Windows 11 Pro Hangs when Clicking on Hog Icon on Taskbar

ypaul123 · Feb 27, 2026

Hi,

Despite using an ASUS G635LX on a High Performance power plan while plugged in, the system freezes completely when clicking the "Hog" icon on the taskbar.

https://i.ibb.co/Yr4Ccvj/image.png

How can I get rid of that icon or mitigate the freeze issue, please?

Thank you.

glasskuter · Feb 27, 2026

What is that gear icon for? hover mouse over it. Does it say what it is?

ypaul123 · Feb 28, 2026

glasskuter said:
What is that gear icon for? hover mouse over it. Does it say what it is?

control center.

SlicEnDicE · Feb 28, 2026

Welcome to Windows 11 forums.

Step one: Fill in your full system specs in your profile so we know exact computer configuration you have.

Step two: make sure all drivers, including BIOS/UEFI and Windows are up to date.

Step three: Remove any tools and apps that are not from Asus that can control the system. This may also include 3rd party AV programs (these often interfere with the system). It will help diagnose the issue better. You can later put them all back one by one. Also make sure you don't have any games installed that uses kernel level anti cheat protections.

Step four: Since you experience system freeze, ensure Windows integrity is intact. Disable FastStartup in Windows and do a clean/safe boot. Then check if problem still persist.

If this didnt help, then you will have to use the error log collector tool found on this forum and post the full logs here for analysis.

glasskuter · Feb 28, 2026

I'm sorrry, but "control center" for what? While the gear symbol is used in various apps, Windows does not add such an icon to the notification tray (aka: system tray) area in a native installation so it must be a 3rd party app.

You can easily find out what 3rd party app added that icon by going to
settings>personalization>taskbar>other system tray icons.
Find the app with the corresponding icon in the list and delete that app from the system if it is causing problems. OR you can stop whatever app it is from running at startup by disabling it in startup apps. settings>apps>startup

antspants · Feb 28, 2026

glasskuter said:
I'm sorrry, but "control center" for what?

Maybe Armoury Crate for their ASUS?
Not sure if Hog is an app or if it was meant to read "Cog"

ypaul123 said:
the system freezes completely when clicking the "Hog" icon on the taskbar.

SlicEnDicE · Feb 28, 2026

glasskuter said:
I'm sorrry, but "control center" for what? While the gear symbol is used in various apps, Windows does not add such an icon to the notification tray (aka: system tray) area in a native installation so it must be a 3rd party app.

You can easily find out what 3rd party app added that icon by going to
settings>personalization>taskbar>other system tray icons.
Find the app with the corresponding icon in the list and delete that app from the system if it is causing problems. OR you can stop whatever app it is from running at startup by disabling it in startup apps. settings>apps>startup

It's Asus Control Center. Some love it because it provides useful features, others hate it and don't need it.

ypaul123 · Feb 28, 2026

OMG... Yeah, I apologize.. COG, not hog... I can't edit the original post.

antspants · Feb 28, 2026

ypaul123 said:
OMG... Yeah, I apologize.. COG, not hog... I can't edit the original post.

I spend just as much time correcting my mistakes as I do creating a post. I think I skipped proof reading class at school. You’re good

Edwin · Feb 28, 2026

ypaul123 said:
control center. ...COG

What 'control center' does that Cog open?
The Windows Control Center, or something else?

hader · Feb 28, 2026

Maybe I can ride on this subject also; I also experience delays but on a very awkward manner.
I have noticed the when I try to open a plain .txt file through explorer it's "thinking" for some 5-15 seconds. Don't grasp what lies behind this delay.

It's not all the time. I just open the file with the normal notepad using explorer and the plain text file is very small; 1 Kb with normal characters.
- Maybe F-secure *an antivirus program* (When in place it's taking the role over from Defender. certain roles are visible inside Defender and it's point to F-Secure to take it's place.) is scanning it's content? Maybe. It's a possibility but if it scans a 1Kb plain file it would be finished within microseconds. (System is fast)
- Disk contention? It's located on the same drive as Windows and that is a very fast Samsung 250Gb NVMe drive. So transfer speeds are instant.
- Loads on CPU, GPU, Disks, Network etc. are at a minimum. Secure boot is turned on. Scanned my complete C-drive if it could find an "interceptor", log miners, rootkits, viruses etc.: None.
I have seen this also when I open an .srt file with subtitle edit. Those .srt files are <99Kb

Have others noticed or seen these kind of behaviors? Any clues? My registry is clean as possible, Temp dirs are mostly empty as possible. DISM and SFC finds nothing wrong with the system.

SlicEnDicE · Feb 28, 2026

It's caused by how the apps are working. First launch of any app including File Explorer and Task Manager takes significant time to load. Subsequent loads are fairly quick.

TairikuOkami · Feb 28, 2026

Sadly, 11 is heavily scripted, unlike the old control panel, Settings is UWP app.
Like when I open passkeys in Settings, it freezes for 10 secs till it finally opens.

hader · Mar 1, 2026

SlicEnDicE said:
It's caused by how the apps are working. First launch of any app including File Explorer and Task Manager takes significant time to load. Subsequent loads are fairly quick.

???? I have a very fast system by modern standards.
It take a system many seconds to open a 1 Kb file? With transfer rates arround 5000-7000 Mb/sec? (Gen4 NVMe's)

You are referring to the working of the cache mechanism. 1st load is slow but if it can be found inside a cache a 2nd load is instant. That not the case here. As I already said before it's not all the time. In other occasions where the same files has not been touched before it loads instantaneously.
That the delay is cause by cache or other mechanisms is very unlikely. Times of a x286 CPU, DMA, I/O controllers, VGA graphics, 20Mb HDD with a PATA interface are long gone by now.

SlicEnDicE · Mar 1, 2026

It has nothing to do with the file size, and everything to do with loading application data and libraries into cache. It is what it is.

hader · Mar 1, 2026

SlicEnDicE said:
It has nothing to do with the file size, and everything to do with loading application data and libraries into cache. It is what it is.

Stop playing that gramophone record. It's getting old. You have no clue where you are talking about. Let alone are capable pointing me in the right direction...... with this ridiculous answer.

Edwin · Mar 1, 2026

The only lag I ever notice is opening a large folder, such as Videos..., seein as how Windows dumps the thumbnail cache for every session...

hader · Mar 1, 2026

Edwin said:
The only lag I ever notice is opening a large folder, such as Videos..., seein as how Windows dumps the thumbnail cache for every session...

View attachment 164696

That's a complete other story indeed.... They same is true if you open a folder that contains more than 10.000 files. That's understandable.

SlicEnDicE · Mar 1, 2026

hader said:
Stop playing that gramophone record. It's getting old. You have no clue where you are talking about. Let alone are capable pointing me in the right direction...... with this ridiculous answer.

As a software dev I know exactly what I'm talking about. Windows Store apps including the Window managing system is built in a specific way and that causes lag sometimes. Everything is easy to extend, but tricky to optimize. Every tool is now dependant on multiple libraries, and if those are not preloaded, that causes lag. Another thing that could cause a bit of lag is your AV.

hader · Mar 1, 2026

SlicEnDicE said:
As a software dev I know exactly what I'm talking about. Windows Store apps including the Window managing system is built in a specific way and that causes lag sometimes. Everything is easy to extend, but tricky to optimize. Every tool is now dependant on multiple libraries, and if those are not preloaded, that causes lag. Another thing that could cause a bit of lag is your AV.

Those libraries are not 1Gb in size. Why then take it of the 10 times, 9x a very fast load and sudden on 1x load many seconds? That is not caused by loading libraries etc. Then the behavior would be constant be the same. And that AV story I ruled that out before in my initial report. I know it's is scanning stuff.

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