Question Windows 10 Freezes but i can minimally interact with open applications?

Tennis987

Distinguished
Sep 9, 2015
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Recently, starting a few days ago, now once every day, I experienced a freeze where the time on my taskbar and monitoring software froze/stopped refreshing. My moveable wallpaper stopped moving, and all applications froze. I was unable to open new applications.

However I was able to drag the current applications I had open, minimize and maximize them. I had Notepad open and I could actually type in it, but I could not type in discord. I was able to bring up the screen with CTRL,ALT, DELETE but no commands were responsive. I was able to open and interact with the start menu, and open run but was unable to launch commands. The event viewer does not tell me anything about what happened at that specific time, I did some scannow and dism commands in command prompt. Nothing was out of place. CrysatalDiskInfo says my OS drive health is fine, at 92%. What do you think could be the issue? Bad drivers? Corrupted OS? Something else? I did not fresh install my OS when transferring motherboards back in January of 2022, but I would like to think that's not the issue as everything has been fine till now.
 

Lutfij

Titan
Moderator
If the OS has limited functionality, then it's often due to a corrupt OS. You should recreate your bootable USB installer for Windows 10 using Windows Media Creation Tools then reinstall the OS. Please make sure your motherboard BIOS is on the latest version prior to the OS install.

I did not fresh install my OS when transferring motherboards back in January of 2022, but I would like to think that's not the issue as everything has been fine till now.
That is where your mistake lies, you're advised to reinstall the OS when you swap motherboards/move with a platform upgrade.
 

Ralston18

Titan
Moderator
Update your post to include full system hardware specs and OS information.

Include PSU: make, model, wattage, age, condition (original to build, new, refurbished, used)? History of heavy gaming use?

Disk drive(s): Make, model, capacity, how full?

Also look in Reliability History. Much more user friendly than Event Viewer and the timeline format can be revealing.
 
Recently, starting a few days ago, now once every day, I experienced a freeze where the time on my taskbar and monitoring software froze/stopped refreshing. My moveable wallpaper stopped moving, and all applications froze. I was unable to open new applications.

However I was able to drag the current applications I had open, minimize and maximize them. I had Notepad open and I could actually type in it, but I could not type in discord. I was able to bring up the screen with CTRL,ALT, DELETE but no commands were responsive. I was able to open and interact with the start menu, and open run but was unable to launch commands. The event viewer does not tell me anything about what happened at that specific time, I did some scannow and dism commands in command prompt. Nothing was out of place. CrysatalDiskInfo says my OS drive health is fine, at 92%. What do you think could be the issue? Bad drivers? Corrupted OS? Something else? I did not fresh install my OS when transferring motherboards back in January of 2022, but I would like to think that's not the issue as everything has been fine till now.
I would do a reinstall of windows. OR maybe go into windows control panel device manager, find the menu item to show hidden devices and select it.
Then go and delete each device that is greyed out. Then reboot

at this point if you continue to have issues, I would leave resource monitor running and see if your are running of of some resourec.
if I could still figure out the problem I would debug it.
in that case you would have to change the memory dump type to kernel, reboot then google how to force a memory dump using a keyboard. make the registry change and then next time the system hangs, try to use the keyboard to force a memory dump. If you get a kernel dump, put it on a server, share it for public access and post a link. I will try to take a look and see what is wrong.

common problems could be: multiple copies of overclocking software running (msi afterburner). running out of nonpaged pool. certain monitor software running on usb where the usb host hub goes to sleep.
best just to look at the kernel dump to see what windows is doing.
 
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