new Z2 G9 system, windows 11 freezes throughout the day

[wthe]

I am not using this for heavy work. I am mostly on a citrix session to work. The system freezes for a few seconds all day. It's not citrix, I have disabled all anti virus, disabled power savings (even in bios). I have full updates done, done all sorts of tests on the system, even a mem test. Not sure what driver or software could be doing this but it's getting annoying especially given its a new machine. I did add NVIDIA Quadro T1000 4GB 4mDP Graphics
[20X22AA] to my system and I am about to try the on board graphics and start removing devices. There is nothing in event logs. Anyone familiar with this? 

[DGroves]

pauses/freezing when using a remote connection is almost always due to network related issues and not the system/OS you are using

troubleshooting network issues can be time consuming,...... as the problem could be in your router, your network providers hardware/configuration your internal network wiring your remote sites configuration

there are tools to monitor your network connection, they range from easy/minimal info to advanced detailed info

https://turbofuture.com/computers/Use-Netstat-to-check-your-Windows-PC-network-traffic

Network Performance Monitoring (NPM) tools can utilize different types of telemetry, including:

1. Device metrics, such as SNMP, WMI, CLI, API, logs, synthetic tests.
2. Network flow data, such as NetFlow, jFlow, IPFIX, etc.
3. Packet data. Everything you do on a network requires packets; it carries data across the network.

 Obkio Network Performance Monitoring software is a high end package

[wthe]

Can't be a network issue because I can have music or youtube streaming on on a different monitor and the audio and video stutters, mouse freezes up, machine is unresponsive for a few seconds. I spent time disconnecting periphials and used basic connected mouse and a brand new usb keyboard and the issue stopped. I have reduced it to being the logitec mouse, probably the usb driver for their dongles. When I connect everything up except that I don't get the freezing. 

[DGroves]

again, your issues are most likely network related..................................both examples you gave RE: music streaming and youtube access, xfer data from the remote site to your site via the network/internet

[wthe]

A network issue won't cause the mouse pointer to be Unresponsive. Also youtube and Spotify buffers, so a glitch in the network will result in audio or video to stopping, which isn't what I am seeing. The system becomes totally unresponsive, mouse stops, any audio or video playing at the time sounds like it's stuck with a buzzing sound. A few seconds later the system unfreezes and everything is OK. In all my 25 years in the IT business, I have never seen a network issue cause this type of behaviour. 

[DGroves]

well since i'm only a person with 15+ years in the field, and you are obviously much more skilled than i am based on your posted statements and you feel my observations are way off base i'll leave the resolution of your issue to you

[Gwandoya]

I was having the same issue on a brand new HP Z2 G9 purchased April 2023. Specifically, all activity would freeze for about 3 seconds exactly every 15 minutes. As you indicated, user input and video would freeze and audio would buzz. Then everything resumed like normal until another 15 minutes had passed. I set a stopwatch and could predict it to the second.

I am using a ton of different software, so it was a pain to track down the cause. I finally discovered that uninstalling all the HP software installed by default and disabling the following Services fixed the issue:

• HP Analytics service
• HP App Helper HSA Service
• HP Diagnostics HSA Service
• HP DSU LAN/WLAN/WWAN Switching Service
• HP DSU Service
• HP Network HSA Service
• HP Services Scan
• HP SFU Service
• HP System Info HSA Service

Now, it's probably only one of these Services causing the issue, but I ain't got the patience to sit here and disable them one by one and wait 15 minutes each time. I also haven't noticed any ill effects from disabling these.

This issue was bugging me for months, so I hope this solution helps someone.

[LarsHansenED]

I can confirm I + a colleague are likely having the same issues with stuttering. 

I can also add that during this often you notice while typing that everything freezes and unlike other scenarios the keyboard buffer did not save what we were typing. This is also uncommon.

The PCs are both HP Z2 Tower G9 workstations using 13th Gen Core i9-13900K with 64GB of memory. The KBC Version is 12.02.06 with bios HP U50 Ver. 02.01.05 15/03/2023.

Both PCs are running Windows 11 Enterprise version 10.0.22621 so build 22621.

The installs are fresh installs from Microsoft ISO and drivers are added via HPs Support Assistant tool.

I am an IT Professional with 30 years of experience. So I am not new to troubleshooting or analyzing hard- and software issues.

It is limited how much time I have been able to dedicate to this and I do not feel like being without this PC since there is a lot of work pressure right now and a reboot will fix the issue for a while. It then becomes progressively worse over time. On my personal AMD system I do not have such issues with Windows 11.

My colleague has the exact same model of machine, running the same version of Windows and also has these issues. While they happen we mostly have a low CPU load, no indication of process or disk queues and operate with over 50% of our memory free (in my case over 30GB free memory). Also things happen at random it seems though often triggering UAC elevation will trigger a stuttering mouse or running Exchange Online in non cached mode is horrendous I am not sure those events are associated with these other GUI stutters which block user input completely. Again we did not have these issues on our old Windows 10 machines (i7 8700K with 32GB of RAM).

My assessment is that this is due to either a CPU or firmware bug perhaps in the form of drivers. It could be a hardware issue with the mainboard however we have some similar machines running Windows 10 which do not have these problems. Potentially it could also be something with Windows 11 but then it would affect a lot of people and I do believe there would be a fix by now deployed over Windows Update.

[wthe]

Everyone sorted on this issue. Given HP have been useless in their engagement 

[LarsHansenED]

I am trying disabling all the HP services to see what it will do. There were 9 services whose purpose is not that transparent (named after 3 letter acronyms it seems).