Random freezes on Vyper 15" (TongFang GI5CN5E)

[Qrzysio]

I use Vyper 15" (TongFang GI5CN5E) with Windows 10 Pro, 32 GB RAM 2600 MHz, GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and NVMe SSD drive. The laptop is with me for around one year and since the very beginning, I face random freezes which happen when I type or use the keyboard.

It is not a freeze that stops the system and letters will be typed after a freeze is finished.

For example, I'm writing this sentence: "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Laudantium libero natus obcaecati".
It will become like this: "Lorem ipsum dolor sittttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt sicing elit. Laudantium libero natus obcaecati".

So for the whole freezing moment, the system repeats the same character (not only letters but also happens with Enter/Esc, Shift etc. and mouse buttons!).

What I would like to show: it is not a common freeze we know. When the system slows down or freeze for a while, it does not lose any typed characters but the system will type all the characters properly after a freeze is finished. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen in my case.

It doesn't matter which program I use (web browser, notepad, Windows prompts or advanced text editor) - freezes happen everywhere and always randomly/unexpectedly.

I have tried a few keyboards and mouses and installed the system 3 times. Random freezes happen with or without any additional software installed. I've been looking for a solution and I have tried tons of tips, tricks and fixes but nothing helped me.

I have found another person which uses the same laptop model (also bought via PC Specialist) and who complains about freezes too. So I think it might be a hardware problem.

Any help or advice will be very appreciated. Please help!

 

[SpyderTracks]

I use Vyper 15" (TongFang GI5CN5E) with Windows 10 Pro, 32 GB RAM 2600 MHz, GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and NVMe SSD drive. The laptop is with me for around one year and since the very beginning, I face random freezes which happen when I type or use the keyboard.

It is not a freeze that stops the system and letters will be typed after a freeze is finished.

For example, I'm writing this sentence: "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit. Laudantium libero natus obcaecati".
It will become like this: "Lorem ipsum dolor sittttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt sicing elit. Laudantium libero natus obcaecati".

So for the whole freezing moment, the system repeats the same character (not only letters but also happens with Enter/Esc, Shift etc. and mouse buttons!).

What I would like to show: it is not a common freeze we know. When the system slows down or freeze for a while, it does not lose any typed characters but the system will type all the characters properly after a freeze is finished. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen in my case.

It doesn't matter which program I use (web browser, notepad, Windows prompts or advanced text editor) - freezes happen everywhere and always randomly/unexpectedly.

I have tried a few keyboards and mouses and installed the system 3 times. Random freezes happen with or without any additional software installed. I've been looking for a solution and I have tried tons of tips, tricks and fixes but nothing helped me.

I have found another person which uses the same laptop model (also bought via PC Specialist) and who complains about freezes too. So I think it might be a hardware problem.

Any help or advice will be very appreciated. Please help!

You need to raise this with PCSpecialist, I’m not sure why you’ve waited so long?

 

[ubuysa]

When you reinstalled, was it a clean install from bootable media and where did you get the drivers from?

Sent using Tapatalk

 

[Qrzysio]

Of course, it was super clean, and I have tried drivers downloaded from PC Specialist website. When freezes came, I have also tried different drivers from manufacturers websites. Nothing has helped.

 

[ubuysa]

Of course, it was super clean, and I have tried drivers downloaded from PC Specialist website. When freezes came, I have also tried different drivers from manufacturers websites. Nothing has helped.

To be absolutely certain that it's not a software issue I would suggest you do another clean install (from bootable media) creating a new partition structure and allowing Windows Update to install all drivers and updates. If you get these issues in that state then it is almost certainly a hardware problem and then you'd best call PCS.

 

[Qrzysio]

I will try one more time. Thanks.

 

[ubuysa]

I will try one more time. Thanks.

Be sure to make bootable media with the latest (1909) version on, get it from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10.

Unplug all external devices except the primary monitor, keyboard and mouse.

Boot the installation media you just created and choose a Custom Install.

Delete all four UEFI partitions on your system drive (Reserved, System, Recovery and Windows) - if you have multiple Recovery partitions (it happens) delete them all. Select the 'unallocated space' that results and click the Next button, the installer will create the appropriate partition structure and install Windows.

Once Windows is installed and you've gone through the initial setup screens keep running Windows Update repeatedly until no more updates are found (rebooting when asked).

Then test to see whether your issues still exist

I realise you probably already know all that but it's wise to be certain that you don't have a software issue before suspecting hardware and involving PCS. It would be awful to be without it for a couple of weeks only to find that all PCS needed to do was reinstall Windows.....

 

[Qrzysio]

Hello again,

I have freshly installed Windows 10 Pro following your advice. Freezes still happen. PC Specialist support asked me for the Memtest result. After 6+ hours of testing, there were no errors at all. They suspect a hardware problem and told me to send the laptop back.

 

[ubuysa]

Hello again,

I have freshly installed Windows 10 Pro following your advice. Freezes still happen. PC Specialist support asked me for the Memtest result. After 6+ hours of testing, there were no errors at all. They suspect a hardware problem and told me to send the laptop back.

I think that's best. You've done all the troubleshooting you can, and done it well too. [emoji3]

Let us know what they find...

Sent using Tapatalk

 

[Qrzysio]

I've sent the laptop to PCs with freshly installed Windows 10 Pro, after making sure freezes still happen. After three weeks, I have got this message:

We have been unable to replicate the fault you are experiencing. We have witnessed no crashing when your system is writing text. Could you let us know any further information that will help us replicate the fault?

 

[Scott]

Explain how long you would expect them to have to type and how long the system should be on to replicate the fault.

They will have simply turned it on, opened up notepad and did a little typing. If it takes an hour or if it's sporadic, they will need to know this.

 

[ubuysa]

Explain how long you would expect them to have to type and how long the system should be on to replicate the fault.

They will have simply turned it on, opened up notepad and did a little typing. If it takes an hour or if it's sporadic, they will need to know this.

Actually you have no idea what they have done and I very much doubt they've just 'typed a few characters' as you suggest. I realise you say it happens randomly but I suggest you phone PCS and give them more instructions on how to reproduce the problem. You need to bear in mind that they can't have someone sitting there typing randomly into random applications for an hour or more hoping to replicate it. You need to give them as much information as you possibly can to help them reproduce it because with the best will in the world they cannot fix a problem which they cannot replicate.

 

[Scott]

Actually you have no idea what they have done and I very much doubt they've just 'typed a few characters' as you suggest.

My cynical mind expects that to be what they will have done. Without any expected timeline presented to the tester they will most likely do just that. Possibly with a few different apps, rather than just notepad. But I very much doubt they have spent much time on it with such little information.

 

[Qrzysio]

It might be quite tricky to experience freezes, indeed. I'm a PHP dev, and my work is to write.
Typing random characters may not be a good test when freezes are sporadic.

I cannot ask the support to let to work on my laptop someone, who is a writer or programmer, but it would be good to give it to a person for a day of regular work.

This is how I have described the problem in RMA:

To replicate the problem need to write some text for quite some time using any text editor. Freezes happen randomly. Sometimes a few minutes after we on the laptop, sometimes after quite a long time of use. Also, the mouse cursor is freeze. I'm PHP Developer so every day I write quite a lot of text and freezes happen quite often during the day.

Anyway, I doubt they will reproduce the fault.
When I get my laptop back, I plan to put a videocamera behind my desk and to record the screen and the keyboard during work.
Hope this will prove the fault or (hopefully) freezes will never happen again.

 

[Oussebon]

When I get my laptop back, I plan to put a videocamera behind my desk and to record the screen and the keyboard during work.

A very good idea

 

[ubuysa]

It might be quite tricky to experience freezes, indeed. I'm a PHP dev, and my work is to write.
Typing random characters may not be a good test when freezes are sporadic.

I cannot ask the support to let to work on my laptop someone, who is a writer or programmer, but it would be good to give it to a person for a day of regular work.

This is how I have described the problem in RMA:

To replicate the problem need to write some text for quite some time using any text editor. Freezes happen randomly. Sometimes a few minutes after we on the laptop, sometimes after quite a long time of use. Also, the mouse cursor is freeze. I'm PHP Developer so every day I write quite a lot of text and freezes happen quite often during the day.

Anyway, I doubt they will reproduce the fault.
When I get my laptop back, I plan to put a videocamera behind my desk and to record the screen and the keyboard during work.
Hope this will prove the fault or (hopefully) freezes will never happen again.

In your description above there's not a lot for PCS to go on, your description says things like 'quite a long time' and 'quite some time' but it really doesn't provide anything helpful for the technician. Is 'quite some time' 10 minutes, an hour, 6 hours, or a whole day, for example? I appreciate that it appears random to you but if that problem description came to me I wouldn't have any kind of clue on where to start looking....

Does it matter whether other apps are open at the same time? Are there specific apps that you have open that cause freezing more often than others? Are there particular times of the day when it freezes? Keeping a diary of the freezes and noting what's running and what else is going on at the time might well reveal patterns that you can't see. Just providing PCS of a diary of several freezing events detailing what's running, what you were doing at the time, the time of day, whether you notice other things running (lights are on/off, a heater is running, the washing machine is on, etc. etc.) will help. Include everything that you can possibly think of, even if 99% of that information is just noise the 1% that's common to all freezes might be the clue that leads the technician to the solution. You might even do some initial analysis of your own on the diary data to see whether you can isolate the 1% that's common. The more information you can provide and the tighter you can tie down how and when the freezing happens the greater the likelihood that PCS can reproduce it on the bench.

Expecting PCS to dedicate one person for a whole day just typing random stuff into an app on your laptop is unrealistic. Apart from the cost of one person doing nothing else useful for an entire day, it's going to be mind-numbingly boring for the person involved. Would you want to do that all day with no other information to go on?

The video camera idea is a good one but to be useful it needs to be backed up with the full details of what's running on your laptop at that time as well as any other information like temperatures for example, the length of time the laptop has been on, etc. It's in your own interest to try and find a pattern, a set of circumstances that make freezing more likely - or even a set of circumstances when it doesn't freeze. Whilst I realise that's going to be time consuming and probably detract from the work you want to do it's going to make it much more likely that PCS are able to reproduce the fault.

 

[Qrzysio]

You are right. I thought of giving more details to PCs. After the last clean Windows installation freezes have happened shortly, after I on the laptop. Shortly means up to ten minutes, and I have been using just a simple Windows Notepad or Wordpad. I assumed this should not be a problem for technicians to experience faults.

I do understand giving the laptop to someone for a day of work is unrealistic. I wanted to emphasise typing the random characters might not be a good idea compared to writing some regular text like replying for an email. Location does not matter as I have tested faults in different places and using two different adapters (I bought two with my laptop).

Many thanks for your message. I will try to extend my description and to provide more information to PCs.

 

[Qrzysio]

It's been a while since my last post, and I would like to share with you guys some more info.

Since PC Specialist did not help at all, I've tried to look for the freezes reason on my own. I googled that Samsung NVMe disk might causes freezes. So I switched to a different SSD drive and that helped! After a few weeks of testing, I added another NVMe (different brand). The laptop worked with no freezes but was a bit slow.

Later on, I put back the Samsung NVMe drive and started to use both NVMe drives + one SSD + one HDD (via USB). Everything was ok.

So I decided to give one more chance to Samsung, and I've moved the OS to this drive back. The beginning was good, but day by day, I noticed more and more freezes. It turns out the Samsung NVMe gets hot, and freezes appear when the drive reaches the temperature of 60-62 C. So one of the issues might be the temperature.

The question is if switching to another NVMe will permanently solve the problem or its laptop cooling issue. I'm planning to use two NVMe drives for good. They are placed inside just one next to another, so I'm afraid laptop cooling may not be efficient. I also use a 4K monitor screen and a few USB peripherals.

Any ideas of good NVMe 1TB drive?

 

[SpyderTracks]

There's a good article here:

Best M.2 SSDs for gaming in 2024: my top picks for blazing fast storage

Our choices for the best NVMe M.2 SSDs give you blisteringly fast load times.

www.pcgamer.com

It could well be just that drive that's not cooling properly rather than an issue with the Samsung as a whole. Generally, they're the go to for best performance all round.

 

[Scott]

Does the drive have the cooling plate on it?

It's worth raising the case with PCS as it may be a faulty NVME rather than a brand issue, in fact that's far more than likely.