Absolutely it's possible.
But how would you know unless you tested w/o update then installed all updates then tested again?
I make changes to my master image once a month and keep a txt file of all changes I make to it.
When - it is a *when* and not if - something like this happens to me, it's then easier to narrow down the culprit.
Specific windows update, driver update, new program, updated program, something that inserted itself to run at startup - this is why I use WinPatrol to INTERCEPT ANYTHING that tries to add itself to startup so that I can decide to allow it or not manually.
Yes, this can be caused by malware but it also can be caused by any of the legitimate program incompatibilities...
If you had a 100% healthy image and if you reimaged and the problem was still there, then this would be a time-saver since it would directly indicate a hardware problem... It could be that too...
But like I said, primary suspect is a service or a program running that was not running before...