I've been dealing with a frustrating issue on my Windows 11 laptop for the past few days. It all started when I came home one evening and found that my laptop didn't shut down as expected. Since then, the Task Manager has been acting up - sometimes it opens fine, but other times it completely freezes, shows no icons, or takes forever to load performance graphs. During these moments, shutting down or restarting can hang forever on the "Shutting down" or "Restarting" screens. I've noticed that games like Minecraft won't start either when Task Manager is acting up.
It's really inconsistent; everything can work well right after a reboot, but then it stops functioning correctly later on. Even third-party task manager applications freeze during these times. I've done some troubleshooting, running various scans with Windows Defender and Malwarebytes, which came back clean. I've also removed any third-party overlays and video editing software just to rule those out. Another odd observation is that my BIOS load time has increased a bit, going from 7-8 seconds to about 9.5 seconds. I'd really prefer not to reinstall Windows or create a new user profile since I have important files on this laptop. Has anyone experienced something like this before, or can you suggest what might be causing these intermittent Task Manager and shutdown issues?
3 Answers
Before anything drastic, maybe check the event logs for errors related to your Task Manager or shutdown issues. You can access this via the Event Viewer (just search for it in the Windows search box). Sometimes, you can find clues there that point to what's going wrong with your system.
You know, I've got to suggest this - if you're seriously stuck and nothing else works, consider switching to Linux. It's a refreshing change and a lot of people find it to be more stable. Of course, I know you said your mom uses this laptop too, so that might not be an option right now.
I wish I could, but yeah, my mom's kind of reliant on this laptop for her stuff. I'll keep it in mind for the future!
It sounds like there could be a software conflict or possibly some corruption in your system files since you've already run various scans and they're clean. Have you tried booting your laptop in Safe Mode to see if Task Manager behaves differently there? That might help isolate the issue. Also, consider checking if there are any updates pending for Windows or your device drivers, especially related to the display and chipset.
I've not tried Safe Mode yet, but I'm definitely going to give that a shot. Thanks for the tip!
Great idea! I'll look into the Event Viewer and see if I can spot anything unusual. Thanks!