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first question on this forum, hopefully someone will be able to help.

Laptop: Asus UX31A System: Windows 10 64-bit (upgraded from 8.1), latest updates installed HDD: 256 SSD ADATA

system infor screenshot

Recently I've been experiencing system freeze for 10-60 seconds, and by that I mean that the system is completely unresponsive, nothing works (nor mouse or keyboard).

From the observations I can tell that this is not a HDD problem as this is hardly utilized during the freeze time, but what caught my attention was the memory.

As I was installing some updates for visual studio and running some other developer tools, I've noticed that the system went into a freeze mode almost on anything I've done, click the start menu given the example, or just clicking on the windows explorer window.. so I've looked at the task manager and have noticed that once the system has hit around the ~30% memory utilization the system locks were more often. As soon as I've released the memory by closing as many process as I could it became more usable.

[UPDATE]

  • there are no 3rd party disk utils installed
  • ran the memtest64 overnight, managed to run 4 passes with 0 errors
  • once the freeze occurs, hitting the caps lock key does NOT cause the led light to be lit, pretty much like if nothing have happened
  • I've updated all the drivers for what I could find (network adapters, wireless controller, hdd and graphics)

I've noticed my D partition was running low on disk space, less then 1GB. I've backed up some data to free up the space up to 10GB. Nevertheless, the pagefile was set to point to C partition which has plenty of space, I'm not sure whether lack of free disk space on one partition would affect the other. At the same time, Windows has decided to update and installed KB3139907 and KB3140743 So far once I put some load on the computer it easily climbs to 50% without any freeze.

Only time will tell whether the problem has been resolved and would be hard now to tell and pinpoint to what exactly might have had eventually resolve the problem. Thanks for the memtest86 tips.

[UPDATE 1]

The issue is not resolved at this stage, another observations are:

  • I've cleared all the logs in the event viewer. After the freeze happened, there are no errors nor warnings.
  • application event log had plenty of "Device Manager Configuration" errors with "Metadata staging failed" messages, happening quite regularly evrey few minutes. I've followed this link with the similar issue and in "System Properties - Hardware - Device Installation Settings I've turned off the "Automatic download bla bla.". I've also changed the link in the registry as per the link above.
  • now what happened couple of times during the freeze is that the taskbar disappeared and and and "Couldn't reconnect all network drives" message popped out.
  • I've noticed the "System and compressed memory" is taking in between 30% and 40% and never goes below that range. At this point it's my primary suspect. What is this process?
  • I've ran the chkdsk and chkdsk with /r option but there were no errors reported
  • I've asked ASUS support for the latest drivers for the HDD as there are nowhere to be available [awaiting their response]

[UPDATE 2]

The issue is still persisting. Another observations

  • I've noticed that this freezing rarely (I don't think I've experienced it at all) occurs right after the restart, no matter how much load I put on the computer (android studio, visual studio, chrome etc RAM > 50%). This freeze happens after I wake the computer from the sleep mode. Might be coincidental
  • Originally I've posted suspecting the memory problem, as the freeze happens once the memory is around 30-40%, but not right after the startup.
  • freeze does not occur in the safe mode (with networking enabled), at least it didn't happen throughout the whole day testing, with sleep mode activated and deactivated. I've alco noticed that the "system and compressed memory" barely went above 0.2% and 0.1MB and that was with really heavy load on memory (about 65% of 8GB RAM)
  • I'm tired of this sht. I'm giving up, one day it works great, can't make it to freeze no matter what I try, the very next it will be crap...
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  • Sounds like it could be bad ram. Try running a program like Memtest on it.
    – Scott Chamberlain
    Commented Mar 1, 2016 at 22:38
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    2 of 4 means you only have 2 memory modules nothing odd about that
    – Ramhound
    Commented Mar 1, 2016 at 22:38
  • How many sticks do you have installed? Are you saying you have 4 x 2gb making the 8gb? Could be that 2 have failed? Or they aren't the exact same; I.e. speed, etc... (although I'd have thought you would have encountered other errors if that were the case)
    – James
    Commented Mar 1, 2016 at 23:40
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    I think any connection between memory use and freezing is coincidental. You have plenty of RAM available, so it's very unlikely that has anything to do with the freezing. It could be a bad driver, overheating, or any of a number of things. Does your fan sound normal? Is it spinning more often or more quickly than it used to?
    – David Schwartz
    Commented Mar 2, 2016 at 0:29
  • Thanks for the replies. I don't know the exact memory configuration as I don't want to break the warranty, but from the specs it should be 2x4GB soldiered on. The overheating is not a problem, no problem with the fan. Windows 10 freeze problem is quite common but the reasons might differ. Yes, I do have a plenty of RAM, but I question why when I try to put some heavy load on it (by opening more and more programs) it never goes above that ~30% mark but starts troubling instead.
    – belzebu
    Commented Mar 2, 2016 at 0:33

2 Answers 2

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Well, I've received the official ASUS support response, and ASUS product owners affected are not going to be happy, just like myself:

For your request, we would like to aplogise for could not provide you with the needed driver since this product model does not have drivers support for Windows 10, both on ASUS site and Intel site.

About your case, the root cause for it was because the BIOS and Chipset cannot be updated to run on Windows 10. Freezing after sleep is the symptom of BIOS not working correctly. For the best performance, please kindly go back to the previous Windows

This is where my loyalty to ASUS products ends, I've had around 4 laptops and 2 tablets from them.

In addition in a bid to resolve the problem, I've uninstalled the ASUS Instant-On, so far so good. But as I've said it, it will be back tomorrow LOL

Here is the List of ASUS devices supported for the W10 upgrade

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I have read your statements and was about to give out on windows 10, although I like it very much since it's faster and the battery lasts longer. Reading the post though, you gave me an idea at where the problem might be and I think you were right; drivers!
Yes, Asus unfortunately do not support many of the drivers for windows 10, however I went to a third party application, to update my drivers which seemed to do the trick. One of the outdated drivers was indeed the DRAM. I am one month in with this solution and it seems to work fine.
The application i used is driver booster 3.4 pro.
AHmed

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  • 1
    This appears to be spam. If it isn't, how will a third party driver updater manufacture a driver that doesn't exist?
    – fixer1234
    Commented Jul 6, 2016 at 4:25

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