Windows 10 Auto-Update Regularly Breaks Video and Audio

[KublaiKhan]

We built a new machine that probably should be running Windows 7, as 10 is the sloppiest trash Microsoft has managed since Vista.

That said, every time it gets the chance, Windows 10 installs new NVidia drivers for the 980 GTX. It installs everything, the full set, no matter what. This causes the motherboard's audio to stop working. Audio goes out within seconds of starting the computer. Video stops and starts and stops. We're now trying to get the computer working again after this morning's "update."

Is there a way to stop Windows 10 from updating drivers for a particular piece of hardware, because it cannot do so without breaking the computer? A third party app? Something to protect the computer from Microsoft?

We're not paying the $100 extortion tax for better updates. We have the version we have, and that's all the money Microsoft will be getting for now.

 

[Rocky Bennett]

What are you talking about, a $100 update fee? There has never been, nor will there ever be, an update fee for Windows 10.

 

[SchizTech]

He's referring to the upgrade from Home to Pro, which offers better control over updates.

 

[rgd1101]

disable device driver update
http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-2763685/stop-windows-automatically-updating-device-drivers.html

 

[KublaiKhan]

Yesterday's update really screwed this PC up. We had monitors going to sleep randomly, random lockups, random audio noise, lag everywhere, lockups at boot, and so on. All because of a Windows 10 update. I was right to stay with Windows 7 for my own gear.

rgd1101, I found those same directions to prevent further "updates" to our device drivers, but yours is the most recent version of the procedure I've seen, so thanks so much for your help!

One damn irritating thing is how Windows 10 continues installing parts of the NVidia drivers we do not want or use: The high definition audio package. I've never installed it manually, but Windows 10 detects the hardware on boot and installs the drivers. Not only does it stop sound from working, but the resulting conflicts with the motherboard's audio drivers seems to cause frequent lockups. All I can think to do is to disable the NVidia audio hardware via Device Manager.

Another headache has been trying to roll back to before the update happened. In Windows 7, you might not see a restore point you want, but you have the ready option to list older restore points; I'm not finding the same in Windows 10. I saw one restore point, and it may not have been early enough. It's hell navigating the new Control Panel/Settings UI after so many years with XP and Windows 7.

Should things turn south tomorrow, are we better doing a fresh install of the USB than a system refresh?

 

[alth0triplemadang]

same issues with me, if you have win 10 pro you can configure it via group policy editor (gpedit.msc)
http://www.howtogeek.com/224471/how-to-prevent-windows-10-from-automatically-downloading-updates/

 

[KublaiKhan]

No, we didn't pay the extra $100 for the Pro version. Seemed like extortion, with Microsoft charging twice as much for petty features the OS should not be without in the first place.

After enabling the XMP Profile, Warframe began to play with reasonable frame rates.

I'm working on getting the boot time back up to where it was. This is a GIGABYTE GA-7071X Gaming 7 motherboard.

One crash yesterday sent me to BIOS; I loaded optimized values, which turned off the XMP profile and I think doing so enabled a UEFI boot option at startup:

Boot Option #2 -------> [UEFI: SANDISK Partition 1]

I have a collection of screenshots of all BIOS options from the day I built the machine; UEFI was not a boot option I had added. In fact, where I used to see three boot options, I now have 4. I imagine the UEFI option could delay boot up, the way adding a USB hard drive can delay Windows 7 boot times. Oh, the Boot Override section has twice as many listings as before. Weird.

Still heard screeching this morning. I did a repair of the sound driver.

Also heard Cortana yapping. Thought we had that turned off.

Booting isn't right. It almost seems like it boost, then reboots, and maybe reboots again. Some times, the screens go to sleep immediately once I hit the desktop. A couple times, I believe the computer has been on and probably at the desktop, but both monitors are down. Or sleeping.