Windows 10 Freezing, 7 running fine. Tried everything

[syed.amaan.ali94]

My PC Specs:
CPU: AMD FX 8350
MOBO: Asus M5A97 Evo R2.0
GPU: AMD Radeon Sapphire R9 280 OC with Boost 3GB GDDR5
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3 [CMZ8GX3M1A1600C10]
HDD: WD Blue 1TB [WD10EZEX]
CASE: Cooler Master K380
PSU: Seasonic 620W [S12II620]
UPS: Zebronics ZEB-U1200 [1KV]
Display : Dell S2415H [HDMI]
Sound System: Logitech Z506 5.1 Speaker System
Mouse: Steelseries Sims 4 Gaming Mouse [62281] & Dragonwar ELE-G9
Keyboard: Dragonwar Silvio
Wireless Adapter: TP-Link TL-WN751ND or TL-WN781ND [I don't remember]


I assembled my PC in late 2014 for gaming. I'm running Windows 7 [64Bit] and it is running smoothly since then. Everything was working perfectly. Now I have installed Windows 10 Pro and it gives me random freezing. I have checked every solution on Internet but I cant seem to fix this problem.

I upgraded Windows 10 through Windows 7 and also clean installed it a few times. Updated every driver in system, removed and reconnected mouse & keyboard, uninstalled almost every application, scanned for viruses, system errors etc. Created new microsoft account and logged in from it.

The problem is when I start a game or a movie (and sometimes when the system is idle), it runs for 2-3 or 5-6 minutes and then hangs with a stuttering sound and everything stops there. I cant move the cursor or use the keyboard or do anything and the only option I have is to restart from power button.

Sometimes when I install a game or do something heavy then also it freezes and when it does I cant turn off keyboard's light. Its like the keyboard also freezes but mouse's light effect works fine. When I play any other game it freezes but when I play Quantum Break for hours it never freezes (though it froze one time but that can be ignored)(Quantum Break is Windows 10 exclusive game.)

I have also logged on in Safe Mode with networking and played a movie for around 20-30 minutes without sound(drivers don't work in safe mode) and it never froze it was playing constantly. I also started GTA Vin background with HEVC movie playing in safe mode because I wanted to test heavey usage in safe mode but it never froze. It seems it works fine in safe mode.

After struggling with Windows 10 for hours and days when I go back to Windows 7(Clean install) it works perfectly without any problem. I have done this more than 15 times already. My friends told me that it might be drivers problem, but I have installed every driver from their official website under windows 10 drivers section.
My motherboard officially supports windows 10.

I also installed windows 10 when it came out in 2015 but then uninstalled it because of the same problem and running Windows 7 since then. I think windows 8.1 was giving me the same problem that is why I uninstalled it but I don't remember much about windows 8.1.

My PC does not get hot it runs smoothly, it just freezes, temperatures are fine. I am using AVG free Antivirus, now uninstalled it too. I don't think that it has a hardware problem because windows 7 is running smoothly and all components are supported by and running okay in windows 10.

So I'm not getting what is wrong with my system, and how to fix it. If it has something to do with the hardware, drivers voltage, power then what should I do to fix it. And if it has nothing to do with these then what is wrong with it. Any kind of help would be appreciated.

 

[kanewolf]

Is this version of Windows 10 an original download from Microsoft?

 

[syed.amaan.ali94]

Is this version of Windows 10 an original download from Microsoft?

Yes

 

[syed.amaan.ali94]

anyone?

 

[Tinstaafl]

I have also been trying to eliminate a random freeze on my Windows 10 system. Like you I built mine in 2014 with Windows 7 Pro, and it ran without freezing for almost 2 years.

But ever since installing (clean) Windows 10 Pro in 2016 I have been experiencing these random freezes/hard system lockups (no keyboard/mouse function, screen frozen). Power off is only way to recover when this happens. No logs in event viewer either except unexpected system shutdown.

I am using an Asus board , Intel Ivy Bridge chipset, Intel Core i3 (dual core/4 threads) with 8GB Ram. Using the latest Windows drivers, running Windows 10 Pro x64 1703.

This doesn't happen very frequently, at most once or twice a week. So troubleshooting has been a long process. So far I have eliminated hardware such as RAM, GPU, audio, wifi adapter, and my secondary HDD. Even disabled Intel hyperthreading. Have tried the mobo chipset drivers from Asus (older, pre Win 10), as well as the latest from Microsoft.

I noticed that the last few freezes occurred when I was writing to my USB3 HDD that runs on an Asmedia controller on the mobo. This is separate controller from the integrated USB2. Of course I was using the internet, as well as a few USB2 devices at the same time. That Asmedia will probably be my next target, but so far I have been reluctant to move my USB3 drive to USB2 and disable the Asmedia.

I did happen to notice that your board also has an Asmedia 3.0 controller: https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/M5A97_R20/specifications/

 

[syed.amaan.ali94]

Thanks for responding man,

So please tell me what should I do now.
Should I stop using my USB ports?
Should I update my asmedia drivers
or should I do anything else?

 

[Tinstaafl]

Thanks for responding man,

So please tell me what should I do now.
Should I stop using my USB ports?
Should I update my asmedia drivers
or should I do anything else?

I am not saying that the Asmedia USB 3.0 controller is causing your problem. You are running AMD, and I'm on Intel, but our boards both come from Asus, and have this controller on board.

But if the Win 10 freezing is somehow related to the Asmedia USB 3.0 controller, it is interesting that the only common hardware between our systems is this controller.

I think it's actually possible that this problem could be caused by any hardware in the PC. Just sharing my experience in that I have virtually eliminated everything hardware wise, except for my CPU, motherboard, and power supply.

I have a PCIe based USB3.0 controller on order that should arrive this Friday. I'll update when I have swapped it in, but it may take a while to see if the problem happens again. I plan to disable the Asmedia controller in my BIOS, and stick exclusively to the new PCIe based USB3.0 ports. I have 6 USB2.0 ports on my real panel, but I only use them for low speed devices, like keyboard, mice, thumb drives, etc.

Regarding your PC, you should still have 6 USB2.0 ports on the back panel that you can use, even if you decide to disable the Asmedia USB3.0 controller. I chose not to do this as I use a couple of 1TB USB3.0 drives that are painfully slow on USB2.0.

Based on what I have heard and experienced, if a system crashes without a blue screen or any logs, it is probably hardware. If it is a driver or software issue, you should get a blue screen or see some other error logs.

What is really weird about this is that same as yours, this system ran fine on Windows 7. So if it was the Win 10 OS or drivers causing this, you would think there would at least be a blue screen, so wtf? Maybe Win10 is just exposing a bug in the hardware?

So the only way to get to the bottom of this type of problem is with a lot of spare parts, and swapping one thing at a time until the problem goes away.

 

[Tinstaafl]

I installed and tested my new 4-Port USB3.0 PCIe card today. Disabled the Asmedia USB3.0 controller in the BIOS.

So far, so good! But it has been a week since my last freeze, so it may take a while to confirm if this change made any improvements. Either way I'll post a follow up on my progress.

If this is not the cure, I'll either have to live with it or get a new motherboard/CPU. That new Coffee Lake gear looks pretty sweet!

 

[syed.amaan.ali94]

I installed and tested my new 4-Port USB3.0 PCIe card today. Disabled the Asmedia USB3.0 controller in the BIOS.

So far, so good! But it has been a week since my last freeze, so it may take a while to confirm if this change made any improvements. Either way I'll post a follow up on my progress.

If this is not the cure, I'll either have to live with it or get a new motherboard/CPU. That new Coffee Lake gear looks pretty sweet!

I thought I won't be able to run windows 10 on my system ever again but your experimentation made me think that there is a chance.

So my question is that if this is an Asmedia controller issue, then why isn't any solution out there because many people must be having this issue. Should't they come out with a proper driver for their hardware?

I think I'm gonna have to order a USB3.0 PCIe card for me too so please let me know if you still face any freeze with the new card installed.

And yeah one more thing. I'm gonna install windows 10 again via USB so can you tell me how do I disable Asmedia usb 3.0 and install windows 10 and it stays disabled so that I can check that my system has the same issue as yours.

 

[Tinstaafl]

I installed and tested my new 4-Port USB3.0 PCIe card today. Disabled the Asmedia USB3.0 controller in the BIOS.

So far, so good! But it has been a week since my last freeze, so it may take a while to confirm if this change made any improvements. Either way I'll post a follow up on my progress.

If this is not the cure, I'll either have to live with it or get a new motherboard/CPU. That new Coffee Lake gear looks pretty sweet!

I thought I won't be able to run windows 10 on my system ever again but your experimentation made me think that there is a chance.

So my question is that if this is an Asmedia controller issue, then why isn't any solution out there because many people must be having this issue. Should't they come out with a proper driver for their hardware?

I think I'm gonna have to order a USB3.0 PCIe card for me too so please let me know if you still face any freeze with the new card installed.

And yeah one more thing. I'm gonna install windows 10 again via USB so can you tell me how do I disable Asmedia usb 3.0 and install windows 10 and it stays disabled so that I can check that my system has the same issue as yours.

Quick answer > To disable Asmedia, just go into BIOS setup, advanced mode at boot, look under Onboard Devices Configuration (assume your Asus board has this too). You should see enable/disable options for Asmedia, as well as onboard ethernet and audio, or anything else that was included on your mobo.

You could try this now, even without any add-in cards, since your board should have 8 USB2.0 ports on the rear panel supported by the AMD controller. If you could live without USB3.0 (the blue plugs) this would be the easiest way to test.

Solutions to firmware issues are rare a few years after a product has been released. My BIOS was last revised in 2012, board purchased new in 2014. The drivers are Win 8.1 compatible, meaning they also work with Windows 10, but are likely not really supported. Even Intel has made a note on their HD graphics driver for this generation of board, that they recommend upgrading to a GPU that fully supports Win 10, as their current drivers are end of life, and only a best effort. So there is a risk to falling too far behind when driver support gets abandoned as newer products take their place. It's a shame though, when the hardware still runs good! Just something to be aware of.

 

[baboo85]

I too has your problem and I didn't resolve it.
I simply switched to Windows 7, which I love.

I tried everything, driver, bios, firmware. Reinstalled from scratch many times.

Reinstalled Windows 7, it's been an year. The pc is almost always turned on and never had problems.

Faq u Windows 10...

 

[syed.amaan.ali94]

I installed and tested my new 4-Port USB3.0 PCIe card today. Disabled the Asmedia USB3.0 controller in the BIOS.

So far, so good! But it has been a week since my last freeze, so it may take a while to confirm if this change made any improvements. Either way I'll post a follow up on my progress.

If this is not the cure, I'll either have to live with it or get a new motherboard/CPU. That new Coffee Lake gear looks pretty sweet!

I thought I won't be able to run windows 10 on my system ever again but your experimentation made me think that there is a chance.

So my question is that if this is an Asmedia controller issue, then why isn't any solution out there because many people must be having this issue. Should't they come out with a proper driver for their hardware?

I think I'm gonna have to order a USB3.0 PCIe card for me too so please let me know if you still face any freeze with the new card installed.

And yeah one more thing. I'm gonna install windows 10 again via USB so can you tell me how do I disable Asmedia usb 3.0 and install windows 10 and it stays disabled so that I can check that my system has the same issue as yours.

Quick answer > To disable Asmedia, just go into BIOS setup, advanced mode at boot, look under Onboard Devices Configuration (assume your Asus board has this too). You should see enable/disable options for Asmedia, as well as onboard ethernet and audio, or anything else that was included on your mobo.

You could try this now, even without any add-in cards, since your board should have 8 USB2.0 ports on the rear panel supported by the AMD controller. If you could live without USB3.0 (the blue plugs) this would be the easiest way to test.

Solutions to firmware issues are rare a few years after a product has been released. My BIOS was last revised in 2012, board purchased new in 2014. The drivers are Win 8.1 compatible, meaning they also work with Windows 10, but are likely not really supported. Even Intel has made a note on their HD graphics driver for this generation of board, that they recommend upgrading to a GPU that fully supports Win 10, as their current drivers are end of life, and only a best effort. So there is a risk to falling too far behind when driver support gets abandoned as newer products take their place. It's a shame though, when the hardware still runs good! Just something to be aware of.

Today I installed windows 10 again on a different hard drive without removing Windows 7 with Windows 10 Media Creation Tool because I didn't want to remove windows 7. It is not running smoothly now, maybe because of dual boot. So After installing windows 10 I disabled Asmedia USB 3.0 Controller (Rear & Front) and everything was running fine for 3-4 hours straight and system wasn't freezing at all but then I started Forza Horizon 3 and it froze. Again!

But as I said that my system was freezing every 5-6 minutes earlier but now it took 3-4 hours to freeze. Then I restarted it and started a movie just to check. It froze again just like earlier.

Now it came back to freezing every 5-6 minutes. I was about to order USB 3.0 PCIe card today but I think I'm gonna have to wait for this.

Can you tell what went wrong? It was running fine but under a very heavy load(Forza Horizon 3) it just gave up.

 

[Tinstaafl]

Now it came back to freezing every 5-6 minutes. I was about to order USB 3.0 PCIe card today but I think I'm gonna have to wait for this.

Can you tell what went wrong? It was running fine but under a very heavy load(Forza Horizon 3) it just gave up.

I have been meaning to post another follow-up.

I finally got another silent freeze-up, running nothing but my wi-fi and a Firefox browser window. Previously it usually happened when writing to my USB 3.0 drives, but this time they were idle. Also had another freeze, where a blue-screen popped up a few seconds later, with "Stop code: WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR". Google that msg and you will see it is a general hardware fault.

So I have eliminated all hardware except the PSU, motherboard, and CPU. I have swapped RAM, tried a different GPU, tried internal/external audio interface, swapped wi-fi adapters, turned off hyper-threading, turned off speedstep, etc. I leave everything disabled in BIOS that I am not explicitly using. No CPU overclocking, RAM settings are stock.

My C: drive is on SSD, and I am using the Intel HD integrated GPU for graphics. Tried nVidia, but made no difference. Never had this issue running Windows 7 on the same machine. I have one HDD and the only PCIe cards used are fire-wire and USB3.

Think I will get a new PSU next, just in case that has become unstable.

 

[syed.amaan.ali94]

Now it came back to freezing every 5-6 minutes. I was about to order USB 3.0 PCIe card today but I think I'm gonna have to wait for this.

Can you tell what went wrong? It was running fine but under a very heavy load(Forza Horizon 3) it just gave up.

I have been meaning to post another follow-up.

I finally got another silent freeze-up, running nothing but my wi-fi and a Firefox browser window. Previously it usually happened when writing to my USB 3.0 drives, but this time they were idle. Also had another freeze, where a blue-screen popped up a few seconds later, with "Stop code: WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR". Google that msg and you will see it is a general hardware fault.

So I have eliminated all hardware except the PSU, motherboard, and CPU. I have swapped RAM, tried a different GPU, tried internal/external audio interface, swapped wi-fi adapters, turned off hyper-threading, turned off speedstep, etc. I leave everything disabled in BIOS that I am not explicitly using. No CPU overclocking, RAM settings are stock.

My C: drive is on SSD, and I am using the Intel HD integrated GPU for graphics. Tried nVidia, but made no difference. Never had this issue running Windows 7 on the same machine. I have one HDD and the only PCIe cards used are fire-wire and USB3.

Think I will get a new PSU next, just in case that has become unstable.

I never got a BSOD or any blue screen on my PC but it still freezes every now and then.
Please do post if you find any solution to this as I am running windows 7 now because I can't work on windows 10.

 

[Tinstaafl]

I never got a BSOD or any blue screen on my PC but it still freezes every now and then.
Please do post if you find any solution to this as I am running windows 7 now because I can't work on windows 10.

I only got one blue screen, and that was unique. I only mentioned it as a possible clue. The system froze, then the blue screen appeared about 10 seconds later, before I powered down. What was unique about the blue screen, was that the dump process was stuck at 0% complete, and no .dmp file was generated, and nothing in event viewer, except after recovery, "The previous system shutdown was unexpected".

I wrote the code down and Googled for the message. It basically means that Windows encountered a hardware error, or thinks it did due to a bug. That left me wondering if my silent freezes are usually occurring before Windows 10 can issue a blue screen error, but for some odd reason, this frame somehow made it to my display buffer this one time.

Well anyway, after may last freeze on Dec 1st, I went into my BIOS and disabled the CPU power management for Intel SpeedStep (that's an Intel thing), so my CPU will run at it's default speed, rather than let the OS control it.

I'm now on day 13 without another freeze!

 

[Tinstaafl]

Update: Still no Win 10 freezes since turning off Intel Speedstep feature in my Asus BIOS settings.

 

[Tinstaafl]

Update again: Having continued success since disabling Intel Speedstep in my BIOS! No more freezes running Windows 10 since making the change!

 

[syed.amaan.ali94]

Intel speedstep is same as AMD Cool'n'Quiet?

 

[Tinstaafl]

Intel speedstep is same as AMD Cool'n'Quiet?

Sounds similar based on the description in this thread. http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1902233/amd-cool-quiet.html

My conclusion is that since my BIOS is older than Windows 10, the OS may not properly handle CPU speed reduction in the BIOS, resulting in the occasional freeze. Alternative to getting new hardware was for me to disable the feature. I run a desktop with adequate cooling and have been monitoring my CPU temps with HWiNFO64 and Speccy, and have experienced nothing above average operating temps so far.