Windows 10 Freezes

[DeanMSands3]

Trigger Warning: Old specs are old.
This has been a persisent problem for more than a year. Bold items are original parts when issue first noticed. Unbold have been added afterward with no change.
CPU: AMD FX-6300 Six-Core AM3+
FAN: After-market
MB: MSI 970A-G46
RAM: 2x Samsung PC3-8500F, 2x Hyundai PC3-12800
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750
PSU: ThermalTake TR2-500W
HD: 3x 2-HD RAID-1 Sets:

• 1TB:Windows 8x64 Pro
• 1TB:Data (formerly Linux)
• 500GB:Windows 10x64 Pro (moving to Insider Preview from Anniversary, but this was a problem before the November 2015 update)
  for 6 drives total w/ additional USB3-connected drives

System randomly freezes and has to be reset. Temperatures that I can monitor look good and stay below 60C.

[Reverend Jim]

Have you run any diagnostics? If so, what do they report? Have you run chkdsk or sfc? Do you recall what changes you made just prior to the first freeze? If you know when it started you could look at your Settings/Applications and sort by date to see what you installed around that time.

If you have a backup of your system you might try a repair/install of Windows 10.

[DeanMSands3]

Already done all that. Picked up work as a GeekSquad Advanced Repair Agent when the oil economy tanked. They had an impressive toolset for just that. Believe me; we checked it over good.

If I recall correctly, back before 10586 (November 2015) it was freezing whenever I ran Chrome or MineCraft Windows 10 edition. I didn't really come back to Windows 10 until after 14393 (Anniversary). Windows 8 and Linux have both run solidly enough I didn't feel the need. I haven't been able to nail down any commonalities in the freezes since then.

Things I haven't tried:
Upgrading the BIOS (I'll try that tomorrow)
Breaking the RAIDs (a friend suggested that Win10 has trouble with RAIDs - can anyone confirm this?)

Just joined the Windows Insider Program on the Fast Track. Let's see what 15046 has in store.

[rproffitt]

Sadly I've seen a lot of that build over the years. We usually have to change motherboards if BIOS and toning down timing, cleaning, heatsink compound does not help.

[Reverend Jim]

You might want to try building a LinuxLive USB system and running off that for a few days to see if you have the same freezing problem. On my old Dell system I had an annoying video problem when playing videos with a fair bit of action. I could not convince Dell that it was a driver problem until I showed them that playing the video in the same software (vlc) in Linux (Live) did not exhibit the same problem. It's a convenient way of determining if the problem is SW or HW related.

[DaniWeb4Jim]

Do we have an answer yet on the Windows 10 issue?

[DeanMSands3]

Thanks for the contributions, guys.

@ReverendJim: I mentioned earlier that I had both Linux and Windows 8 triple-booted with Windows. Both work fine though with their individual quirks. Some Linux programs will freeze momentarily (like MineCraft), but never the whole OS.

@rproffitt: Pretty sure the cpu is getting good cooling. A new after-market fan is keeping it plenty cool. Might need to look at the timing.

In anycase, two hours into Win10-15046 seems stable (knocks on wood). We'll see.

[DeanMSands3]

Update:
Updated to Windows Preview. Still freezes.
Updated BIOS. Still freezes but aftermath is hilariously worse with inaccessible boot device errors prompting hour-long Startup Repairs.

Solutions not yet tried but out of reach for now due to low funding:
Physically upgrade motherboard and CPU to something else.
Physically upgrade PSU.

[rproffitt]

After a BIOS update I have to be very careful to reset the BIOS settings to defaults then change what is needed for this setup.

[DeanMSands3]

@rproffitt: you're right of course. And I'm still not sure I've got all the settings right. It changed dramatically when I upgraded.

Still recovering from the last freeze. Upon further investigation, it looks like Windows might have been running an upgrade in the background when the machine froze. When I loaded from a Win10 USB, it mentioned an upgrade and asked if I was sure I wanted to continue. I'm running a repair right now.

[rproffitt]

@Dean.

I had a machine last month that had W7, 8 and W10 troubles. It was an AMD and what fixed it was just annoying. Down in the BIOS there was an option to enable/disable VT in the CPU. Turned them off, installed 7, 8 and 10 without the prior failures. Turn on virtualization CPU options, lock ups.

[rproffitt]

@Dean. While I don't hope for much. How about round 2?

Post the make, model of the PSU along with the Web Speccy report (link to follow) and I'll read it over and comment what I would change if this was my PC.

Read how at https://www.piriform.com/docs/speccy/using-speccy/publishing-a-speccy-profile-to-the-web
Don't forget to add the PSU make, model and approximate age of PC and how long since you replaced all heatsink compounds and cleaned.

[imleigh]

I just posted a question that could have been stated indentically to the question posed here. I do apologize because it does duplicate this thread. However, you do not seem to have found an answer -- I am wondering if perhaps it has something to do with Chrome -- I only wonder because Windows keeps encouraging me to switch to Edge--maybe there is a bug for Chrome to encourage the switch?

[Reverend Jim]

Windows keeps encouraging me to switch to Edge

Yeah. Don't.

You have pressed the space bar. Would you like to make Edge your default browser?

Microsoft is not known for encouraging behaviour that is in your best interest.