Windows PC freezing randomly and showing high memory usage

Use a structured troubleshooting path to determine whether the freezes are caused by a process, driver, memory pressure, or a system-level hang.

1. Identify the pattern of the freeze.
   • Check what is happening when the freeze occurs: during startup, app switching, shutdown, or randomly.
   • Check how often it happens and whether it affects one device or multiple devices.
2. If the PC is currently frozen but still partially reachable, test responsiveness.
   • Try Ctrl+Alt+Delete and check whether the security screen appears.
   • Try a remote desktop connection if enabled.
   • Test network reachability with ping and look for dropped packets or high latency.
   • Try accessing administrative shares such as \\ServerName\c$.
   • Try Windows remote administration tools such as Computer Management, Server Manager, or Wmimgmt.msc.
3. If the PC is no longer frozen, collect basic diagnostics.
   • Review System and Application event logs.
   • Look for:
     • Application Error events
     • Service Control Manager errors for critical services
     • Srv/Server event IDs 2019 and 2020
   • Generate a System Diagnostics report by running:

          perfmon /report
     

4. Collect performance data during the problem.
   • Run Performance Monitor logging from an elevated Command Prompt.
   • Start and stop the log with:

          logman start LOGNAME_Long / LOGNAME_Short
          logman stop LOGNAME_Long / LOGNAME_Short
     

   • The log is stored in C:\PERFLOGS.
   • This helps confirm whether the high CPU and memory usage is tied to a specific process or system resource trend.
5. Configure the system to capture a complete memory dump if the freeze happens again.
   • Warning: registry changes are involved in later steps. Back up the registry before modifying it.
   • Open Run > Sysdm.cpl.
   • Go to System Properties > Advanced.
   • Under Performance, select Settings > Advanced > Change and verify virtual memory settings.
   • Go back to System Properties > Advanced > Startup and Recovery > Settings.
   • In Write Debugging Information, select Complete Memory Dump.
   • Select Overwrite any existing file.
   • Ensure pagefile.sys exists on the system drive and is at least 100 MB larger than installed RAM.
   • Ensure the system drive has more free space than the amount of physical RAM.
6. Enable manual dump capture from the keyboard.
   • In Registry Editor, create CrashOnCtrlScroll as REG_DWORD with value 1 in both:
     • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters
     • HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\kbdhid\Parameters
   • Restart the PC.
   • When the freeze occurs again, hold the right Ctrl key and press Scroll Lock twice.
   • The dump file is created by default at %SystemRoot%\MEMORY.DMP.
7. Validate the dump file after it is created.
   • Use Dumpchk.exe to verify that the dump file was created correctly and is not corrupted.

If the machine cannot be accessed normally, the dump and page file configuration can also be checked remotely through Registry Editor > Connect Network Registry by verifying:

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\CrashControl\CrashDumpEnabled = 1
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PagingFiles

This approach provides an end-to-end path: check logs, capture performance data, and if needed capture a full memory dump for root-cause analysis of the freeze.

• Advanced troubleshooting for Windows freezes
• Advanced troubleshooting for Windows freezes
• Advanced troubleshooting for Windows freezes