GPU Freezing in new Windows 10 build - making me nuts!

Bought a nice setup for my wife to have a VR machine from the classifieds here. Since the new GTX 1070 was on order I set everything up with the built in graphics. Win10 installed, various testing tools, and I started the OC. Amazing Sandy Bridge setup. Clocks up to 4.4 with 1.25 volts and runs EVERYTHING without fail. I was pretty happy.

Then the 1070 arrived. I installed the latest nVidia driver and all seemed to be working for a little while and then I started getting some freezes. System would just freeze the screen and become unresponsive. It happened when i would execute something that switched to the GPU. After some restarts and fiddling it seemed to get worse, to the point that it would sometimes crash right in to windows.

So what do we do? Set everything back to stock. No difference. Still same behavior. Update BIOS on Z77 Extreme4 MOB, disable integrated GPU in bios. Double and triple check all bios settings. Still no good. Memtest good overnight.

Trying to narrow it down I swap in my GTX 1080 from my machine. Seems good! Run some games and, yep. it's working. Must be a bad GPU I got. Bummer, but I solved it, right? NOPE!!! After a little while the 1080 starts exhibiting the same behavior!

I swap PCI-E slots, change PSU power cables (PSU BTW was running my dual 1080s before swapping it in, so it's good - HX850i). All no good.

Pulling my hair out. I swap back in the 1070 and of course it's all trouble. Swap back in the 1080 and it seems to work again for about 20 minutes and then the problems start again.

I have checked almost everything at this point, so I'm starting to suspect the motherboard. Bummer, but it's okay if the nightmare ends.

I decide to try one last thing. I swap in my Windows 7 system drive from my other PC. Boots up, drivers install, restarts and viola. i'm in windows. 12 hours later, no freezes. No crashes. 3d Apps run flawlessly. Games, Unigive Heaven...it all works, even back at the 4.4 OC settings.

My other Windows 10 machine (X99) works just fine after the update yesterday, so i am not really suspecting that, but this is a different MB after all. WHAT THE F*** COULD BE CAUSING THIS? I have gone device by device installing the latest driver updates and testing for stability only to still get these freeze ups. I was all ready to find the bad hardware, and the hardware is fine. It's better than fine. It's the coldest and fastest OC I've seen in a long time.

This is a brand new Win 10 install. I have some steam apps, unigine heaven, and a few stability/bench apps and that's it. I pulled out the wireless cards, swapped SSDs, disabled the IGPU, disabled the second SATA controller. I did let windows do all available updates right after the install, which included the big update that just dropped. As I said, my X99 system had no problems with it. I even rolled back the nVidia drivers, and always select clean install.

Any ideas? I guess I finally met my match with this system.

Did you try putting the check mark in clean driver install in custom Nvidia driver setup?

wingman99 said:

Did you try putting the check mark in clean driver install in custom Nvidia driver setup?

Click to expand...

Yeah. I always do that when I instal/upgrade the nvidia drivers, (because, why not?). Still no luck. When I installed the card and booted the first time, Win 10 installed it's own driver before I could install the nVidia latest. I did select clean install though, so it should have taken care of any previous old drivers. It's not hardware though. Computer works like a dream in Windows 7. Frustrating as hell! This was a clean Win 10 install, not even an upgrade.

I'm having trouble with windows 10 also, clean install here.

I'm sure you know more about this than I do but have you tried swapping power cables? Different plug on the psu?

I mentioned it in some other posts. Recently Microsoft added some updates which are for some reason causing power saving issues. I could solve it only by system repair. OS was nearly clean and even though I have disabled automatic updates, it still installed them. At first I thought that my GTX1070 ( which had 3-4 days ) is dead but it was working fine in other PC.
Again, I'm not sure if it's the case but if you have clean Win10 then try to reinstall it ( or repair which will make about the same ) without network connection and check if it's happening in offline.
For me it was causing freezing+driver crash in anything that was switching between 2D and low power 3D mode ( even streamins or watching videos in the web browser ). Driver was usually restarting after 1-2 minutes, sometimes faster.

It's update KB3172985, otherwise known as the cumulative update that just dropped. You can uninstall the update and the system works again. Problem is, auto update just re-installs it, hosing the system again.

My system is a Z77 Extreme4, 2600K and it happens with both the Founders 1080 and the EVGA 1070 SC.

Any ideas for a fix that doesn't involve removing the update? Any way to block the piece os sh*t from auto updating?

What systems are you using? maybe it only affects certain chipsets or motherboards.

blueknight1960 said:

I'm sure you know more about this than I do but have you tried swapping power cables? Different plug on the psu?

Click to expand...

BTW, yep. Tried all of that. One of the most infuriating issues I've encountered in years.

- - - Updated - - -

Woomack said:

I mentioned it in some other posts. Recently Microsoft added some updates which are for some reason causing power saving issues. I could solve it only by system repair. OS was nearly clean and even though I have disabled automatic updates, it still installed them. At first I thought that my GTX1070 ( which had 3-4 days ) is dead but it was working fine in other PC.
Again, I'm not sure if it's the case but if you have clean Win10 then try to reinstall it ( or repair which will make about the same ) without network connection and check if it's happening in offline.
For me it was causing freezing+driver crash in anything that was switching between 2D and low power 3D mode ( even streamins or watching videos in the web browser ). Driver was usually restarting after 1-2 minutes, sometimes faster.

Click to expand...

What motherboard/chipset you on? This is my exact problem. As stated above I traced it to the cumulative update, but Windows keeps installing it as updtaes are not optional with Windows 10 (idiocy!).

http://www.howtogeek.com/223864/how-to-uninstall-and-block-updates-and-drivers-on-windows-10/

Memtesting some new sticks for a while, then will put the HIDE UPDATE theory to the test. Rolled back the cumulative update and system was string but went to shut down, and of course it was re-installed already. if you uninstall an update it should mark that update as "do not install" at the very least. Shameful, MS.

Category 5 said:

http://www.howtogeek.com/223864/how-to-uninstall-and-block-updates-and-drivers-on-windows-10/

Memtesting some new sticks for a while, then will put the HIDE UPDATE theory to the test. Rolled back the cumulative update and system was string but went to shut down, and of course it was re-installed already. if you uninstall an update it should mark that update as "do not install" at the very least. Shameful, MS.

Click to expand...

I totally agree, I can't believe why Microsoft did such a thing?

However my GTX 970 has not froze yet using windows 10.

Category 5 said:

What motherboard/chipset you on? This is my exact problem. As stated above I traced it to the cumulative update, but Windows keeps installing it as updtaes are not optional with Windows 10 (idiocy!).

Click to expand...

I had the same on ASUS RVE/X99 ( 5820K+GTX980 ) and MVE/Z77 ( 3770K+GTX1070 ) later changed to ASRock Z170 OCF + 6700K.
On my brother's pc not all updates could be removed. At the end on both PCs we had to perform system repair and after that it installed updates anyway but it was working since then. After repair I decided to switch to Z170 mobo and I just moved drive without any reinstallations. It's working fine now.

What is annoying is that on all computers I have Win 10 Pro x64 with disabled auto updates. It's still installing updates from time to time.

Well, removing (and blocking with the utility linked above) KB3172985 seems to have done the trick for me (knock on wood). been running for almost 24 hours without a freeze. I did leave heaven running and came back a few hgours later to find the PC off, but I think that may have been related to my overclock and not this specific Windows evil.