Windows 10 Freezes Randomly
Some of your programs and drivers may work without issues,
but some may just become incompatible of which the most common one
affected is the Video/Graphics driver. There are other causes as well aside
from Video/Graphic driver but since this is the most common one, we will
troubleshoot it first.
Update Graphics/Video Drivers
There are two ways to do this, the first one is to update
via Device Manager and the second one is to update from the manufacturer’s
site.
Hold the Windows Key and Press X. Choose Device Manager and
navigate to Display adapters. Right-click
your graphic card name, (write down the name of the adapter on a paper as well)
and then Choose Update driver software
-> Search automatically for updated driver software -> And proceed
with the instructions on screen. If the driver is found and
updated, reboot PC and then test for a while to see if it still hangs or
freezes, if it does then go to the manufacture’s site, and download the drivers
from there and install them, reboot and test. Once you’ve updated the graphic
driver and the issue persists, update the audio driver in the same way and
test.
If the issue is still
not fixed, then we may be having issues with winsock.
Reset the Winsock Catalog
Hold the
Windows Key and
Press X.
Choose Command
Prompt (Admin). In the command prompt,
type the following command and press enter.
netsh winsock
reset
Then reboot the PC and test.
Do a Clean Boot
Clean boot is a good way to stop and disable non-Microsoft services and
programs which may be interfering with the routine processes.
How to Clean Boot Windows 8/8.1/10
Clean Booting a Windows 10
Computer
Hold the Windows Key and press R;
In the run dialog that opens up type
msconfig and click OK
This will load system configuration window. From here; choose the
Services
Tab, then put a check on
Hide All Microsoft
Services and select
Disable All.
Then Click Apply, and Click OK. It will prompt you to restart; choose
Restart Later. Hold Windows Key and Press R again; then type
msconfig and
click OK. This time when the
System Configuration dialog
box opens; choose
Start Up and select
Open
Task Manager. From this pane; look at the last field called
Start-Up
Impact; and disable all the ones with
High
Impact. You can disable it by right clicking on it and
choosing
Disable. This only disables them from
automatically starting up when the compute reboot; so you can still start them
up normally, and re-enable it later if you it to be started up automatically
via same steps as above, instead of choosing disable; you choose Enable.
Once this is done; reboot your system and it will start up in the clean boot
mode.
Increase Virtual Memory
Virtual Memory is supposed to act as a saviour where the
physical memory (RAM) runs out when running resource intensive programs. To
compensate RAM, Virtual Memory combines the RAM with TEMP Storage on your Hard
Disk. Many users have reported that there freezing issue was fixed by
increasing the Virtual Memory to 8 GB.
To increase VM (Virtual Memory),
Hold the Windows Key and Press R. Type sysdm.cpl and Click OK. Then click Advanced -> Settings -> Advanced ->
Changed. Uncheck Automatically
Manage paging file size for all drives, and choose Custom Size. Set Initial Size to 1000 and Maximum Size to 8192. Then Click OK and Reboot the PC.
Turn Off Link State Power
Management
Link State Power Management is a power saving mechanism. It has two
options, the first one which is
Moderate Power Savings, saves
less power but recovers quickly from the sleep state. The second one,
Maximum
Power Savings, saves more power and the time to recover from
sleep state is increased. If you turn it off, the LSPM won’t come into play.
Users reported that turning this feature off helped with blank screens, and
freezing issues specially where NVIDIA/AMD Graphic Cards were being used.
Hold the
Windows Key and
Press R.
Type
powercfg.cpl and Click OK. Click
Change
Plan Settings for your
Active Plan. Then
choose
Change Advanced Power Settings, scroll down
until you see
PCI Express ->
Link State Power
Management -> Click “
whatever” the option is next
to Settings, and set it to
Off. Then test.
Turn Off Fast Startup
Right-click on the
Start Menu button to open the
WinX
Menu.
Click on
Power Options.
Click on
Choose what the power buttons do in the right pane
of the window.
Click on
Change settings that are currently unavailable.
Uncheck the checkbox beside
Turn On Fast Startup (recommended),
thus disabling it.
Click on
Save changes.
Switch your Broadcom
network adapter’s driver software to the Microsoft one
Another solution to this issue that many affected users have experienced
success with is updating their Broadcom network adapter’s driver software to
the software provided by Microsoft. In some cases, Broadcom’s own driver
software for its network adapters can lead to a Windows 10 computer freezing up
randomly, which is why switching to the Microsoft variant of the driver
software manages to fix this problem in such cases. However, as you may have
already guessed, only users with affected computers that have Broadcom network
adapters can use this solution to try and fix this issue.
Switching to the Microsoft variant of a Broadcom network adapter’s driver
software is pretty simple as the driver software is already there on your
computer – all you need to do is switch your Broadcom network adapter over to
it. In order to apply this solution, you need to:
Right-click on the
Start Menu button to launch the
WinX
Menu.
In the
WinX Menu, click on
Device Manager.
Once the
Device Manager window is launched, locate and
double-click on
Network adapters to expand that section of the
Device Manager.
Locate your computer’s Broadcom network adapter under the
Network
adapters section, right-click on it and click on
Properties in
the context menu.
Navigate to the
Driver
Click on
Update Driver….
Click on
Browse my computer for driver software.
Click on
Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer.
You should see two different variants of driver software for your Broadcom
network adapter – click on the Microsoft variant to select it and then click on
Next, at which point your computer will begin installing the
Microsoft variant of the driver software and all you need to do is sit back and
wait for the installation to finish.
Once the Microsoft variant of the driver software has been installed, you
can exit the
Device Manager,
restart your
computer and check to see whether or not the problem has been resolved.
User Suggested Method: Turn
Off Location Services
I was having the same issues and what I noticed in the Event viewer was that
the GPS location was trying to report to Microsoft. I have a desktop so I
turned off the location services and no more freezing. Go to Settings, Privacy,
Location and turn that off.
