Laptop locks up randomly; requires hard restart to fix

[ASnow64]

When I'm using my laptop (refurbished, but only a couple months ago and done professionally) it will often (every day, often multiple times per day) completely lock up; the mouse no longer moves, the screen won't respond to touch, the keyboard has no effect and closing the laptop or putting it in tablet mode do absolutely nothing. It bahaves completely normally until then however.

The only fix i've ever found is to do a hard shutdown, after which it can be started and after a brief 'disk checking' notification on the startup screen it boots normally.

This seems to be happening more often, and this coupled with an increased shutdown time make me wonder if this is damaging the hardware.

There are no error messages I've come across, and checking the disk via DISM seems to return no problems.

Any thoughts on how I can fix this infuriating issue would be appreciated!

[Chimney_83]

Greetings @ASnow64, 

Welcome to HP Forums and Thanks for the post. 

I understand that you are facing an issue with your computer freezing, is that right?

Kudos to you for trying to troubleshoot the issue on your own.

Not to worry, I will be glad to assist you. 

Have you run a diagnostics on your computer?

Have you tried to update all the drivers using HP Support Assistant?

Recommend you run HP Support Assistant to make sure all the updates are installed on your computer. Click here to know more about HPSA. 

Once all the drivers are updated, shut down the computer. 

Wait for a minute. 

Turn the computer On and keep tapping F2 repeatedly on startup to enter System diagnostics. 

Once the computer is in system diagnostics, run an extensive test on your computer. Click here for assistance. 

The issue you are facing could be a hardware or a software issue. This test would let us know if all the components are working fine. 

If any of the tests fail, please contact our phone support for the service options available for your computer.

If all the tests pass, restart your computer and try the steps suggested in this interactive guided troubleshooter.

Let me know how it goes. Good Luck.

[ASnow64]

Thanks for responding!

I checked on HPSA, all drivers validated and were confirmed up-to-date.

The extensive test returned a pass overall, with all components passing except the hard drive SMART, Short DST, Optimised DST and long DST checks, which came up as not installed.  I also looked at the specific hard drive test, again returning no result, claiming no hard drive was installed. The system us using an M.2 drive as the only hard drive, if this explains these results.

I then ran a full antivirus scan, which returned no issues. 

Any thoughts on a next step? 

[Chimney_83]

Thanks for the reply and trying all the suggested steps. Did you try all the steps suggested in the interactive guided troubleshooter?

Check if there is any firmware update available for the M.2 SSD, if available install it on the SSD. 

Boot the computer to BIOS, under security, disable legacy boot and enable secure boot. 

Save and Exit BIOS and check. 

If the issue persists, when the computer is booting with the SSD.

Open disk management. (right-click on the Windows button)

Right-click on the C drive and select Properties.

On the General Tab towards the bottom, you have an option to Uncheck "Allow files on this drive to have contents indexed in addition to file properties".

Click on ok after unchecking the indexed option.

Let me know if this helped.