Unsolveable Windows 10 issue: frequently hangs but mouse is still moveable

[kramerzb1478]

I've google'd my life away and haven't found a solution to my problem.

Every few minutes of using my PC all applications become unresponsive for nearly a minute, though their GUIs may still update and the mouse can still move. After unfreezing, every action I did during the hang executes at once.

This has been happening for years and I've never been able to solve it.

Examples:

• 
  If I already had the task manager performance tab open, I can still watch the CPU usage go down while it 'hangs', but clicking anything has no response.
  
  Spotify will still play a song for 20 seconds or so (and show so in the GUI), but eventually the GUI does a hard freeze and the music stops.

Trouble-shooting:

• 
  this has happened across multiple SSDs, PSUs, graphics cards, network adapters, and different versions/installations of Windows 10
  
  additionally, I've used this SSD previously in another computer and Windows never had issues (obviously have a new install now)
  
  all drivers have been updated
  
  the event log has no useful information; there is no indicator before the hang and during the hang it reports that some processes failed to write something due to a lack of response by Windows
  
  Windows' memory diagnostic came back with no errors
  
  this does *not* happen on my Ubuntu 18.04 partition
  
  when in a full-screen application (e.g. a game), it never hangs
  
  the interval between hangs is seemingly random, could be 10 seconds or 7 minutes

My build:

• 
  ASRock 970 Extreme 3
  
  4x4 GB RAM (issue occurs also with 2x4 GB)
  
  AMD FX-6300
  
  GTX 1060 (issue occurs also with older GTX card)
  
  Antec 550W PSU (issue occurs also with weaker, generic PSU)
  
  1TB SSD w/ 700GB Windows 10 Partition and 250GB Ubuntu 18.04 partition (issue occurs across any SDD, unsure about HDD)

Any tips or suggestions are highly appreciated.

 

[kramerzb1478]

For anyone else going down this dark, dark path, I hope my solution can help you too. This issue seems to be directly related to my RAM set-up. After poking, prodding, and swapping up my RAM, it seems the culprit was a 1333MHz stick of RAM. All of my other sticks are 1600MHz. Any combination that involves one of the 3 1600 sticks and the 1 1333 stick results in this issue, even if I underclock the 1600 in the BIOS. This 1333 stick passes all memory tests.

Now with 12GB RAM (all 1600), Windows is mostly happy. Occasionally, mostly on start up, I can encounter these freezes, but I only see them maybe once a day as opposed to 50 times a day. No idea still why Windows has an issue with this and not Ubuntu. Mixing RAM isn't the best idea, but this was an unexpected consequence (and, for the record, one of the 1600 sticks is a different brand than the others).