Windows 11: Intermittent Full System Freezes, “system” High Disk Writes, Wpr Won’t Stop Traces

Hi everyone, hoping to get some help for a recent issue over the past week or two with my Win 11 desktop PC which I built 3 years ago using new parts (except the GPU and PSU). I've been doing some basic troubleshooting such as uninstalling recently updated apps and clearing up 2TB (around 40% of my NVME SSD OS disk) and running disk defragmenter. Also been using task manager and resource monitor to figure out what is happening. Been using copilot for basic troubleshooting beyond the above, and have used it for writing the following (apologies if that is frowned upon here, but thought it could synthesise all the different issues I've been throwing at it):

Summary:

I’m experiencing intermittent full‑system freezes on Windows 11 with the following symptoms:

• Entire UI freezes (mouse, keyboard, Chrome, YouTube, Explorer, Resource Monitor).
  
  
• Disk activity in Resource Monitor drops to 0 during the freeze.
  
  
• Sometimes 2–3 monitors go black for 20–30 seconds, then return.
  
  
• After recovery, all buffered input appears at once and disk activity spikes.
  
  
• YouTube videos often remain black until refreshed.
  
  
• Event Viewer shows no errors or warnings during the freeze window.
  
  
• WPR cannot stop traces (stuck at 0%), and wpr -cancel reports a duplicate control library instance.
  

This feels like a kernel‑level stall involving storage and/or GPU, but I can’t capture a trace because WPR gets stuck. I’ve included full system details, symptoms, and everything I’ve tried below.

Detail:

System details:

• Windows 11 Pro, build 22631.5189
  
  
• Multiple monitors (3‑screen setup)
  
  
• Main usage: Chrome/YouTube, general desktop work, PowerToys/FancyZones, etc.
  
  
• Storage: NVMe SSD as OS drive (Crucial/Samsung etc. – can add exact model if needed)
  
  
• GPU: [add exact model here]
  
  
• RAM: [capacity + speed]
  
  
• PSU / motherboard: [models if you have them]
  

Symptoms:

• System will randomly hang for long periods:
  
  • Mouse/keyboard input stops showing on screen (typed characters appear all at once after the freeze).
    
    
  • Chrome/YouTube video freezes, often as a black screen.
    
    
  • Resource Monitor’s Disk graph drops to 0 and sometimes freezes completely.
    
    
  • Sometimes my 2nd and 3rd monitors go black for ~20–30 seconds, then come back.
    
• After the freeze:
  
  • Everything “catches up” suddenly.
    
    
  • Disk activity shows big spikes, often with System (PID 4) at the top for write B/sec.
    
    
  • YouTube tab that was playing often stays black and needs a refresh.
    

What I’ve already checked:

• Event Viewer:
  
  • No errors or warnings at the exact freeze times.
    
    
  • Only unrelated events (e.g. 10016 DCOM, 1796, 1012) around earlier times.
    
• Resource Monitor:
  
  • During normal use, WPR collectors + normal processes show expected disk activity.
    
    
  • Around freezes, System shows high write B/sec and the graph shows multi‑colour spikes, then drops to 0.
    
• Windows Performance Recorder (WPR):
  
  • WPR is installed and runs from C:\Windows\System32\wpr.exe.
    
    
  • I’ve tried:
    
    • wpr -start generalprofile -filemode -recordtempto %TEMP%
      
      
    • Then wpr -stop freeze_trace.etl after a freeze.
      
  • Problem: wpr -stop often gets stuck at 0% and never completes.
    
    
  • wpr -cancel from another admin CMD returns:
    
    • “Duplicate instance of Windows Performance Recorder Control library is running. Error code: 0xc5580601”
      
  • logman stop "NT Kernel Logger" -ets reports:
    
    • “Data Collector Set was not found.”
      
  • So WPR’s control library seems to be in a weird state, but the kernel logger isn’t actually running.
    

Pattern I’m seeing:

• Freeze coincides with:
  
  • Disk graph dropping to 0.
    
    
  • UI + input + Resource Monitor freezing.
    
    
  • Sometimes multi‑monitor blackout (2–3 screens) for ~20–30 seconds.
    
• Recovery coincides with:
  
  • Disk reads/writes spiking again.
    
    
  • All buffered input appearing.
    
    
  • YouTube tab remaining black (as if GPU context died).
    

This feels like a kernel‑level stall involving storage and possibly GPU/DWM, but I’m missing the hard evidence because WPR won’t give me a clean ETL and Event Viewer is silent during the actual freeze.

What I’m looking for:

• Suggestions on:
  
  • How to fully reset WPR / ETW tracing on Windows 11 when wpr -status reports duplicate control library instances.
    
    
  • A minimal WPR or other trace configuration that is known to stop cleanly on systems with storage stalls.
    
    
  • Specific NVMe / GPU / chipset driver or firmware issues that could cause:
    
    • Full UI freeze
      
      
    • Multi‑monitor blackout
      
      
    • Silent recovery with no Event Viewer errors
      
      
    • “System” showing high disk writes around the event
      
• Any recommended next steps:
  
  • BIOS/UEFI settings to check (PCIe power management, ASPM, NVMe settings).
    
    
  • Known problematic driver versions for [my GPU] or [my NVMe model].
    
    
  • Whether this matches any known Windows 11 23H2/24H2 freeze patterns.
    

Happy to provide:

• Full hardware list (Speccy, HWiNFO, etc.).
  
  
• Screenshots of Resource Monitor around the freeze.
  
  
• Any ETL trace I can eventually coax out of WPR.
  

Thanks in advance for any structured troubleshooting path or known‑issue pointers.

 

Update: WPR Trace Captured (Dropped 78M Events)

Appreciate the above is a bit of a read, so I thought I'd condense it as much as possible below: hoping to get some help for a recent issue over the past week or two with my Win 11 desktop PC which I built 3 years ago using new parts (except the GPU and PSU).

I first noticed issues when at the start of last week I signed into one of my client's onedrive and sync'd a sharepoint folder. Everytime I tried to navigate through the locally sync'd folder or open a file, the file explorer would get stuck for a while (I'd guess up to 30 seconds). I also signed into ms edge with 2 new profiles, for the client above and for another client. I also signed into MS Teams for the first client.

Then over the course of the 2 weeks, I started noticing my excel (my own personal MS office) would hang while I was trying to click across to cells to enter information (mainly time or activity).

As time has progressed, the computer has been getting worse. Youtube was hanging for a while when I would try to open videos, but then they would run after a while, and they would be running at very low quality.. Lately, I've been seeing videos take around an hour to load while the computer finishes its tantrum. Other sites are also being impacted.

I've been doing some basic troubleshooting such as:

-uninstalling apps (only the ones that have recently updated, including MS Teams, Onedrive, copilot, vdi optimizer for MS teams, teams office plugin),

-clearing up 2TB (around 40% of my NVME SSD OS disk) and running disk defragmenter.

-using task manager and resource monitor to figure out what is happening.

-tried turning off adblockplus and norton internet security and tailscale, in case they're interfering.

I've been working with Copilot over the past few days when the issue became more problematic, but very skeptical of what it's telling me - really need to get to the root cause.