My Windows 11 PC occasionally freezes completely while watching YouTube in Opera. The mouse and keyboard stop responding, and I have to hold the power button to shut it down. It doesn't seem to happen while gaming or using other video services, though I'm not completely sure.
Event Viewer and Reliability Monitor only seem to show the unexpected shutdown. I also use uBlock, which has caused some site issues. What should I try before reinstalling Windows?
Start by isolating the browser side. Try YouTube in another browser, then try Opera with extensions disabled. If it still freezes, toggle Opera's hardware acceleration setting and restart the browser before testing again.
Change one thing at a time and give each test a reasonable run, since a random freeze may take a while to return. That won't prove a cause on its own, but it can narrow down whether the pattern follows Opera, an extension, or accelerated video playback.
A frozen mouse doesn't automatically mean hardware has failed. Since video playback can involve the graphics driver, check for a stable NVIDIA driver update. If the trouble started after a driver update, trying an earlier version is another reasonable test.
Also check Windows updates, including any optional driver updates, but avoid changing everything at once or you won't know what helped.
No useful error before the forced shutdown doesn't rule out a hardware or stability issue. If the browser tests don't narrow it down, check CPU and GPU temperatures and run a memory diagnostic. RAM running at its advertised XMP speed can still be worth testing at default settings.
Back up anything important first. If you change BIOS settings, note the current values so you can restore them, and avoid changing several settings together.
l814~wordmask_5:
Good to know that the mouse freezing alone doesn't settle whether it's hardware. I'll try the browser tests before changing BIOS settings.
I wouldn't jump straight to a Windows reinstall. Keep a note of when each freeze happens, what was open, and which test setting was in use. Check Event Viewer and Reliability Monitor around that time for anything before the shutdown, not just the shutdown entry itself.
If nothing shows up, that's still useful information, but it doesn't identify the culprit.
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m418+rdphase_6:
Disabling an extension is a useful test, but a site problem caused by an extension doesn't necessarily explain a complete system freeze.