This post is more than 5 years old
13 Posts
0
6808
Inspiron i3636 -- Random OS Freezes When Idle
Inspiron i3646, small desktop, randomly freezes when left idle. The amount of time necessary for the freeze seems to be random. There is no BSOD, just the system stops responding to anything. The reliability monitor puts out a "Critical Event Message" at the next boot which has to be accomplished by way a hard reset, holding the power button for the requisite time to force a shut down as the system responds to nothing but this or disconnecting the power. The critical event message says, "Windows was not properly shut down." And, "The previous system shutdown at 8:21:08 PM on 12/11/2016 was unexpected."
Looking at the event viewer, there are actually events which occur after the time given. But, there is a warning from the Kernel-PnP with event id of 219 which states, "The driver \Driver\WudfRd failed to load for the device SWD\WPDBUSENUM\{e45e4779-b847-11e6-9da5-64006a086604}#0000000000100000."
Originally, thinking it could be bad memory, I upgraded the SODIMM from 4 GB to 8 GB. That helped performance a bit, but did not stop the random freeze-ups. (Otherwise, the system is completely stock; there really is nothing else to change.) I have installed the latest chipset and usb drivers for my service tag, 3095922, from the Dell website. Installing the graphics driver from the website did not help, so I installed the latest graphics driver for this chipset from intel. Other than noticing some improvements in graphics performance, this also did not help the freezes which have been occurring the past few weeks. These random freeze-ups seem to be the only problem with the system.
If someone knows how to read them a bit more fluently than I do, I have attached the event logs for the last 24 hours to this post. These logs will include the information for three system freezes during that time.
Any suggestions would be appreciated!
RoHe
10 Elder
10 Elder
•
43.6K Posts
0
December 12th, 2016 11:00
Always include version of Windows in your posts.
Do you mean the keyboard and mouse stop working? If that's what you mean, do all of the following...
Reboot and immediately press F2 to open BIOS setup. Look for an option for "USB Wake" (or something similar) and make sure it's enabled. Do NOT change anything else. Be sure to do a save before exiting setup if you changed the Wake setting . (Don't worry if you don't have this option.)
After PC reboots, open Device Manager and expand list under USB. Double-click a root hub and then click its Power Management tab. Uncheck the box "Allow PC to turn off...". Repeat for all root hubs.
Then expand list under Human Interface Devices (HID) in Device Manager and uncheck that same box for any HID entry that has a Power Management tab.
Now go to the Power options screen in Windows. Identify the currently used power plan and click the link to change its settings. On next screen, click link for Advanced options. On the Advanced screen, look for USB Selective Suspend in list at left and DISable it. Then look for Hybrid Sleep in the list and DISable that too. Be sure to save the power plan changes if prompted.
Reboot and see if that solves the problem.
RoHe
10 Elder
10 Elder
•
43.6K Posts
0
December 22nd, 2016 13:00
Was the USB3 HDD connected when it froze?
I see a lot of issues with Windows not shutting down correctly in your log. And Windows reminderserver.exe failed in the last event recorded.
So a clean Win 10 reinstall might solve this problem, but you won't know unless you do it. Be sure to back up all your personal files on external media first and make sure you have the installation media and product keys for any software you installed, not to mention a bunch of 'spare' time.
You can download the tools to reinstall Win 10 for free from Microsoft. You're going to need a USB stick with probably 8 GB or more space. And you should download all the latest Win 10 drivers for your specific hardware from the Dell site on another USB so you have them ready to install as soon as you finish the clean install. Then get anti-viral software running and launch Windows Update before installing any other software...
wichitaks
13 Posts
0
December 12th, 2016 20:00
Ron,
Thank you for your response. I am running Windows 10 here.
I have implemented your suggestions. As you indicated, there was no option in the BIOS, but all of the options were there in the Device Manager and the Power Options.
I will let you know in a few days how things are going!
Regards,
Mark
RoHe
10 Elder
10 Elder
•
43.6K Posts
0
December 13th, 2016 10:00
You're welcome. Let us know if the problem is solved (or not)...
wichitaks
13 Posts
0
December 17th, 2016 11:00
This time, the system froze up within just a few minutes. However, it did give more error messages this time. Does WudfRd have anything to do with this? I have attached the latest event viewer errors.
1 Attachment
Latest Event Log.pdf
wichitaks
13 Posts
0
December 17th, 2016 11:00
Well, it froze up again a few minutes ago. Admittedly, this is strange. I have attached the event viewer log of errors for the last hour. There are several there for DCOM (10016), but those seem to be happening with my other Windows 10 machines at home, and they are working fine. The only strange one is "The driver \Driver\WudfRd failed to load for the device SWD\WPDBUSENUM\{e45e4779-b847-11e6-9da5-64006a086604}#0000000000100000." This error has occurred in close proximity to every time the machine has locked-up. As a side note, the computer will not respond to the power button commands. The only way to get access to the system again is a hard reset by holding the power button for five seconds.
Any ideas?
1 Attachment
Event Viewer.pdf
wichitaks
13 Posts
0
December 17th, 2016 14:00
Thought it was possibly hardware. I ran the following checks, and the little machine passed them:
See full scan results.
Diagnostics Completed
RoHe
10 Elder
10 Elder
•
43.6K Posts
0
December 17th, 2016 16:00
Are you sure you have the latest Win 10 drivers installed and latest version of BIOS (A09)?
Aside from mouse and keyboard, what other USB devices are connected to this PC?
Go back into the Power plan and on Advanced options screen, look for PCI Express>Link State Power Management and disable that. Then in the Power plan look for Sleep>Hibernate after>. Set that to never. Save the changes if prompted and reboot.
wichitaks
13 Posts
0
December 17th, 2016 19:00
Ron,
Thank you for replying. Your help is appreciated.
Following your advice I set the "Link State Power Management" to "off". In processor power management, the "Minimum processor state" previously was a 60%. Since it seems to freeze up only when it enters a lower state, I set that to "100%". (The TDP on the Pentium J2900 is around 6-10 watts. So, as long as there is no damage to the processor, the extra watt in or so in a desktop plugged into a power strip is minimal compared to recovering from crashes.)
Regarding USB devices, the mouse and the keyboard are plugged into the two USB 2.0 ports in the back, and a 2GB Western Digital hard drive is plugged into the USB 3.0 port in the back. (Details are on the second page of an attached pdf file with data from msinfo.)
All of the drivers for the computer are the newest from the Dell website with the exception of the graphics driver. The graphics driver previously was from the Dell website, but one of the first things I tried a couple of months back when encountering these freezes was to update the graphics driver to the latest one from Intel. Although this machine is not used for gaming, I was able to notice considerable improvement in graphics performance, especially Quicken which I use at home, so I decided to keep the newer driver. Intel must have made some improvements to this driver which were agreeable to the onboard graphics.
Regarding programs on the computer, there are browsers such as IE, Edge, Chrome, and Firefox; all of the components of LibreOffice; pdf readers Adobe and Sumatra; Thunderbird; Quicken, and Google Drive. With the exception of Quicken and Thunderbird which I have used for years, these are programs my wife and I have on all of our computers in the house. Other than Quicken, this same set of programs is on the computer in my office at school, and LibreOffice is our standard productivity suite. We have over one-hundred installs of LibreOffice at school and have never had conflicts with it. I am at a loss as to what could be causing a conflict.
Again, thank you for your help. I will let you know what happens!
Mark
1 Attachment
msinfo.pdf
RoHe
10 Elder
10 Elder
•
43.6K Posts
0
December 19th, 2016 10:00
You probably have an add-in video card in addition to the Intel onboard graphics. So go to the manufacturer's site (eg, Nvidia) and look for an updated video driver for your specific card and version of Windows.
If you reboot without the USB3 HDD connected, does that stop the PC from freezing when idle?
wichitaks
13 Posts
0
December 19th, 2016 17:00
Ron,
Thank you for sticking in there!
Regarding an add-on video card, there is none. This particular motherboard has only one slot, and that one is for the single SODIMM module (yes, this is a desktop). Believe it or not, all of the power needed by this unit is supplied by a single 65 watt DC power supply "brick" which only gets a little bit warm, even when the processor is under a full load for an extended period of time.
However, with the USB3 HDD, I think you are on to something. Just before freezing each time, the event viewer is recording an error from the WudfRd which says it is not loading properly. In searching, I found that error code is for the Windows Driver Foundation which is part of the driver system for hard drives. I changed the service corresponding to the Windows Driver Foundation from manual to automatic, and that seemed to get rid of errors associated with the Seagate internal drive. However, the WudfRd was still throwing errors. In particular one came with WPDBUSENUM, which searching for that is the "Portable Device Enumerator (WPDBusEnum) service" which says it is for "Enforces group policy for removable mass-storage devices. Enables applications such as Windows Media Player and Image Import Wizard to transfer and synchronize content using removable mass-storage devices." -- To me, that sounds an awful lot like the USB3 HDD you are indicating.
So, I have disconnected the USB3 HDD.
Your determination in troubleshooting is appreciated. I will let you know what happens!
Regards,
Mark
RoHe
10 Elder
10 Elder
•
43.6K Posts
0
December 19th, 2016 20:00
That's why I asked about USB devices, aside from mouse and keyboard, and suggested you try running without the USB3 HDD to see if that makes a difference...
wichitaks
13 Posts
0
December 22nd, 2016 11:00
Ron,
The good news is that it went all the way to today before freezing. However, it did just freeze again, not responding to the keyboard, mouse, or the power button (except hard reset). I uploaded the history from the Reliability monitor as an xml file. I am confused because it seems to be passing all of the hardware tests. It is under a Squaretrade warranty. But, if I send it in, someone will test it, and it will pass all of the hardware tests for them as well.
Do you think a clean install of Windows 10 would make a difference? This was an upgrade from Windows 8.1 which came with the machine.
Thank you again for your persistence!
Mark
1 Attachment
Thursday Crash.XML
wichitaks
13 Posts
0
December 22nd, 2016 14:00
Regarding time, I am on Christmas break so now is the best time for this...
I tried the lazy way to just to a reset, keeping my files. It did do what it promised. However, whatever drivers are causing issues were still there. DCOM was just screaming errors in the event viewer, at least a full page of 10016 by itself with a couple of pages worth of other random errors from all sorts of programs.
So, here goes with the "clean install" using the Medial Creator tools.
I will keep you posted!
Mark
wichitaks
13 Posts
0
December 30th, 2016 07:00
Ron,
A quick update on the little Inspiron i3646, I did go ahead with the clean install following your instructions. The install worked perfectly. So far, we are at eight days and no system freezes. However, every application with its accompanying profile had to be reinstalled (a lot of time). The strange thing is that regarding drivers, these are exactly the same drivers that were in the previous installation. However, the difference is that the previous installation was an upgrade from Windows 8.1; albeit when the computer came out of the box, the first thing I did after setting it up was to upgrade the system to Windows 10. Do you suppose the problem had something to do with the upgrade process?
Regarding setup of the fresh install, I went through the configuration and made all of the changes you had previously suggested regarding sleep and power settings. At this point, there have been no issues with the new install.
I would like to thank you for your tenacity and determination to hang in there. Your help is appreciated!
Have a Happy New Year!
Mark