Why does Windows sometimes freeze up?

[PointFive]

So sometimes my Windows is freezing when I try to open apps from windows, such as calculator, sticky notes, Films&TV. When it froze, the taskbar also freezes, however the application that is currently up is fine, only the taskbar and the windows app I am trying to open or use. So for example, I have mozilla open and am trying to open calculator, sometimes it will freeze up and take a minute to open, however while its freezing, mozilla is running smoothly.

 

The boot drive is a 970 evo plus, and it is running at 50 degrees C, it uses the default heat sink from the motherboard, and I am trying to acquire an actively cooled heat sink. Any recommendations for this as well? lol. CPU is 5800x, temp is normal, ram is 16gb and I am a tab hoarder, usually at 70% usage, upgrading to 32 soon.

 

I currently suspect that it might be the high temp of the nvme, or the high ram usage. But, there is no way for me to troubleshoot this hypothesis as of now. So, any ideas guys? A bit clueless what else it could be the problem.

 

Additional note: It only freezes from opening or using windows made app like mentioned above, have not experienced it in other apps for now.

[Nathanpete]

Windows may be storing its Apps on another drive if you have multiple attached. For example, I have a NVMe from WD as my boot drive, but for some reason my PC won't boot unless this very old laptop HDD I used as my installation media is also plugged in. I have had to make sure that whatever Windows does it does not save anything to D:/

I forget how I did it, but if we are talking windows store apps I think you can change that from within the Windows Store app, triple dots > Settings. But I may be wrong, just memory. 

 

70% RAM usage is fine, and Windows apps are small meaning RAM is not your issue. And don't bother getting an actively cooler heatsink for your SSD, 50C is fine. In fact 50-55C is an OK temp for Samsung M.2s. 45C won't make a hint of difference. 

 

If it is your SSD that is the issue, that is why Mozilla and other apps are fine, because they have already been loaded into RAM and have so much leftover CPU power they can run away without contacting your drive, but apps you are beginning to open will need to contact the disk. 

 

Another thought just came to mind: Have you disabled various window's app's permissions from being background tasks. Go to Settings -> Privacy -> App Permissions -> Background Apps and make sure any of the windows apps that are offenders are allowed to be background tasks. That means when you start up the app, it will be much more likely to go to the fast RAM before the slower SSD. And when you upgrade to 32GB this will be even more likely. 

[PointFive]

16 hours ago, Nathanpete said:

Another thought just came to mind:

I have not yet touched this settings haha.

16 hours ago, Nathanpete said:

Windows may be storing its Apps on another drive if you have multiple attached. For example, I have a NVMe from WD as my boot drive, but for some reason my PC won't boot unless this very old laptop HDD I used as my installation media is also plugged in. I have had to make sure that whatever Windows does it does not save anything to D:/

might look into this if the problem reappears, as of now I just upgraded to 32gb and all seems fine. But, if it reappears ill try again. Thanks!