Windows 8.1 Freezing For Some Users

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therealduckofdeath

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May 10, 2012
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slow news day? 8 people reporting "similar" issues since October 18.... I don't think that constitutes for an issue worth reporting about, as the root cause can be just about anything from a buggy torrent app to faulty hard drive or simply malware...
 

aelfwyne

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I am experiencing this myself.

For those who are claiming it's due to "buggy apps", "malware" or "faulty hardware" you don't know what you're talking about.

The article is referring to users whose systems were 100% reliable prior to the 8.1 upgrade, and are crashing and freezing after the upgrade. Hardware hasn't gone buggy. Drives SHOULD have remained compatible. Apps haven't changed.

There is OBVIOUSLY a problem in Windows 8.1 in certain configurations causing freezing. I've had to stop using Windows on my PC in favor of my backup OS (Linux yech) until this is sorted out or I have time to reinstall back to 8.0.

Just because you, personally, haven't experienced the issue, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
 


I have been running 8 since release and did the 8.1 preview then clean installed 8.1 officially and so far I have had no issues.

Problem is that people are very bad at maintaining their PCs. What's interesting is that if you search for one of those KBs, I only found articles based on this and nothing directly from Microsoft.

Normally if you search for a KB article you get a link from support.microsoft.com and these did not come up with that for me.
 

vipervoid1

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Here , windows 8.1 user
I got myself upgrade the OS on the day after launched ~
And 3 update released on windows update right after upgrade.
After those updates , I didnt update the Windows Update yet ~
I didnt experiences any freezing with those update ~
So I expect those updates probably are the reason why the windows 8.1 freeze ..
 

lp231

Splendid

Windows Me worked great for me, not a single BSOD and it was my very first OS for my very first self build. :)
Pentium 3 800MHz
128MB ram
20GB HDD
ATi Rage XL 8MB AGP
Acer 50X CD Rom
Beige Case with PSU
Windows Me

As for Windows 8.1, it doesn't freeze for me, but flash still has problem, but I got 2 systems running the same thing Win 8.1 Pro w/MCE. Netbook works fine, like preview post on Tom's forum works in IE and FF. For my desktop it only works in IE, but not FF. :\
 

tical2399

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Wonder whats going on I've been with windows 8 since consumer preview, same with 8.1 and i've had all of two blue screens in that whole time, and i'be been on 8.1 retail since it came out and no issues at all.
 

dgingeri

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I had an issue after the last set of updates. It installed the updates and rebooted, and I started getting a steady stream of low level writes to my main hard drive. I thought it was malware or something. When I rebooted trying to track down the cause, it wouldn't boot back up. it kept bluescreening on the way up saying there was an error on the hard drive. I tested the drive with OCZ's toolbox, but it came back clean. I reimaged from a backup and it came up fine. I reinstalled the latest updates, and the low level writes came back. I rebooted and it went back to the same old bluescreen. Right now, I'm holding back on updates until this is resolved, keeping my backups current.
 

signothorn

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I had a similar issue when W7 SP1 came out, event viewer pointed to a usb device driver. To fix it, I went to services and changed Windows Driver Foundation to "Automatic" and I've never had this problem since.
 

joaompp

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This article would've been helpful last week. I've been using Windows 8.1 Pro a month before release because I got it on DreamSpark and I kept running into intermittent crashes, usually when playing YouTube full screen or having up Metro UI. I figured the error was due to immature video drivers from nVidia since I was running a triple monitor setup and I had just upgraded to their new drivers. This past weekend I reformatted into Windows 7 because I just couldn't take the crashes anymore. I choose Windows 7 over Windows 8 because for some reason the wi-fi drivers from ASUS for the P8Z77-V Deluxe work much better on Windows 7 than Windows 8.

To all those comparing this to Windows ME, it's not were near the same level of severity. Me and my friend used to the play this game on Windows ME when it came out, how many programs could you open before you hit the BSOD. I don't think we ever got past 5 programs running at the same time.
 

joaompp

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This article would've been helpful last week. I've been using Windows 8.1 Pro a month before release because I got it on DreamSpark and I kept running into intermittent crashes, usually when playing YouTube full screen or having up Metro UI. I figured the error was due to immature video drivers from nVidia since I was running a triple monitor setup and I had just upgraded to their new drivers. This past weekend I reformatted into Windows 7 because I just couldn't take the crashes anymore. I choose Windows 7 over Windows 8 because for some reason the wi-fi drivers from ASUS for the P8Z77-V Deluxe work much better on Windows 7 than Windows 8.

To all those comparing this to Windows ME, it's not were near the same level of severity. Me and my friend used to the play this game on Windows ME when it came out, how many programs could you open before you hit the BSOD. I don't think we ever got past 5 programs running at the same time.
 

Wamphryi

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Sounds to me like a SATA issue. The mouse moves because it resident in memory at a hardware level but everything else is locked tight. That normally indicates loss of communication with the drive.
 

alextheblue

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That's a big "should". Shoddy drivers are the biggest cause of software-induced crashing since forever ago. I know Nvidia and AMD rushed to update their drivers for 8.1, for example.
 
Software is quite complex these days, and trying to be compatible with all kind of hardware can be a problem.

Windows 8/8.1 has been the most stable version yet for me, so I am happy, just hope they fix the issues for people.
 

Fierce Guppy

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All the issues on this PC are DICE related, but there's been no problems with my 8.1 install as such. In any case, out of curiosity I followed the instructions in the article and the "Performance Troubleshooter" is not one of the items listed after clicking "View All" in the left pane.
 

JOSHSKORN

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I think I may sit this OS, out. I've been upgrading to every new OS since XP. XP was great, Vista sucked, 7 is still great. 8 sucks (or so I've heard). 8.1 is better than 8.1 (or so I've heard, too).
 

zaki_44

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When I first installed Windows 8.1 Pro, my PC was constantly freezing (4-5 secs at a time).

However, I downloaded and installed motherboard (including LAN) drivers for my Gigabyte motherboard.

These were quite old- around December 2012- and certainly much older than the drivers that came with Windows 8.1.

I have not had a single freezup since. The PC has been rock solid for the last 6-8 weeks.
 
Windows 8.1 has a lot of issues with drivers, and drivers that worked with Windows 8 do not necessarily work with Windows 8.1 particularly wireless drivers and network drivers. Also some software is now incompatible with Windows 8.1 such as classic shell which even the latest version crashes on shut down. These issues are the probably cause for Windows 8.1 freezing.
There are also many small changes in Windows 8.1 usage that only serve to annoy. I recommend that users should stick to Windows 8 or better yet install Windows 7.
Why Microsoft why?
 
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