- Oct 31, 2013
- 31
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I apologize in advance for the long post. Also, if this is in the wrong section let me know. Since I don't have a good grasp on what the issue could be I don't know for sure where to ask for help with it. A friend and I have been troubleshooting this issue for a while now and we've been scouring the internet for solutions. Maybe someone here has some more insight into what could be causing this.
The Issue: When browsing the internet or just doing regular day-to-day tasks (PDFs, Excel, File management, etc.) the cursor will just lock-up. It appears that everything else is still running and if there is a video playing it will continue to do so, but the system will be unusable. Usually, after some time, it will come back and pick back up where it left off (seems like everything jumps to the present moment at once). Sometimes, it will stay frozen and anything in the background playing will stop and it's a full-blown system lock-up. Lately, I've had a complete freeze twice where any audio playing would bug-out into a solid tone and require a hard reset.
Normally, the cursor will feel "laggy" and overall the system will feel like it's under very heavy load just before the cursor stops moving. When I have the task manager open there is no indication of abnormal load. The lock-up will happen no matter what is being done. After a bit, everything usually returns to normal.
The issue doesn't seem to come around while gaming. Both of us can play games all night long without a single hiccup, but if we tab-out and start web browsing one of our PC's is almost guaranteed to lock up at least once.
My friend says that the system interrupt process has "very high" power usage around the time of a system lockup. I don't seem to have the power usage tab in mine so I can't verify this.
Originally, we thought the issue was tied to Chrome since that is what is being used most of the time. However, the problem has occurred in other browsers and even the system menus.
Troubleshooting Steps:
So far, it seems like this is some kind of hardware issue, but I'm at a loss as to what could be causing it and I can't completely rule-out software. Our PC builds don't share any common hardware with the exception of Seagate 7200rpm HDs. I was leaning towards something in software since we share most common applications/games, but we also have other friends who use the same programs and don't have any issues like this.
It was suggested previously that we might have dying PSUs, but this doesn't make much sense to me. Our systems pull the most power and load while gaming and that never causes the issue. However, my friend did say his task manager reports "very high" power usage by the system interrupt process around the time of system lockup. I may be misunderstanding how the PSU plays in this whole situation. The only power issues I've dealt with have been far too obvious and caused far worse issues than just system freezes.
The Issue: When browsing the internet or just doing regular day-to-day tasks (PDFs, Excel, File management, etc.) the cursor will just lock-up. It appears that everything else is still running and if there is a video playing it will continue to do so, but the system will be unusable. Usually, after some time, it will come back and pick back up where it left off (seems like everything jumps to the present moment at once). Sometimes, it will stay frozen and anything in the background playing will stop and it's a full-blown system lock-up. Lately, I've had a complete freeze twice where any audio playing would bug-out into a solid tone and require a hard reset.
Normally, the cursor will feel "laggy" and overall the system will feel like it's under very heavy load just before the cursor stops moving. When I have the task manager open there is no indication of abnormal load. The lock-up will happen no matter what is being done. After a bit, everything usually returns to normal.
The issue doesn't seem to come around while gaming. Both of us can play games all night long without a single hiccup, but if we tab-out and start web browsing one of our PC's is almost guaranteed to lock up at least once.
My friend says that the system interrupt process has "very high" power usage around the time of a system lockup. I don't seem to have the power usage tab in mine so I can't verify this.
Originally, we thought the issue was tied to Chrome since that is what is being used most of the time. However, the problem has occurred in other browsers and even the system menus.
Troubleshooting Steps:
We have done RAM diagnostics which come back clean and swapped physical memory to determine if this makes a difference. It doesn't.
We removed any and all overclocks (both were overclocked).
We both ran AIDA64's CPU stress test and didn't trigger a lockup or see anything out of the ordinary (temps normal, frequency normal, etc.)
We both updated Windows to the most recent updates. This actually seems to have made the problem worse (happens more often although the lockups seem shorter in duration)
My friend tried both a partial and a full (clean) install of Windows 10. Within 5 minutes of re-installation, it had locked up again. This leads us to believe it has something to do with hardware or drivers.
We both updated all drivers using "Drivereasy" and manual installation. I thought this had fixed my issue originally, but it eventually happened again and has happened more frequently for some reason.
We both cleaned system temp files, adjusted virtual memory to recommended values, (Recommended Initial / 150% hard disk space maximum) ran a disk check and ran system file checker. My system file checker returned some corrupt values, but my friends did not. Regardless, the issue still persists.
My friend also disabled C-states in bios as well as a full default configuration. This also made no difference.
We changed our power settings to never turn off our SSDs.
So far, it seems like this is some kind of hardware issue, but I'm at a loss as to what could be causing it and I can't completely rule-out software. Our PC builds don't share any common hardware with the exception of Seagate 7200rpm HDs. I was leaning towards something in software since we share most common applications/games, but we also have other friends who use the same programs and don't have any issues like this.
It was suggested previously that we might have dying PSUs, but this doesn't make much sense to me. Our systems pull the most power and load while gaming and that never causes the issue. However, my friend did say his task manager reports "very high" power usage by the system interrupt process around the time of system lockup. I may be misunderstanding how the PSU plays in this whole situation. The only power issues I've dealt with have been far too obvious and caused far worse issues than just system freezes.
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