System hangs with no dump creation

Question

My system recently started to hang for no apparent reason, i could be doing any task on my pc and attempt to use the volume knob on my keyboard that worksnperfectly fine after a restart, the change takes around 15 seconds to show up on screen almost as if it's frozen, I would attempt to press the windows key. It could open the windows menu but I could still not click anything on the taskbar or the entire menu along with ny desktop would start reloading, it sometimes fixes itself the other times ends up making my system hang. The volume knob works with each increment increases or decreasing volume by 2, during the hang I could turn my knob 100 times and it's still not register, I would just see it at either 6, or 24, no matter how many times I the knob.

Answer 1

Please check to see if your PC is producing any Watchdog dump files, I will check those to see if they provide any insight into a potential cause of the system crashes.

Open Windows File Explorer.

Navigate to C:\Windows\LiveKernelReports

If there are any Watchdog dump files in the sub-folders of that folder, copy the files onto your Desktop, then zip those up.

Upload the zip file to the Cloud (OneDrive... etc.), then choose to share those and get a share link.

Then post the link here to the zip file, so I can take a look for you.

Answer 2

The symptoms match a system freeze that does not always trigger a bugcheck (blue screen) or create a dump file. To troubleshoot and capture what is happening, configure the system to generate a memory dump on demand when the hang occurs, then analyze it or share it with a technician.

Use these steps:

1. Configure a complete memory dump
   1. Press Win + R, type sysdm.cpl, press Enter.
   2. Go to Advanced tab → Performance → Settings → Advanced → Change.
   3. Ensure there is a paging file on the system drive (pagefile.sys) and that its Initial and Maximum size are at least 100 MB larger than installed RAM.
   4. Back in System Properties → Advanced → Startup and Recovery → Settings.
   5. Under Write debugging information, select Complete memory dump.
   6. Check Overwrite any existing file.
   7. Make sure the system drive has more free space than the amount of physical RAM.
2. Enable keyboard-triggered crash (CrashOnCtrlScroll)
   This lets the system generate a dump even when it appears frozen.

   Warning: This involves registry editing. Incorrect changes can cause system problems. Back up the registry first.

   1. Open Registry Editor (regedit).
   2. Locate:
      • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters
      • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\kbdhid\Parameters
   3. In each key, create a DWORD (32-bit) value named CrashOnCtrlScroll and set it to 1.
   4. Restart the computer.
3. Reproduce the hang and force a crash dump
   1. Use the PC normally until the hang occurs (e.g., when using the volume knob and the UI stops responding or becomes extremely slow).
   2. When the system is in the “frozen” state, hold down the Right Ctrl key and press Scroll Lock twice.
   3. If the system accepts the sequence, it will trigger a manual crash and write a memory dump to %SystemRoot%\MEMORY.DMP.
   Note: In rare cases, if the system is hung at a very high interrupt level, the keyboard sequence may not work.
4. Verify the dump file
   1. After reboot, confirm that %SystemRoot%\MEMORY.DMP exists.
   2. Use Dumpchk.exe to validate the dump file is not corrupted:
      • Install the Windows SDK to obtain Dumpchk.
      • Run Dumpchk against the dump file as described in Using DumpChk.
5. Analyze or share the dump
   • A technician can use WinDbg or KD to analyze the dump. For freezes that do not automatically bugcheck, the analysis follows the guidance in Debugging a Stalled System.
   • If the mouse still moves or paging continues during the hang, the issue may be in CSRSS or user-mode; otherwise, it is likely kernel-related.
6. Optional: Collect performance data before the hang
   • Use Performance Monitor to log CPU, disk, and memory counters to C:\PERFLOGS using logman as described in the freeze troubleshooting article. This can help correlate hangs with heavy paging or file I/O.

Once a valid dump is captured, it becomes possible to determine whether the hangs are caused by kernel deadlocks (for example, in file system or filter drivers), high paging activity, or another component.

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References:

• Advanced troubleshooting for Windows freezes
• Debugging a Stalled System
• Forcing a System Crash
• Forcing a system crash from the keyboard
• A computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2 becomes unresponsive when you run a large application
• Computer randomly stops responding because of a deadlock situation in Windows Server 2008 R2 or in Windows 7
• A computer that is running Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 or Windows 7 SP1 freezes under a heavy file I/O load
• My Windows 11 PC Hard Freezes for about 30 seconds to a minute when I play certain games. - Microsoft Q&A