Question Programs freezing since Windows 10 Feature Update 2004/20H2 ?

[PikachuKing]

I was running my pc before on windows 10 1909 and ran perfectly fine, i then updated to 2004 and ran into a problem where programs began to slowly stop functioning and updating visually. For example, the text indicator/blinker in Discord would freeze or just not show up until I minimized and maximized the windows only for it to be completely frozen. My animated wallpaper in wallpaper engine would come to a halt. New/closed tabs wouldn't visually update. A fresh reinstall of 2004 didn't work. An install of 20H2 didn't work either. The only workaround that keeps my computer from slowly freezing up is ending runtime broker. However, disabling it in the registry doesn't stop it from running and freezing up my computer. While reading around, I would see runtime broker cause intense cpu usage, but nothing abnormal occurs when I monitor it in task manager. Any suggestions, help, and advice would be appreciated.

 

[PikachuKing]

Updating from 1909 to 2004, programs begin to lose their function and come to a freezing halt where I can't do anything on my pc unless I constantly end runtime broker.exe in task manager. Monitoring it in task manager doesn't show any unusual cpu/ram usage. Any help or advice would be appreciated.

 

[TR4V3L3R]

Had exactly the same symptoms. Was sitting on W10 1909 for a year with ROCK SOLID* stability heat hit the fan on 2020.11.02 when I decided to update to W10 2004. It got frozen** the same day at night for no reason. A few weeks later Windows updated to 20H2 with issues persist. Few more weeks later when I got irritated I reinstalled W10 20H2 from scratch to no avail.

At the moment I have found the culprit (outdated AIDA64 5.92.4306 with sensor panel) I had ~20 random freezes at total. After I refreshed it with newer version computer become ROCK SOLID* again.

*24x365 uptime and almost every day x264 encode for ~1h
**information stops updating, then in 5-10 seconds it goes to completely unresponsive state and can be in it until you reset it

 

[PikachuKing]

At the moment I have found the culprit (outdated AIDA64 5.92.4306 with sensor panel) I had ~20 random freezes at total. After I refreshed it with newer version computer become ROCK SOLID* again.

I don't use AIDA64

 

[polas]

similar problem here...

 

[Ramneet]

Had exactly the same symptoms. Was sitting on W10 1909 for a year with ROCK SOLID* stability heat hit the fan on 2020.11.02 when I decided to update to W10 2004. It got frozen** the same day at night for no reason. A few weeks later Windows updated to 20H2 with issues persist. Few more weeks later when I got irritated I reinstalled W10 20H2 from scratch to no avail.

At the moment I have found the culprit (outdated AIDA64 5.92.4306 with sensor panel) I had ~20 random freezes at total. After I refreshed it with newer version computer become ROCK SOLID* again.

*24x365 uptime and almost every day x264 encode for ~1h
**information stops updating, then in 5-10 seconds it goes to completely unresponsive state and can be in it until you reset it

Mostly the same with me but the freeze is not letting me do anything else. Did you refresh with new Windows 10 20H2? I'm running Ryzen 2400G on A320M-K

 

[TR4V3L3R]

...I constantly end runtime broker.exe in task manager...

As a walkaround you can make a schedule task to end this process every 5 min (anytime you want) wrapped in vbs script (to not flash with cmd window).

I don't use AIDA64

It can be other outdated software in your case if our issues are related in some weird way.

Mostly the same with me but the freeze is not letting me do anything else. Did you refresh with new Windows 10 20H2? I'm running Ryzen 2400G on A320M-K

Well yeah, I reinstalled W10 20H2 after weeks of constant random freezes but that didn't fix anything. Only after I updated AIDA64 5.92.4306 to fresh version of itself W10 20H2 has become as good as W10 1909 were for me all last year. Almost 4 months has passed, everything is great.

Just one obvious suggestion for everyone who can say something like that: "Everything was good on 1909 and instantly become bad on 2004/20H2". It can be anything in your case, but you must look on software which is constantly running in the background* first.

• If clean** W10 freezes for you – that must be hardware issues not related to W10 itself.
• If you have time – reinstall W10 and add 1-2 common programs you use at a time on 2-3 day interval.
• If you don’t have time – unload/delete 1-2 common programs (background first) you use at a time on 2-3 day interval.

*OBS, MSI Afterburner, CrystalDiskInfo, W8/10 gadgets, AIDA64, "YOUR_antivirus", "YOUR_backupsoftware" etc.
**ONLY W10 (no additional software)