitch appeared.

Also, I currently am running it with the Adobe service disabled, and have had no issues. But I have a hunch I had already had it disabled, with the issue still happening. I can't do any more testing for today, I'll continue tomorrow.

 

[gardenman]

Keep in mind that since it doesn't happen every time, that it could be something you've even previously re-enabled (before Adobe/Battle/Hi-Rez). This is going to be difficult to track down but I'm sure you can do it now. You are on the right track. Good luck.

 

[Deleted member 2266243]

Okay, I'm almost 100% sure the conflicting service was the Hi-Rez Studios stuff. I have since uninstalled Smite and all related to Hi-Rez Studios, and have not had the issue. Today, I toggled clean boot "off" by re-enabling all services (After uninstalling Hi-Rez) and re-enabling default startup programs.

I'll come back to this thread if I found the problem again. If not, the reason was what I mentioned above.

 

[Deleted member 2266243]

Well, as it turns out, the problem persists. I'd like to say it doesn't happen as often, except that today it has happened on every single boot. I did not download/install anything new so I am inclined to think maybe the Hi-Rez thing was only part of the problem and not the problem in itself.

 

[gardenman]

I'm beginning to think that this may be more hardware related, such as possible hard drive failure or something along those lines.

I think it would be better if someone else helped you with this problem as I'm out of ideas.

 

[Deleted member 2266243]

I'm beginning to think that this may be more hardware related, such as possible hard drive failure or something along those lines.

I think it would be better if someone else helped you with this problem as I'm out of ideas.

Hey, no problem. Thank you for your diligence!

 

[Deleted member 2266243]

I have solved the issue. So quick summary - I was disabling a specific task and that was causing the issues.

I often play online games so I don't want stuff downloading in the background during that. As it turns out, I had the habit of going to my resource monitor and hitting "Suspend process" on svchost.exe (netsvcs) which is a Windows thing (I don't know much more but I know it's the one process active when Windows 10 downloads updates on my pc). I was doing that because End process was only reopening the process.

My experiment was to let windows update all it wanted and then play games as usual without touching that process, and as it turns out, the issue was solved. Now it seems I can hit end process instead of suspend and it will stop downloading until the next reboot on my PC.

I was dumb. But at least it's fixed now!