I've been dealing with random hard freezes with Windows 10 Pro 64 bit builds since I very first installed Windows 10 on 8.5.2016. I don't have this issue with Windows 7 Pro 64bit and I'm using identical hardware. Virtually nothing has changed hardware wise
between Windows 7 and Windows 10. This is a custom built workstation PC for my home. I stopped using Windows 10 and went back to Windows 7 because of these random freezes. But now with Windows 7 support ending, I am forced to try to solve it. I'm not
overclocking or doing anything abnormal with my system/setup.
The freezes happen completely randomly, sometimes when I'm just resizing a file explorer window, other times when I'm doing more intense work. The computer always freezes up 100% and I'm not able to move the mouse or do anything. The screen just pauses
with everything still visible but I"m not able to interact with it. I've tried leaving it alone for hours to see if Windows will come out of it or give a blue screen, but that never happens. I have to hold down the power button to reset it. When the freeze
does happen my audio seems to freak out and just start stuttering until I reboot. Other than that it's a regular good ol' fashioned freeze. There are never any crash dump files or anything in the logs that help.
99% of the time I just get a hard freeze but every one in awhile I will get a freeze and then a blue screen that will stay at "0% complete" no matter how long I leave it. The three error codes I've seen from this are "MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION", "CLOCK_WATCHDOG_TIMEOUT"
and "NMI_HARDWARE_FAILURE". But I never saw any blue screens or freezes with windows 7 and the same exact hardware.
Sometimes I can go days without any crash doing the same exact things that made it crash previously, other times it will crash multiple times a day. Hence why it's "random". :)
Things I've tried so far:
- I've tried just about everything I can find online on how to fix this. I've tried about a dozen different Windows 10 builds over the years, every time it's a clean install from the latest build off of Microsoft's website via the media creation tool; not
an update from Windows 7. None of them have helped this issue
- Updated my drivers and BIOS and firmware
- Latest Windows updates, but I've also tried not getting any windows updates after a clean install
- Removing all extra hardware components
- Using different video cards and SSD's. same issue
- Turning off power saving features both in Windows and in the BIOS
- Ran 'sfc /scannow', 'chkdsk /f /r', 'memcheck', and all scans always come back normal and fine
- "netsh winsock reset"
- Deleting files in the temp folder
- Turning off Windows automatically managing the page file size
- Tried a Clean Boot.
- Turning off background apps and all apps that run at startup that aren't needed.
- Running CC cleaner to fix registry errors and general cleaning.
System Info:
OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
Version 10.0.18363 Build 18363
Other OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name DESKTOP-NP0KGVQ
System Manufacturer To Be Filled By O.E.M.
System Model To Be Filled By O.E.M.
System Type x64-based PC
System SKU To Be Filled By O.E.M.
Processor Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2690 0 @ 2.90GHz, 2901 Mhz, 8 Core(s), 16 Logical Processor(s)
Processor Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2690 0 @ 2.90GHz, 2900 Mhz, 8 Core(s), 16 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. P1.90, 4/11/2018
SMBIOS Version 2.7
Embedded Controller Version 255.255
BIOS Mode Legacy
BaseBoard Manufacturer ASRock
BaseBoard Product EP2C602-4L/D16
BaseBoard Version
Platform Role Workstation
Secure Boot State Unsupported
PCR7 Configuration Binding Not Possible
Windows Directory C:\Windows
System Directory C:\Windows\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "10.0.18362.387"
User Name DESKTOP-NP0KGVQ\E
Time Zone Pacific Standard Time
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 128 GB
Total Physical Memory 128 GB
Available Physical Memory 113 GB
Total Virtual Memory 147 GB
Available Virtual Memory 129 GB
Page File Space 19.0 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys
Kernel DMA Protection Off
Virtualization-based security Not enabled
Device Encryption Support Reasons for failed automatic device encryption: TPM is not usable, PCR7 binding is not supported, Hardware Security Test Interface failed and device is not Modern Standby, Un-allowed DMA capable bus/device(s) detected,
TPM is not usable
Hyper-V - VM Monitor Mode Extensions Yes
Hyper-V - Second Level Address Translation Extensions Yes
Hyper-V - Virtualization Enabled in Firmware No
Hyper-V - Data Execution Protection Yes
Here is a link to my Windows Performance Recorder Output ETL file zipped up.
https://1drv.ms/u/s!AnVIScj4JLLLigh6-fS3dAooCvim?e=bakh1g
Here is a link to my specific motherboard's site
https://www.asrockrack.com/general/productdetail.asp?Model=EP2C602-4L/D16#Download
Please help!