HP Spectre x360 15-bl112dx Random Freezing

[GilsOtherHalf]

Okay, so I've had this laptop for well over a month now. Most of the time, I haven't been able to enjoy it at all.  Since day one of getting it from Best Buy, it has been freezing and locking up sporadically, with no possible fix in sight. I've searched far and wide across the internet and have not had any luck, even with others having the same issue, stating it could be a "WiFi Card power saving" issue. I attempted that fix, and had no luck. I even went so far as to shipping the laptop out of my hands to an HP repair center, waited a week, and it came back with the same defect it had. The only difference was that the technician swapped the SSD. 

This freeizng happens completely at random, and will freeze once, then a few more times in the following seconds, before locking up entirely and forcing me to either close the laptop lid to put the computer into sleep mode (S4), or force shut it down. I've attempted all BIOS updates, Windows updates, and driver updates, as well as installing drivers directly from Intel. No luck still. I have even attempted to preform a fresh installation of Windows from a USB drive, which still did not resolve the random freezing issue.

I haven't been able to diagnose if this is on battery power only, or if it is on DC as well; but what makes a laptop if it's bound to a desk all the time by a cable to stop freezing? I will attempt to keep researching it but considering it hasn't frozen since I started typing out this ticket, I feel like it just knows when I want to try and get it fixed at times, lol!

Anyways. Is there anyone who can assist me in fixing this issue? It has been driving me mad. I spent a solid $1,500 on this workhorse of a laptop for music production, and yet it isn't anything better than an expensive paperweight at times!

[jorkki]

If it was my PC, I would send it back to HP to be sorted out properly as it is so new and all..

Have you run the diagnostics extensively? (from the Start Menu when you hit Esc while booting).

E.g. a memory error could cause something like that. You could handle the computer a bit during the tests too to maybe reveal if there is a bad connection somewhere etc.

Of course it can be software as well but I see you have tried a lot of different things already. Probably also starting from the cleanboot with minimal drivers:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/929135/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows

[GilsOtherHalf]

I will attempt to run it through extensive tests in safe mode with networking, as I'm under the impression it is a driver issue rather than something hardware related, but I will keep working with it as best as I can. The freezing can be a real pain in the rear sometimes, becuase like right now, it hasn't frozen on me since I put this post in. it's completely random. I've even scrubbed through the event viewer in hopes for some sort of answer there, perhaps a driver or service failing to initialize... The functionality of the laptop is perfect, minus the freezing... Which makes it all that much harder to root cause the issue.

[CherylG]

@GilsOtherHalf

 The testing suggested by @jorkki is before windows boots which is helpful to identify if it is hardware only causing it.

Immediately after powering on start tapping the Esc key. This will open a menu where F2 System Diagnostics is an option. Tap F2 key and run the tests.

[GilsOtherHalf]

So I ran the extesive test for well over 8 hours, ran roughly 5 or 6 iterations with no failues on the devices. Hardware seems okay according to the system. Windows had an update, which installed; or so I'm under the impression of.. I will continue to update thread with any sort of findings I come up with.

It should be noted that I did re-flash the BIOS F.34 in an attempt that it may be something corrupted with the handoff from the BIOS to UEFI. Will continue to update over the course of a few days as I work, but will definitely use this to try and help better track issues I have regarding the freezing.

[GilsOtherHalf]

Windows 10 released a March 13th update that was just downloaded and installed on my laptop. Will do further testing tonight while on the road.. No freezing yet. The Windows update doesn't seem to have anything that would fix the issue on the laptop... I will continue testing.

I have been using the laptop on and off DC power as well, seeing if that may still cause the freezing or not. 

[GilsOtherHalf]

Unfortunately, the laptop is still freezing, even running off of DC power. I have no root cause for the issue as all drivers are updated. If anyone has any suggestions of a possible fix before I send this back to HP, please let me know.

[jorkki]

You could take a look into the Windows log with the Event Viewer.

WinKey+R type eventvwr and hit Enter to start.

Expand the Error class and double click on the event IDs that match the time of the crash for more information Maybe there is a pattern that repeats and leads somewhere.

Ignore the DistributedCOM events as it something that happens for everyone.

Come back with interesting Event IDs and messages to see if the community has any suggestions for action.

[GilsOtherHalf]

Diving into that now, thank you!

[GilsOtherHalf]

I just had a freeze a few minutes ago.. The only thing I'm seeing from an Error standpoint in the event viewer is 3 errors seeming to come from the Bonjour service. I have promptly uninstalled the service as I have not used Apple at all with this laptop, let alone have an Apple phone haha. I will push more updates as I see what is going on, using the event viewer to track any issues.

Log Name:      Application
Source:        Bonjour Service
Date:          3/25/2018 14:07:41
Event ID:      100
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      Anubis
Description:
Task Scheduling Error: m->NextScheduledEvent 1015
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Bonjour Service" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="0">100</EventID>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2018-03-25T19:07:41.510910900Z" />
    <EventRecordID>3985</EventRecordID>
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>Anubis</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data>Task Scheduling Error: m-&gt;NextScheduledEvent 1015</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

Log Name:      Application
Source:        Bonjour Service
Date:          3/25/2018 14:07:41
Event ID:      100
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      Anubis
Description:
Task Scheduling Error: m->NextScheduledSPRetry 1015
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Bonjour Service" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="0">100</EventID>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2018-03-25T19:07:41.510910900Z" />
    <EventRecordID>3986</EventRecordID>
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>Anubis</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data>Task Scheduling Error: m-&gt;NextScheduledSPRetry 1015</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

Log Name:      Application
Source:        Bonjour Service
Date:          3/25/2018 14:07:41
Event ID:      100
Task Category: None
Level:         Error
Keywords:      Classic
User:          N/A
Computer:      Anubis
Description:
Task Scheduling Error: Continuously busy for more than a second
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Bonjour Service" />
    <EventID Qualifiers="0">100</EventID>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>0</Task>
    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2018-03-25T19:07:41.510410200Z" />
    <EventRecordID>3984</EventRecordID>
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>Anubis</Computer>
    <Security />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data>Task Scheduling Error: Continuously busy for more than a second</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>