System Semi Locks up Periodically

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

So for a while my system has been doing this thing where periodically it would sort of completely lock up (but not really) for a while and it would normalize after a few seconds. At first I thought it was a corrupted Windows install as they tend to do after a few years. So I didn't think much about and after a feature update it seemed to have smoothed things out for a bit. Fast forward a few months and I decide to do that fresh install and at the same time upgraded to a new board and CPU from another system I purchased from a mate. I kept the same SSD and replaced the aging 750GB HDD with a 1TB unit I found laying around the house. And lo and behold the lock up issues appeared again. From anyones' experience, is this possibly more of a drive issue than a Windows one? I know Microsoft just released an update that's been locking up systems but I first experienced this weird semi lock up issue back in March. What will happen is that I basically have no control over the system for a few seconds. I can still move the mouse and click on anything but nothing really responds as it should. Sometimes context menus might show, other times I would not. I can double click on files in File Explorer but nothing happens. Same thing within applications, I can click on stuff but it doesn't respond. I took a look at Task Manager and my SSD is pinned to 100% utilization but no data would be going through. Screenshot below shows the period of which the SSD is pinned. You can probably from the CPU graph that at the same time CPU usage is pinned then essentially drops all the way down for the duration of the semi lock up. Once it sorts itself out, all of the commands I put in during that lock up just happen all at once. So for example when it locks up, I can press CLTR + ALT + DEL all I want and nothing happens... until everything sorts itself out. 

 

 

 

 

I've also had other issues like the Photo app not launching successfully 75% of the time. If I try to open an image, 75% of the time it'll just show me a blank window and eventually it'll just close by itself. Sometimes I'll then get this error message. Other times I would get something along the lines of "application didn't start in reasonable time", or it outright doesn't show any error message. 

 

 

Samsung Magician isn't reporting any issues with my drive and is listing it as "healthy". And I can't do any Diagnostic scans on it since my drive apparently doesn't support that feature. 

 

What else should I be taking a look at as a potential culprit? This is rather annoying since I use this machine for school and with everything being online, having a system I cannot trust is just not fun. I can't trust this thing in its current state for taking exams. If it pulls such shenanigans during an exam, I will seriously annoyed.

[Bombastinator]

Considering that with all the changes made it is effectively a new(used) system comparing the old with the new may not be all that useful

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

8 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Considering that with all the changes made it is effectively a new(used) system comparing the old with the new may not be all that useful

Well both "systems" experienced the same symptoms. 

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

The plot thickens. Tried installing the drivers for my Wacom tablet and now Windows doesn't boot. I don't know how it has managed to do that, but it did. System restore didn't help and it doesn't even boot into Safe Mode. Guess I'm reinstalling Windows tonight. Something interesting to note... apparently I have a UEFI boot device called OpenCore which I tried installing macOS on this thing before but didn't even get to the bootloader screen, so I just abandoned that project. Not sure how that remained as the bootable USB drive isn't even attached. Strange... 

[Bombastinator]

Ew.  Sounds like deep crusted ancient stuff.  Maybe do a full flush of everything thing on general principal