Solved Windows 11 22H2 full system freeze with no event logs or BSOD on new laptop

Summary:

Brand new laptop (HP G9 Fury, Intel i9-12950HX, Nvidia RTX A3000) which has been fully updated and have used the software 'DriverEasy' (which I have used for a while now with no issues) to make sure all drivers are fully up to date. The BIOS is also up to date and there are no issues in device manager and everything looks normal.

At random/different times, the system will freeze with no BSOD or entry in to the event viewer as to why this is happening. The screen is frozen and the mouse and keyboard locks up and CTRL/ALT/DEL have no effect. The only way recover is a full hard reboot by pressing the power button until the system powers down.

Steps taken so far:

Try to identify a pattern for when this happens but with no luck so far. It can happen approx 30 mins after I log in whilst using the system or during periods of inactivity when I walk away from my machine. It's even happened at the exact moment that I press the CTRL key but I can't reproduce any of these examples consistently.

I have looked through the event logs but there is nothing indicating that there has been an issue until I restart my machine and it has logged an improper shutdown. There is also no indications that there has been any issues with any other programs before the restart.

I have tried running a memory test but when the system logged back in, there were no results in the event viewer.

I have ran the 'sfc /scannow' command an had no issues.

I have looked in the reliability history tool but can't see anything that points to a cause.



At this point I'm running out of ideas so if there is anything else I can try them please let know. Any advice would be appreciated - thank you.

Hello @JimboJames and Welcome to ElevenForum.


Did Driver Easy come installed on the laptop... new?
Which came first, this problem or Driver Easy?
What's the exact time frame on things?

Did you have these problems from day one with the new laptop?

Instead of trying to identify a pattern... try to identify a time frame.
Like... when did the problem start and what did you do/change right before the problem started.

This is a HP laptop, so use the exact vendor provided drivers for your hardware, or you are almost guaranteed to get issues. HP devices can be very picky, what they accept and not. You can find all the latest and tested drivers for your device under this link:

HP ZBook Fury 16 G9 Mobile Workstation -Support/Self service

Select OS and Build version, then press Submit.

I would also suggest you use the HP support assistant tool. which should have been installed on your laptop.

Thanks for the info - I wrongly assumed that being on the latest drivers from each component manufacturer would be the best way to go.

Is there an easy way to roll back all drivers and start over without a full factory reset?

JimboJames said:

Is there an easy way to roll back all drivers and start over without a full factory reset?

Click to expand...

You can try system restore if you have a restore point from BEFORE you made all the changes. SR works for some people but has not been reliable for me.

I would not touch a driver updater program with a ten foot pole...ANY 3rd party driver updater. I use only drivers from my manufacturer using their updater and directly from Intel using Intel's Driver and Support Assistance tool. Updating drivers through windows update is also known to be reliable in most cases though you may not get the latest driver as the WU database is not always up to date. The only exception when using windows update would be bios updates. Get those directly from manufacturer. As @SlicEnDicE said, in the case of HP, the manufacturer updating tool for you is the HP support assistant.

In device manager, you can for each device, roll back to previous driver. If there is no previous driver, then either the OS did not keep the old driver when updating or you are on the same version as HP has released.

You can go through each and every component in Device manager and roll back, or you can manually grab all the latest drivers from HP and install them one by one on top of the current ones.

Start from the chipset driver, because that works as a base for the rest of the drivers.

I realize it is a lot of work to manually update each and every component driver on your device, because it is a very capable machine with a lot of features. (was just looking at the list of available drivers for your device and it is HUGE)

Never owned a HP.

Do they not have support assistant software that assists the user to update drivers from the HP site ? Dell has the Dell Support Assistant for this purpose.

I would unistall Driver Easy, restore or reset system to factory specs and/or contact HP Customer Support.

As has been stated TWICE, HP support assistant.

Ghot said:

Hello @JimboJames and Welcome to ElevenForum.


Did Driver Easy come installed on the laptop... new?
Which came first, this problem or Driver Easy?
What's the exact time frame on things?

Did you have these problems from day one with the new laptop?

Instead of trying to identify a pattern... try to identify a time frame.
Like... when did the problem start and what did you do/change right before the problem started.

Click to expand...

Hey Ghot - thanks for the welcome!

DriverEasy wasn't installed by default, I added it myself on day 1 so not sure which came first. I use it on my live production machines (custom built towers and not laptops!) and not had an issue before. In fact in my line of work, it's recommend to use it on our rigs running vMix live video switching software, as the newest drivers usually fix older bugs. However, I do understand why user @SlicEnDicE says not to do this as it's a HP laptop with very specific hardware etc.

The timings are weird and if they were not as they were, I would 100% put it down to drivers but here's the thing, for the last 2 days I power up my laptop in the morning, start work and after about 30 mins, the laptop freezes and I have to force a reboot, log back in etc and carry on with my work and then it's fine for the rest of the day. At times, I can hammer my laptop with CPU or GPU work load and I get no issues and I also ran burn in tests to try and make freeze, which it didn't.

It feels to me like there is a process that runs 30 mins after logging in for the first time every day, that trips up my system and then it's ok for the rest of the day after the forced reboot? I have tried exporting every scheduled task to a CSV and gone through line by line but nothing jumps out to me as the cause.

From the information I have written above, would you put your money on a driver or a routine causing this?

I'm going to set a timer tomorrow when I log in to see if it is exactly 30 mins!

SlicEnDicE said:

In device manager, you can for each device, roll back to previous driver. If there is no previous driver, then either the OS did not keep the old driver when updating or you are on the same version as HP has released.

You can go through each and every component in Device manager and roll back, or you can manually grab all the latest drivers from HP and install them one by one on top of the current ones.

Start from the chipset driver, because that works as a base for the rest of the drivers.

Click to expand...

This isn't a bad shout and would save me having to reset/roll back as I'm well down the 'setting things up how I want them' path!

Thank you.

@JimboJames

What I would do is this... I would restore to the full backup I made on the day I received the laptop.
I understand that if you didn't make that backup using 3rd party software... you won't be able to do that.

1. There should be a built in Factory Restore on your HP laptop, which will take it back to day one.
2. Then you could install backup software (free), like Macrium Reflect or AOMEI Backupper, and make a full backup.



One thing I noticed about your 30 minute thing. It seems to happen... 30 minutes after you boot.
You can check Event Viewer, right after it happens. Event Viewer has the exact times things occur.
So the next time your laptop freezes, note the EXACT time it happens, and write it down.

Then after you reboot to clear whatever the problem is... you can use that time to check the Event Viewer entries.

You'll probably need HP's help to do a factory restore.
But once you do that, AND make a full backup... you can mess around with just about anything and still be just a "restore from your backup", away from happy again.

Personally, I use Macrium Reflect. Here's my Quickie Guide for Macrium...

Ghot said:

@JimboJames

What I would do is this... I would restore to the full backup I made on the day I received the laptop.
I understand that if you didn't make that backup using 3rd party software... you won't be able to do that.

1. There should be a built in Factory Restore on your HP laptop, which will take it back to day one.
2. Then you could install backup software (free), like Macrium Reflect or AOMEI Backupper, and make a full backup.



One thing I noticed about your 30 minute thing. It seems to happen... 30 minutes after you boot.
You can check Event Viewer, right after it happens. Event Viewer has the exact times things occur.
So the next time your laptop freezes, note the EXACT time it happens, and write it down.

Then after you reboot to clear whatever the problem is... you can use that time to check the Event Viewer entries.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I forgot to add the post crash event viewer research info to my last post (it's late here and that's my excuse!)

I do indeed go straight in to the event viewer when I log back in to try and find an issue from just before the freeze after the reboot but it's weird, it's like everything just stops dead and there is nothing leading up to that point that indicates there has been an issue.

Factory reset it is!

JimboJames said:

Sorry, I forgot to add the post crash event viewer research info to my last post (it's late here and that's my excuse!)

I do indeed go straight in to the event viewer when I log back in to try and find an issue from just before the freeze after the reboot but it's weird, it's like everything just stops dead and there is nothing leading up to that point that indicates there has been an issue.

Factory reset it is!

Click to expand...

There will be "something" in Event Viewer, which is sort of an art form.
You need to check Warning. Error and Critical, up to maybe 5 minutes prior to the freeze.

This is the section you want to check...





The trick to a Windows 10 or Windows 11 computer is 3rd party backup software. They all include their own "bootable rescue Media", so you can get to your backups, even when Windows won't boot.

It seems that the only thing that can stop backup software is a fire or large explosion.
And if you also keep a backup somewhere offsite, like a safety deposit box... even a fire/explosion won't stop you.

And... as mentioned above... go to HP for updates, etc. They built the comp. They did their own funny little things to it.
Only they know how to update/upgrade it properly. Unfortunately.

You will get nicked with a "Critical" for holding down the power button to shut down! (any forced shutdown and any abnormal reboot!)

Being a laptop, I suspect a faulty CPU or a faulty system board.

Well, at the weekend I did a factory reset and teh problem still persists - on to HP support I go!

I have no alternative other than to hard shutdown the laptop but still no error messages relating to the issue, only the critical shotdown as you say.

I'm convinced that it's an 'event' that is happening on my system that is causing the issue but the problem is I have no idea which one?

Is there a way to record (maybe to a CSV or similar) everything that happening on my system so I can try to pin point the issue?

Which brand and model SSD does your device have?

Hey @JimboJames

I'm a sysadmin working at a tech company. We have ordered a bunch of these HP ZBook Fury 16" G9 laptops for our CAD users at our company.

We have the same exact issue with this laptop model as you have and have tried everything related to our setup. 4 out of 10 laptops have the same exact issue. It seems to be completely random and not related to heavy load even though the computers are mainly used for running Solidworks.

So far my team has tried the following:
- Running full system diagnostics all being passed
- Reinstalling a clean Windows 10 22H2 image using OSDCloud and also tried with Windows 11 to no avail
- Ran HPIA to update every driver on the system including the newest firmware updates released to this model just this week.

I'm curious does your laptop also report multiple WHEA errors related to PCI Express root within the Event Viewer System logs? This seems to be happening on all of our Fury G9 's.

We did call HP to come check one of the faulty laptops out and they claimed that since it's such a new model they have not heard of other customers complaining about the issue. They are coming to visit us next tuesday to do further diagnostics and most likely they will swap out the motherboard.

I will update the findings (or the fix) about this matter to this thread as it seems to be the only online thread about this issue.

I am fairly certain this is a HP app, driver or service issue.

What I would do is:
1. Backup full disk
2. Wipe the drive
3. Clean install Windows from MS provided Setup media
4. Let Windows grab the drivers via Windows Update
5. Only update manually the drivers that are non existant or are just MS basic drivers.

Leave out any 3rd-party AV and any HP Support software for now.

TEST (Keep using the device as is) Add one application at a time (office, cad, VisualStudio etc...), reboot and test the app and system before moving to next.

HP is known to have memory leaks and what not in their own apps and services. Thus, going clean with Windows is a good way to find the bad app/service.