My Win 10 Laptop's crashing, and I dunno why. Details in OP.

[JKgo]

...Hey everyone.

So yeah, as it says on the title. While listening to music via VLC media player, the laptop crashed. No wait, that's not entirely correct - the laptop froze, the music cuts off, everything becomes either sluggish or unresponsive, and programs outright crashing.

This happened twice in the last three days. The first time it happened, I had to manually switch off the laptop. The second time, I waited, and waited, and waited some more.... until VLC player crashed totally, necessiating me to terminate it in the task manager.

When I checked with the task manager at that time, both the CPU and memory usage was normal during the crash/freeze but the total disk utilization was locked at 100%. However, as far as I can see, there were no processes accessing it.

Couple weeks ago, there was a massive power surge where I stay, and that fried the laptop charger. I bought a generic charger 'cuz I couldn't locate a genuine OEM one due to various reasons. Could this be an issue? I made sure the voltage was the same, but the ampere ended up being a bit higher. To my knowledge, as limited as they are, this should be fine but, I've read of horror stories regarding generic chargers so could that be an issue?

I'm not aware of any significant software updates on either the Win 10 itself, or the VLC player. Or could it be that the laptop HDD is about to go kaput? Or is it some unseen virus? I did run a scan and that didn't reveal anything though....

Any thoughts?

 

[Sanji Himura]

The charger is a possibility. In my laptop, I replaced my battery and charger with generic parts. It worked fine for a while, but then my PC starts to overheat and shut down. I had thought that my laptop was on the fritz, and going to replace it, but I had never considered replacing my charger and battery with genuine parts.

 

[ULTRAVIOLENZZ]

Possible causes I can think of:

1) RAM problems. Do a memory test.

2) The HDD might be dying. Check for bad sectors using the cmd.exe.

3) You (or windows update) might accidentally set the defragging schedule to the same time you use the laptop. That way the laptop is having a hard time playing whatever you play on the VLC and slows down and crash the laptop. Check the defragging schedule.

4) Because of 100% usage of the HDD. Please check what program is reading and writing on the disk. Check this too if it only happens when connected to the internet or happens even when disconnected from the net. Something must be downloading from or uploading to your HDD from the net. Sometimes its just Microsoft updates.

5) The surge affected your laptop.

6) Temperature.

 

[Grayfox]

Looking into the task manager can tell you if you're infected with malware.
After a while you know which are legit processes and which are suspicious, at times you will find a suspicious process that is a legit one.

It is not a bad idea to run a chkdsk /b as well as a sfc /scannow to fix any errors and corruption.

1) RAM problems. Do a memory test.

Memory issues would throw a bluescreen, not just random sluggishness.

2) The HDD might be dying. Check for bad sectors using the cmd.exe.

These days windows as well as the UEFI/BIOS will warn you of a HDD with a S.M.A.R.T failure.
chkdsk wont tell you anything about the HDD/SSD S.M.A.R.T status.
I recommend a program called Disk Checkup by passmark.
It just starts with the computer and gets minimized to the system tray and it will warn you of a S.M.A.R.T failure.

3) You (or windows update) might accidentally set the defragging schedule to the same time you use the laptop. That way the laptop is having a hard time playing whatever you play on the VLC and slows down and crash the laptop. Check the defragging schedule.

Defragging should not impact too much on performance, Heck I have defragged a 25Mbit H.265 movie and defragged the drive at the same time.
The only slow down that will happen is read and write speeds on that drive, if the drive is an SSD.
DO NOT DERAG it.

4) Because of 100% usage of the HDD. Please check what program is reading and writing on the disk. Check this too if it only happens when connected to the internet or happens even when disconnected from the net. Something must be downloading from or uploading to your HDD from the net. Sometimes its just Microsoft updates.

I have found that svchost(windows service host process) is the main reason for excessive HDD usage.

5) The surge affected your laptop.

Possible, but most power surges will cause some kind of hardware damage, fried PSU, fried motherboard, ect.

6) Temperature.

Thermal throttling has its warning signs, on a laptop this is a very hot base, loud fan and maybe overheat warning.

 

[JKgo]

I have found that svchost(windows service host process) is the main reason for excessive HDD usage.

...For me it's the accursed "System and Compressed memory". Usually.

But during the crash/slowdown, nothing was eating up the disk usage. At least that's what the task manager was telling me even though it was locked at 100%.

5) The surge affected your laptop.

I had disconnected the laptop from the charger at the time when the surge occurred, so I'm safe from that one, fortunately.

4) Because of 100% usage of the HDD. Please check what program is reading and writing on the disk. Check this too if it only happens when connected to the internet or happens even when disconnected from the net. Something must be downloading from or uploading to your HDD from the net. Sometimes its just Microsoft updates.

It's possible. I did notice a program called Service Host: local system running at the time, which, incidentally contains "Windows Update" in it.

Thanks for your replies, guys. I appreciate it.

 

[Grayfox]

It's possible. I did notice a program called Service Host: local system running at the time, which, incidentally contains "Windows Update" in it.

Windows 10 might have renamed the process, but svchost has this description "Host Process for Windows Services"

 

[shoemaker]

My windows 10 laptop updated yesterday with - Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1511 for x64-based Systems (KB3185614) - Everything was crashing, i couldn't attach documents to emails and the whole pc was sluggish and unresponsive, rolled it back to 2 days ago and it all works great again. The problem is i don't know how to refuse the update again as it automatically downloads it and forces an install on restart.

 

[JKgo]

My windows 10 laptop updated yesterday with - Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1511 for x64-based Systems (KB3185614) - Everything was crashing, i couldn't attach documents to emails and the whole pc was sluggish and unresponsive, rolled it back to 2 days ago and it all works great again. The problem is i don't know how to refuse the update again as it automatically downloads it and forces an install on restart.

...That's interesting. If there's a serious bug in the update, is it possible that MS is working on a fix?

I certainly did not get the usual "Update Installed, Pls restart your PC" message yet. But then the local connection speed here ain't so hot, it may take a bit longer to download all the files. Hmmm....

 

[Grayfox]

My windows 10 laptop updated yesterday with - Cumulative Update for Windows 10 Version 1511 for x64-based Systems (KB3185614) - Everything was crashing, i couldn't attach documents to emails and the whole pc was sluggish and unresponsive, rolled it back to 2 days ago and it all works great again. The problem is i don't know how to refuse the update again as it automatically downloads it and forces an install on restart.

You cant prevent it. you can delay all updates IIRC.

This is one of the issues with the forced updates.

 

[shoemaker]

You cant prevent it. you can delay all updates IIRC.

This is one of the issues with the forced updates.

Sorry mate ,it turns out you can block them, you have to use the cmd and deep in windows registry is the option to have them auto, manual or off.You can change things like your product key aswell ! Obviously microsoft dont like people doing these things so they hide them. It only took me 5 mins to google it and change it.