Windows 11 locking/freezing up after boot

Soldato
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19 Apr 2012
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A mate is away to bring round his desktop PC.

I believe it was a pre-built and all I know so far is that it has a 5700X, 6700XT, 16GB RAM. I can update the specs if required once I get my hands on it.

The issue started a few months ago where it would freeze/lockup after a few minutes once it had booted. Only way to get it to do anything is by holding the power button to force it off.
Initially we thought that (and I still do to a degree) that Win 11 is auto-updating the drivers causing issues. However, I'm now thinking possibly a RAM issue.

What would be your best method for fault finding this? If I remember correctly, I can get into safe mode ok with out any freezing so this make sme think possibly not hard ware related.
 
Perfect, Thanks all.
I did think of event viewer as I was speaking to him so I'll see what is recorded there. Now got the PC in hand so I'll get that set up shortly and start running the tests. I assume I should be ok to run memtest in safe mode? If it was SSD, Would it still not hand in safe mode? I'm still thinking a software/driver issue though but I'll go through everything that has been suggested.
Any guides for switching off auto updates?
 
I had a similar problem where in idle or low usage the PC would just freeze and crash after a while. I tried many things but few worked. Until I tried the below.


And also there is a setting for power supplys in the bios. I think its called power supply idle setting, it feeds the pc power it can be in either full, low or auto, and I put into full. And that seems to have stopped the freezing issues for now.

Thanks, I shall keep that in mind once I get stuck in this evening. Away to start memtest now and will leave on overnight.
 
Well since connecting it up, I've run numerous tests which have thrown up nothing, it hasn't locked up on my all afternoon/evening either.

It hasn't been connected to the web yet so that's my next step but I'm now wondering if there is a dodgy peripheral or am I reaching with that?
 
I've managed to get gpedit sorted on W11 home so disabled the auto driver updates within that. Manually updated all his other drivers. Ran numerous scans, been gaming. Only thing I can think of is something that is being plugged in. I'll test it overnight and tomorrow morning but if nothing rears its head it will be plugging one device in at a time.
 
I would try booting a linux live distro and see what happens. If it works ok, then you have a software issue.

However, if linux does the same thing, then you are looking at testing the RAM and SSD as a starting point.

If there is an overclock then obviously take everything back to stock for testing purposes.

Edit: then the advice above :D
Everything my mate has stated that locks it up instantly (opening word, opening documents etc) has worked flawless for me all afternoon and evening.
All setting stock. Can stick a RAM test on overnight but got another set of RAM I'm going to stick in as his is only 2666Mhz.
 
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