I was editing the tags on a large batch of music files with MP3Tag. When I opened the folder containing them, my ASUS TUF Gaming A15 FA507NVR suddenly became extremely slow and eventually showed a black screen, forcing me to shut it down. After rebooting, Windows reported that I had been signed out of its cloud service, and the system has remained near 99% CPU usage.
I tried reinstalling Windows both through the built-in recovery options and from a USB installer created with Media Creation Tool, but the computer crashes during normal Windows use and sometimes during setup. The blue-screen errors include KERNEL_AUTO_BOOST_INVALID_LOCK_RELEASE and KERNEL_APC_PENDING_DURING_EXIT.
The laptop has an AMD Ryzen 7 7435HS processor and a mobile RTX 4060. It has also had a long-running startup problem: when the laptop is warm it usually boots, but at room temperature it may take several crashes before starting. What hardware or software issue could cause this, and what should I test or replace first?
3 Answers
First identify what is actually using the CPU. If Windows can stay running, open Task Manager, sort by CPU usage, and check whether the load comes from a normal application, a driver-related process, or System Interrupts. Try Safe Mode as well. If the usage drops in Safe Mode, a driver or startup service may be involved; if it remains high or the machine crashes there too, hardware becomes much more likely. Check temperatures and fan operation, but overheating alone would not explain repeated crashes during a clean installer.
Since the crashes also happen from a USB Windows installer, this is unlikely to be caused only by the existing Windows installation or MP3Tag. The long-standing difference between warm and cold starts is especially concerning for hardware. Test the RAM with a bootable memory diagnostic, check the SSD health, and run the laptop’s built-in hardware diagnostics. If possible, test with one memory module at a time and disconnect any secondary drive. A clean installation will not fix failing RAM, storage, or a motherboard power problem.
Those kernel errors are generic symptoms rather than a diagnosis. Make sure the laptop is completely powered off before testing, then run an overnight memory test and the SSD manufacturer’s diagnostic if available. Also inspect BIOS settings and load BIOS defaults, but do not flash firmware while the system is unstable. Given the year-long cold-boot issue and failures outside Windows, the practical next step may be professional board-level service or warranty repair, especially if RAM and SSD tests are normal.
The fact that setup itself crashes is an important clue. I would stop repeatedly reinstalling Windows until the memory and drive tests pass, because failed installations can simply be symptoms of the underlying hardware fault.