System Freeze and Audio Problem

Hi Paul, I am getting very similar issues to you and just wondered if you had managed to find a solution?

Hi Paul, I am getting very similar issues to you and just wondered if you had managed to find a solution?

Unfortunately I have not found a solution so far, just many changing ideas about the cause!

It has to be something I have installed or so many other people would have the problem. I thought initially it was OpenOffice that caused the problem as the problem seemed to appear as I installed it on a new machine.

But I have reinstalled the operating system without OpenOffice and I still have the problem.

I have found I can make changes that make it better or worse, but not eliminate it.

It is a long story how I got here!

Previously I had a Windows 7 system, which worked fine, but which updated to Windows 10, which also worked as well as Windows 10 does! Then I started to get intermittent crashes, at times the system would struggle to restart. Then it wouldn't restart, so I presumed my disk had died, I bought a new one and did a totally clean install. It was after this install that I started experiencing poor sound quality.

Still intermittent crashes, which I then narrowed down to a faulty memory module, which I removed. Still some crashes, but now it would not restart immediately, reporting CPU over temperature, which I had seen occasionally before, so I cleaned the CPU fan. No more over temperature issues, but still poor sound and the system freeze, which I had also experienced while fixing the other issues.

With that machine, when it froze, it never returned, and I did leave it once for over an hour, so I had to power down.

I thought with an older machine, it was nearing the end of its days, getting unreliable, so I bought a new computer and relegated the old machine to my media server.

On the new machine, the sound issue occurred within the first day and seemed coincident with installing OpenOffice.

The freezes still occurred, though now cleared after about 5 seconds and did not require a power down. It was only at this point that I realised that the freeze problem on the old machine was probably not hardware, but the same issue I was seeing on the new machine.

Changes to drivers and KBs would alter the severity of the problem but never clear it.

In frustration, I did a reinstall, keeping data to save having to verify absolutely everything was backed up.

Same sound problem after I had started installing programs.

The media server, although I installed only a small set of programs, appears to have audio problems. The sound will not stay in sync with the video.

So it is must be something I install every time I start a new OS build.

My current suspect in Microsoft Office 2003. This is the latest copy I have and I need it for many things, initially for my install instructions which guide me through the various setup steps.

But beyond that, I am totally stumped.

Anything familiar in what you have done on your machine?

Regards, Paul

Hi Paul

I am having the same issues as you, since I set up my new machine in early 2019.

It happens like this: the screen freezes, and often the sound too (this is particularly frustrating during home office meetings). Seconds later, the message pops up: "new connected sound device" (or something like that, my windows is not set in English) . If I'm using my main speakers,plugged on the back of my PC, they mutate, requiring me to unplug and replug the jack output. If i am using headphone, plugged in the front panel of PC,  it returns to normal without further problems.

At the beginning I formatted several times, reinstalled all mother board drivers, updated BOIS, but I was never able to associate with any specific software. In my case, I never installed OpenOffice, and I have already done tests to install the OS on different HDs / SSDs.

Regards, Eduardo

I've learned quite a bit in this last couple of weeks. Unfortunately more about what it is not than what it is!

I no longer believe it is associated directly with the audio driver or any other installed program. I am not currently getting the report of new device connected. So I think such reports are a consequence of the disturbance and not in any way a cause.

I have started looking at performance monitors and what is clear is that there are sudden peaks in CPU activity.

Sometimes I can see an elongated peak very close to 100% during a period where the audio stutters, but no complete freeze.

One would expect to see a much longer, and possibly higher, peak when the system freezes. However, following such a freeze, I only see a very narrow spike right up to 100%. It would appear that during those episodes, even the monitor is stopped, seeing only the rise and fall, but nothing during the period of freeze.

On one stutter event, I did see a flurry of Ethernet activity, which does tally with the fact that stutter is more likely to occur if I select a new page from the browser. But I can also get the effect when I am away from the keyboard, so the activity that causes the problem is not necessarily caused by a user action.

So that is where I am at the moment. Still puzzled that it doesn't affect many people!

Regards, Paul