Sudden freezing up

[ssal]

My Toshiba (Windows 10, i7-3820, 12gb ram, SSD, HHD) had been great.

But in the past couple of days, it started to freeze up in the middle of operation. The mouse and keyboard are not responding. I had to hard-power it down to restart it.

I thought it was some virus attack and started up Malwarebyte to check it. In the middle of it, it froze.

[PS: I walked away for 15 minutes when it froze up. Came back and it was NOT frozen.] But it did hang up 2-3 times in the past couple of days

I am rethinking of restoring from the image. Any suggestion before I take that drastic step?

Thanks.

 

[johnb35]

Disconnect hdd to see if its causing the freeze up. I doubt this is a malware issue.

 

[ssal]

A little more information.

The problem seems to be not hanging permanently. It seems that it is normal for about 5 minutes and then it hangs. But if I wait about a minute, it unfreezes. And then it will repeat again.

The HHD is using the DVD slot with a caddy, so it is internal.

Any suggestion?

(BTW, I restored from an earlier image but didn't solve the problem.)

 

[johnb35]

As I said, remove the hdd from the laptop and see if the freeze ups stop, if they do then the hdd is faulty. If not, then its something else. You can also check event viewer under windows logs for signs of errors. Also try booting to safe mode and see if freezes there. Disable any unnecessary startup programs.

 

[Agent Smith]

It's either Windows 10 and it's wonderful, non-QC updates or the hard drive is going south.

You can try HDTune to check the drive under safe mode or Crystaldiskinfo.

To get into safe mode, boot the computer and as it boots repeatedly press the F8 key. Chose safe mode only, no networking or any of that.

How old is the HDD? What model? If it's Seagate, I wouldn't be surprised if it's the drive. Had a lot of those fail on me before.

If it is the drive, then you may want to try and backup important data to an external HDD. Then buy a new HDD and reinstall Windows. I don't recommend a full disk clone because if the drive is busted the clone may fail and/or backup bad files, etc.


https://www.hdtune.com/

https://crystalmark.info/en/download/

 

[ssal]

The OS is on the 512gb Samsung SSD and the 1TB HHD is a Toshiba OEM which is currently used for data only.

Last night, I started the process of elimination. First I updated all the drivers but the problem still persisted.

Next I removed the USB 4-port hub which connects my keyboard, mouse and two printers and powered up with the laptop's only (with an external backup drive plugged in). I fiddled with it for 20 minutes and everything was fine, no hang up. Left it running overnight. This morning it came to life with the first touch. I plug the keyboard and the remote mouse directly to the laptop's USB. I will test it again later.

I have a feeling that the problem could be with the USB hub (very old one).

I will come back and update the result.

 

[ssal]

I think I've found what's the problem.
I plugged the Logitech wireless mouse in and worked with the laptop's own keyboard and external monitor plugged in. No problem.
I plugged the MS keyboard in. Bingo, it froze for 30-60 seconds.
So, I think it is the keyboard.
I plugged another keyboard in. Initially, it froze up. But I think I needed to reboot to clear whatever was in there.
Rebooted. And been working with a different keyboard for an hour without freezing up.

So it is safe to assume the problem is with the MS keyboard (10 year old). Isn't it?

 

[johnb35]

Most likely.

 

[ssal]

I hooked everything back with the new keyboard on the USB hub and everything runs well for two hours now.

I will try to download a new driver and reinstall the MS keyboard and see if it fixes it.

 

[ssal]

I tried to download the latest driver for Windows 10 for my Microsoft Digital Media keyboard and found that they don't even show my keyboard there.

Obviously, it is no longer supported.

Damn! Planned obsolescence.

 

[Darren]

A keyboard is a keyboard, usually you don't need any special software to use it except for maybe macros or media keys. Right click on it in Device Manager and uninstall it then reboot, that will reinstall the default driver (which should at least function).

 

[ssal]

Here's the funny thing. When I replugged the MS keyboard (which I had the problem with) when I tried to find a newer driver, it works fine now (for over a day now). I could find any new driver. But the plugging in a different keyboard and then remove it, and plugging the MS keyboard back in seem to solve the problem.

 

[Darren]

Here's the funny thing. When I replugged the MS keyboard (which I had the problem with) when I tried to find a newer driver, it works fine now (for over a day now). I could find any new driver. But the plugging in a different keyboard and then remove it, and plugging the MS keyboard back in seem to solve the problem.

Probably loads the default driver on the normal keyboard and when you swap it, doesn't attempt to reload the MS one so it works. That'd be my guess at least.