[SOLVED] Taskbar freezing on Startup ?

[Eric92]

I've been assisting a friend with their new PC and they have suddenly started experiencing an issue with their Taskbar being frozen for a period of time ranging from 2 mins to 15 mins after startup. (it's happened occasionally after startup and in the middle of use). Sometimes restarting explorer in task manager fixes it and sometimes it does not.

They have installed Windows on 2 different drives... several times each... with the problem never going away. I can't help but think it's a hardware issue. They've also run through just about every single suggestion in every forum post about fixing the taskbar.

I'm at a loss for what this could be and really have no theories. My only thought is PERHAPS an issue with their RAM? (idk if this even makes sense) as its the oldest and worst component in their system that will not be replaced for some time.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance, guys.

Their system:
MOBO: MSI B550M Mortar Wifi
CPU: 5600X
GPU: Gigabyte 1060
RAM: Crucial 2133mhz DDR4

 

[Colif]

latest bios on motherboard?
latest chipset drivers? https://www.amd.com/en/support/chipsets/amd-socket-am4/b550

Try running memtest86 on each of your ram sticks, one stick at a time, up to 4 passes. Only error count you want is 0, any higher could be cause of the BSOD. Remove/replace ram sticks with errors. Memtest is created as a bootable USB so that you don’t need windows to run it

what drives are they?

shame its random or I would suggest they run in safe mode

Try a clean boot and see if it changes anything - make sure to read instructions and make sure NOT to disable any microsoft services or windows won't load right - https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/929135/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows

if clean boot fixes it, it shows its likely a startup program. You should, over a number of startups. restart the programs you stopped to isolate the one that is to blame.

 

[Eric92]

latest bios on motherboard?
latest chipset drivers? https://www.amd.com/en/support/chipsets/amd-socket-am4/b550

Try running memtest86 on each of your ram sticks, one stick at a time, up to 4 passes. Only error count you want is 0, any higher could be cause of the BSOD. Remove/replace ram sticks with errors. Memtest is created as a bootable USB so that you don’t need windows to run it

what drives are they?

shame its random or I would suggest they run in safe mode

Try a clean boot and see if it changes anything - make sure to read instructions and make sure NOT to disable any microsoft services or windows won't load right - https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/929135/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows

if clean boot fixes it, it shows its likely a startup program. You should, over a number of startups. restart the programs you stopped to isolate the one that is to blame.

The drives Windows has been installed on were a 980 pro (brand new) and an 850 EVO. The issue persisted across both except for after the Windows install and the first boot to desktop.

We did the clean boot (I had done it before) and on the first clean boot the taskbar issue was no longer present (she just hit restart). We shutdown and powered up again several times to test and the issue was still present. Confirmed that nothing had changed and no programs had started up.
At this point there are barely any programs on the PC anyway.

We'll probably try the memtest at some point over the weekend. I don't quite see how bad RAM would JUST affect the taskbar though?

Edit: oh and yes latest BIOS and latest chipset as the PC was built about 2 weeks ago.

 

[Eric92]

latest bios on motherboard?
latest chipset drivers? https://www.amd.com/en/support/chipsets/amd-socket-am4/b550

Try running memtest86 on each of your ram sticks, one stick at a time, up to 4 passes. Only error count you want is 0, any higher could be cause of the BSOD. Remove/replace ram sticks with errors. Memtest is created as a bootable USB so that you don’t need windows to run it

what drives are they?

shame its random or I would suggest they run in safe mode

Try a clean boot and see if it changes anything - make sure to read instructions and make sure NOT to disable any microsoft services or windows won't load right - https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/929135/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows

if clean boot fixes it, it shows its likely a startup program. You should, over a number of startups. restart the programs you stopped to isolate the one that is to blame.

memtest found no errors at all through 4 passes.

Would it be worth perhaps trying to install an older version of Windows? The issue is there even with a brand new fresh install on new hardware (mostly) I'm just at a loss.

 

[Colif]

i have seen older versions work before so its worth a try

ram was just to make sure it was okay. I have seen ram do weird things.

try testing drives, run Magician on both. and maybe get the Samsung NVME drivers for the Pro - https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools/

 

[Eric92]

i have seen older versions work before so its worth a try

ram was just to make sure it was okay. I have seen ram do weird things.

try testing drives, run Magician on both. and maybe get the Samsung NVME drivers for the Pro - https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/download/tools/

Have tested both drives with Magician and there were no issues there.

Next step will likely to be trying an older version of Windows. This issue has me completely baffled.

 

[Colif]

could get them to make a new local user and see if it happens on it, would be unusual but if they using same user details on both pc that is linked to their Microsoft Account it might be a bad setting saved on the cloud

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...ndows-10-20de74e0-ac7f-3502-a866-32915af2a34d

might want to get them to run Prime 95
https://www.guru3d.com/files-details/prime95-download.html
Prime 95 how to Guide: http://www.playtool.com/pages/prime95/prime95.html