My PC started freezing at random, out of nowhere, with no trigger. A full clean install of Windows didn't fix it. Worse: almost every fix I tried seemed to work for a few days... and then the problem came back. After weeks of ruling out suspects (RAM, disk, drivers, Explorer, two keyboards, two mouses, USB ports, BIOS, background software), I found out the middle-click switch on my Logitech G502 was firing phantom clicks on its own. Each phantom click triggered auto-scroll, which captures the mouse for the foreground window... every other window went "dead," looking exactly like a system freeze. Fix: disabled the middle button in the mouse's onboard profile.

Consider this a guide for everyone out there chasing a 'random freezing' problem, ruling out suspect after suspect and finding nothing, who, like me, never once thought to suspect the mouse. I used IA to help me describe everything.

How it started:

One day the PC simply began "freezing" at random. No new hardware, no new software, no update I could tie it to, nothing had changed. It would lock up out of nowhere, sometimes for a few seconds, sometimes longer, and then go back to normal as if nothing had happened. No pattern: it could happen twice in an hour, or not at all for days.

My first assumption was the usual one: "Windows is broken somehow". So I went nuclear early: a full clean install. Wiped the drive, reinstalled everything from scratch.

The problem survived the clean install. In hindsight, that was the loudest clue in the whole case so far.

The symptoms, in detail.

If you're searching for something similar, here's the exact fingerprint. During a "freeze":

• The cursor moved normally, but clicks did nothing;
• Ctrl+Alt+Del responded instantly, and coming back from it, everything returned to normal;
• Alt+Tab worked during the "freeze";
• The scroll wheel worked;
• Only the foreground program responded, everything else was dead, even when I brought it to the front with Alt+Tab;
• And the weirdest part: sometimes the auto-scroll cursor (the middle-click one) appeared without me clicking anything.

The pattern that fooled me 3 times.

This is the part I most want people to find, because it's what kept me chasing the wrong suspects for weeks. Almost every fix I tried appeared to work:

• Moved the mouse to a different USB port → quiet for days → relapse;
• Cleaned the keyboard and the Logitech G502 with isopropyl alcohol → quiet for days → relapse;
• Replaced the entire keyboard → quiet for ~3 days → relapse.

Everything that got ruled out (in order, so you can appreciate the size of this rabbit hole).

1. Full clean install of Windows → problem persisted;
2. RAM in Task Manager → low usage, all normal;
3. Disk (CrystalDiskInfo) → clean SMART;
4. CPU/GPU temps → fine;
5. Windows Memory Diagnostic → no errors;
6. Hung Explorer? → Restarting explorer.exe during a freeze changed nothing;
7. Moved the mouse to another USB port → "fixed it" for a few days... then it came back;
8. Replaced the ENTIRE mouse → "fixed it" for a moment... then it came back (or I thought so?!);
9. Disabled USB selective suspend + removed ghost devices in Device Manager → nothing;
10. Stuck modifier key? (phantom Ctrl/Alt/Shift) → cleaned the keyboard with isopropyl alcohol → "fixed it" for days... then it came back;
11. Replaced the ENTIRE keyboard → "fixed it" for 3 days... then it came back;
12. XMP → this one deserves its own chapter: I enabled the 5600 profile and got a blue screen. Turns out the i7-12700KF (12th gen) officially supports only DDR5-4800 on the memory controller. Disabled it, BSODs gone (but the "freezes" weren't);
13. Gigabyte's DDR5 Auto Booster → it was on "Auto," silently overclocking my RAM to 5000 without my knowledge. Disabled it → nothing;
14. Updated BIOS and chipset drivers → nothing;
15. Fury CTRL (RAM RGB software) → uninstalled → nothing;
16. Clean boot (msconfig) → problem CONTINUED even in a clean boot;
17. Filter drivers in the input stack (reg query on the keyboard/mouse classes) → clean, only kbdclass and mouclass;
18. Logitech G Hub → uninstalled → problem persisted.

Eighteen suspects. Eighteen acquittals.

The turning point.

Three clues closed the net:

Clue 1: during one "freeze," the browser accepted clicks but the Start menu didn't. Later, the reverse. Meaning: the system was NEVER frozen, something was stealing the clicks.

Clue 2: Alt+Tab brought another window to the front, but it stayed dead to clicks. That's the signature of stuck mouse capture: when a window captures the mouse, ALL clicks go to it, no matter what's in front. Keyboard focus and mouse capture are independent things in Windows. And the Ctrl+Alt+Del secure desktop forcibly cancels the capture — which is why it "unfroze" everything.

Clue 3: the auto-scroll cursor showing up on its own. Auto-scroll is triggered by the middle click (clicking the wheel). If it appears with nobody clicking... the system is receiving middle clicks nobody sent.

Caught red-handed.

I opened an online mouse tester site and left it running. Result: MIDDLE CLICKS counting up on their own, with my hands off the mouse. Spinning the wheel 700 times registered 4 phantom clicks the switch fires from vibration, I guess.

The complete mechanism of the "freeze," explained:

1. The worn middle-click switch fires a phantom click;
2. The foreground window enters auto-scroll mode and captures the mouse;
3. Every other window goes dead to clicks (even via Alt+Tab), scrolling still works (pan mode), the cursor moves normally;
4. Ctrl+Alt+Del → secure desktop cancels the capture → "everything goes back to normal."

Every bizarre symptom, explained by ONE ten-millimeter component.

Bonus: the button also had a double failure: it fired on its own, but didn't register when I clicked it on purpose (likely a cold solder joint or degraded internal contact: vibration closes the circuit, pressure opens it).

The fix

Reinstalled G Hub for 10 minutes just for this: enabled the G502's onboard memory and assigned "Disable" to the middle button. It's stored in the mouse's own chip: works with no software running at all. The switch can fire all it wants: the mouse no longer transmits anything from that button. Then I uninstalled G Hub again.

Open-link-in-new-tab can be remapped to a side button, or just use Ctrl+left click.

Lessons (for anyone hunting a similar ghost)

1. If Ctrl+Alt+Del responds instantly, your PC is NOT frozen. Locked-up hardware doesn't open the secure desktop. The problem is software/input in your session;
2. If the cursor moves but clicks are dead, suspect stuck mouse capture: a phantom button (from the mouse OR another HID device) or a stuck modifier key;
3. Auto-scroll cursor appearing on its own = phantom middle click. Go straight to a mouse tester;
4. With an intermittent problem, "it stopped after I did X" proves nothing. Only "it came back despite X" proves anything. Set a trial period (I used 7 days) before declaring victory;
5. An online mouse tester is the most underrated diagnostic tool there is: leave it running in the background and it catches the phantom event with a timestamp;

If you're going through something similar: test Alt+Tab during the "freeze," check whether scrolling still works, and leave a mouse tester open. It might save you the weeks I lost.

I'm having the same issue as in this post (and the comment from December 2025):

https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/s/5EuwMHADFm

My bluetooth often turns itself off, a restart usually fixes this but it's happening more frequently now. I have no external antivirus software as stated in that post, only Windows' own.

I only use BT for my mouse, which does NOT have a USB dongle to plug in to connect it via BT, though I have ordered one now because this issue doesn't seem to be going away and I'm hoping having a dongle will fix it. also, if I turn the BT off myself, I'm not able to turn it back on. I can flick the switch but it just greys out and doesn't actually turn BT on.

I have an ASUS TUF gaming laptop if that means anything in context of the problem.

I have tried:

-disabling and enabling BT on device manager

-uninstalling and installing an updated driver from the ASUS website

-turned off power saving options that causes BT to turn off

-restarted BT support services, also toggled it to run automatically

also:

when BT gets turned off, often device manager lists one of 3 things each time: "the device is working properly" "there are no drivers installed" or "code 45"

I’ve had my SanDisk 512 GB flash drive plugged into my desktop computer for years, and for some reason now my computer recognizes that the flash drive is connected, but I can’t access or see its contents. When I try to click on it, it says it’s write-protected.

The contents are really important, there are family photos and videos we’ve been taking for years. I want to recover the files without resetting the flash drive— is there a way I can access the files?

I tried to do some research before writing here, but the topics were really old and they were talking about formatting the flash drive. I don't care about the flash drive, I just want to recover the files.

​

Hi! I've had some problems with my PC recently and I'm completely stumped as to what the problem is.

My PC originally stopped displaying after I had left it running. When I came back, the computer itself was still on, but there was no display. I turned the monitor on and got nothing.

I initially suspected the GPU, so I tried different HDMI cables and other basic troubleshooting. I then put my husband's known-working graphics card into my PC, but I still got no display.

I then started testing the RAM. I have 4 × 8 GB Corsair DDR4 RAM. I tried running the PC with two sticks and then with just one. I noticed some very strange behaviour: with two sticks installed, my keyboard and mouse wouldn't light up, whereas with four sticks they would.

There was also one occasion during troubleshooting where the display briefly came back and the PC successfully booted into Windows. It stayed working for around 4–5 minutes, and then the display cut out completely again.

I have also tried clearing the CMOS. After doing this, I briefly got a message on the screen saying that the CMOS had been cleared. This was while using my husband's graphics card. However, that message never appeared again, and I haven't been able to get any display since.

The GPU testing is where I'm especially confused:

- My husband's known-working GPU in my PC: no display, and the CPU debug light comes on. There is no VGA debug light.

- My RTX 3060 in my husband's PC: no display, and his motherboard shows a VGA debug light.

- So both PCs are giving different diagnostic lights depending on which GPU is installed.

My current specs are:

- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5700X

- Motherboard: MSI B550-A Pro

- GPU: NVIDIA RTX 3060

- RAM: Corsair 4 × 8 GB DDR4

- PSU: Corsair RM650e 650W

I have already replaced the PSU because I've had power surges in the past and initially assumed the PSU had failed. I completely rebuilt the PC today, but the problem is still there.

So I'm really confused about what is actually faulty.

The symptoms seem to point in different directions:

- My RTX 3060 doesn't display in my PC.

- My RTX 3060 also doesn't display when tested in my husband's PC, where it causes a VGA debug light.

- My husband's known-working GPU doesn't display in my PC, but my PC shows a CPU debug light instead.

- RAM configuration seems to change the behaviour of my PC.

- I have successfully reached Windows once, but only for around 4–5 minutes before losing display again.

- I have successfully received the CMOS-cleared message once, but haven't been able to reproduce it.

- The PSU has already been replaced.

- The PC has been completely rebuilt.

At this point, I'm wondering whether I could have a problem with the GPU, motherboard, CPU, RAM, or potentially multiple components.

All of my tech-support friends are completely stumped too. I don't mind buying replacement parts, but I really don't want to start replacing perfectly good components at random.

What would you test next, and is there a way to determine which component is actually faulty before I start buying new parts?

I can provide photos of the motherboard/debug LEDs and any other information that would help.

I have been trying to access the bios when booting my pc but it always seems to jump straight to my log in.

What I’ve tried so far:
All F keys and delete
Advance restart to access UEFI
CMD shutdown /r /fw /t 0

Any, and all help is appreciated right now. TIA

I bought I new battery thinking that was the culprit but the battery slowly drained with use and wouldn't charge. I replaced the charger and the adaptor so it would be compatible but still wouldn't charge. I’d show in the photos the outputs and the inputs of the charger with the numbers of the charger and the cradle but this community doesn’t allow photos.

Any advice would be super helpful.

I normally don't have this problem but this started yesterday for whatever reason.

Directly went up to 93% memory usage with basic startup apps, I know those are not the problem because I never had this.

Had CRAZY frames drop and low fps when playing ow because it makes the usage go to 99%.

Idk what the problem is, ig it's something hidden

my monitor randomly just started having these flashes of horizontal lines and like 5 persistent lines at the very bottom of the monitor. i tried disconnecting the display port cable and the lines were still there.

I upgrade to r7 5800x3d with gpu gigabyte 9070xt 16 gb. From the first day I install those to my pc I have crashes. Black screen sound stacked and restart. Before I change psu I got WHEA 18 events from event Viewer. After I changed psu to 1200w (found it on discount) I got crashes again when I enable PBO. I don't know why and I don't know if it's only when I open pbo or not.

MOBO: B550 GIGABYTE AORUS ELITE V2 REV 1.5

RAM 16GB CORSAIR 3000MHZ 4 DIMMS. ( MY MAIN RAM IS ON RMA BECAUSE ARE BROKE)

GPU RX 9070XT GIGABYTE 16GB

CPU R7 5800X3D

PSU LIAN LI SP1200 1200W 80 PLUS PLATINUM

my pc is currently having a bit of a mystery that I'm trying to solve; wifi related. here is the full situation and exactly what's going on

last year (september 2025) I got a new pc for my birthday. not wanting to lose old art from my hard drive (or hard disk, I don't know the difference sorry), and assuming I'm gonna be also keeping a bunch of other important files, I asked that the drive be transferred to the new pc. before I got the new pc, I spent a lot of my time at my mom's house and was using her wifi (router is in a wall and lags sometimes), as well as sometimes connecting my mobile hotspot (carrier #1) when I felt I was lagging too much

october 2025 I moved back to my apartment with my brand new pc. I didn't have internet so for an entire month I was using my mobile hotspot (carrier #1) until I managed to get a wifi plan and immediately hooked up my pc to ethernet

in march 2026 I switched carriers but didn't use the mobile hotspot since I had fast internet with ethernet so I never set up my hotspot (carrier #2)

today, september 2026, I came to my moms house to stay for a month and brought my pc with me. I attempted to connect to my mom's wifi, but it wasn't working. specifically, it would ask the password, Id type it in, it would load for a short while and simply say "unable to connect" with no explanation. after 30 minutes of trial and error, I attempted to connect my hotspot (carrier #2) and i noticed it still had a saved version of my hotspot (carrier #1) but I quickly realised I needed to set up my new hotspot and my pc managed to quickly connect to it

here is the mystery:

my pc easily connects to my hotspot and has no issues with the internet. my moms wifi shows up on my 'nearby connections' thing and the bars are full.

no other device in the house has issues connecting to my moms wifi.

my techy friends tried to help with some quick fixes, but nothing worked so far.

does anyone have any idea what the issue might be? one of my friends thought it was a wifi card issue, but that didn't seem to be the case. I don't want to do anything drastic to the pc since its extremely powerful and this is only a temporary issue until I go back to my apartment in october and am able to hook up my ethernet again. I genuinely just want to know what the answer is, I don't even really mind using my mobile data for a month, I'm just very intrigued by what's happening here and id like to know if anyone has any ideas

thanks!

small edit: the old drive is in my new pc, along with two (?) new ones

Recently I've noticed my PSU has been causing sudden shutdowns when (I think) under decently heavy load. Honestly it feels extremely random because sometimes I can play games for hours and then sometimes it wont last ten minutes.

So, I obviously have to get a new one because afaik these are signs of an old PSU.

I don't exactly have the money for that at the moment so what are some things I can do to temporarily circumvent this issue?

I've tried using MSI afterburner to no real avail, but maybe there's just something I'm missing

Maybe, I should just not use it at all. Any suggestion, even one saying "hey idiot, you're an idiot" is welcome.

This includes possibly just being wrong about what I have to do. Believe me I've tried a lot of things, but maybe there's stuff I've missed or have to recheck.

For those of you that care: THERMALTAKE SMART 600W is the PSU.

I’m having an issue with both the CPU and GPU fans running at very high speeds, around 4,000–4,800 RPM, even during very light usage. The temperatures are normal: the CPU is around 41–55°C and the GPU is around 37–51°C. CPU usage is usually only around 6–18%, and GPU usage is usually 0%. I also checked the laptop with HWiNFO, and there was no thermal throttling and the CPU power consumption was low. I tested the laptop in both BIOS and Windows Safe Mode, and the fans were still running loudly. I also performed an EC/power reset, which made the fans quieter temporarily, but they became loud again as soon as I started using the laptop or opened a program. Resetting NitroSense also helped temporarily. NitroSense is set to Auto and CoolBoost is OFF. My BIOS version is Insyde Corp. v1.33 (17/11/2020). I would like to know what could be causing the fans to run this fast despite the normal temperatures

Recently my I noticed my faceID stopped working for reasons I won’t get into (I know I can get it working again by just setting it up again, that’s not the problem).
When I brought this up in casual conversation, someone mentioned how solely relying on faceID to unlock my phone is a security risk since law enforcement and other bad actors can use it to access my phone if I’m physically present.

This got me thinking, what would be the optimal way of locking my phone? Just a password? If so, what length would be best and should it be a random string of characters or an actual word I commit to memory?

Lastly, if this isn’t the right question for this sub, could anyone point me to a better place to get a solution for this issue?

So I was texting my friend. They haven’t responded. I didn’t find out until couple days that now your messages will say delivered even if they block you. I been looking and apparently there’s no way to find out if you’re blocked unless you risk calling and find out. So I tried to check on my MacBook. Keep in mind I haven’t synched my MacBook in a while. So I synched my messages to my MacBook. I went to check on our texts. On my phone it just says delivered but on my MacBook it shows the last message as read. So that I would assume means I haven’t been blocked just ignored the text? It was the same for other texts messages with other friends but after I synched my MacBook, all new messages started showing up as delivered for everyone.

​

I've been having issues with my PC for a few months now where the drivers hang and the PC grey screens (audio playing in background) then restarts with Kernel error 141 etc. I had also sent my 7900XT to RMA for these issues plus one of the fans spinning at max RPM randomly but they couldn't replicate these faults when benchmarking so I had it returned to me.

In the last few weeks my PC has also stopped booting and shows a white VGA light on the motherboard until I restart a few times to get it to boot. As a result I purchased a 9070XT to replace my 7900XT to see if that fixes the issues but the 9070XT won't boot no matter how many times I restart and if I reinsert the old GPU it boots fine. I was hoping I could get some ideas.

I'll try resetting the BIOS after I get home from work but that's about all I can think of. Thank you.

GPU: Sapphire RX 7900XT 20GB / XFX RX 9070XT

CPU: Ryzen 7 7500F

Motherboard: MSI MAG B650 TOMAHAWK

RAM: 32GB DDR5 6000mhz Corsair Platinum

Case: Meshify C

PSU: MSI MPG A1000G 1000W

Operating System & Version: Windows 11

monitor will suddenly lose display and then flicker back on and then some times static lines will flicker as well. had this for about 6 years now. got a new PC 3 months ago and already tried different ports with the same results.

I’m so confused and don’t know what to do at this point. My main battle station has been experiencing crazy packet loss and ping while gaming (like +3000) making it actually unplayable and essentially turning my computer into a real expensive brick.

It’s on wifi (don’t have ethernet) and I did have issues when I first set it up around ~3 months ago where there was no wifi option at all? But I fixed that and it’s been smooth sailing until now. Also possibly unrelated bluetooth doesn’t function?

Anyways my laptop and seemingly every other device all function as expected even sitting in the same exact spot running the same games.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Today I changed my phone (I went from a Samsung A05s to an Oppo A5 Pro, if that helps) and when I went to redownload discord, for some reason all the PFPs and emojis are lower quality. I tried changing the font size on my phone, tried smaller and bigger font sizes and they only look better at max font size, but I'm not gonna keep my phone at max font size solely to have better emojis on discord. Does anyone have tips?

My elderly father stupidly gave details to obvious scammers. I jumped in and stopped him but the computer sign in screen was saying blocked or something along those lines. I assume the scammers on the phone were about to ask for money for it but that’s when I took the phone and essentially told them to fuck off and turned the WiFi off. I know abit about computers and built my own by I am far from an expert. Is the clean install of windows enough? We’ve called the banks and cancelled the cards and changed a lot of passwords including the Microsoft one is there anything else we need to do/worry about. The scammers seemed like amateurs in a call centre and haven’t accessed banks or the Microsoft account it seems

as the title suggests I have been working with this user for the past two days trying to figure out what exactly is causing this issue - I tested with another machine and it’s the same results

The troubleshooting steps that I tried
- reconnect the drive
- restarted windows explorer
- Reset the Folder Views
- Clear the Local Offline Files Cache
Not sure if it’s a AD issue or possibly a group policy issue

Hey there

I bought a mini pc fire at MN56 from AliExpress, did a clean install, installed the drivers from their site, it worked. However every time I put the pc on sleep or if I shut it off, there's no internet as if the drivers weren't installed, when I reboot the pc it works

I went into the bios and put everything on performance instead of balanced but to no avail

Much appreciated for the help

Hello, and thank you for taking the time to read about my problem.

For the past 7–8 months, I’ve been having an issue with Wi-Fi. My iPhone 11 originally belonged to my sister and was given to me in perfect working condition. However, one problem has been bothering me ever since.

My home Wi-Fi doesn’t connect properly on my phone in certain areas of the house. It only works in a few specific spots, which are actually relatively far from the router. I know the problem isn’t the router because the Wi-Fi works normally on everyone else’s phones.

At my mom’s workplace, I tried connecting to the 5 GHz network, but my phone couldn’t find or connect to it. However, when I connected to the 2.4 GHz network, it worked. The same thing happened at a friend’s house.

My home router doesn’t have separate 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz networks. It uses a single network that combines both frequencies.

Yesterday, my phone suddenly started working normally with Wi-Fi again, but today it stopped working once more. The place where I usually manage to get Wi-Fi is in a corner of my mom’s bedroom, while I’m lying down.

I’ve already factory-reset my phone, restarted both the router and the phone, and nothing has fixed the problem. Even my school’s Wi-Fi, which is also 2.4 GHz, doesn’t work on my phone.

Does anyone know what could be causing this or how I could fix it?

Thank you for reading, and please, help me with this problem!

Hello, I have an old Acer that’s been sitting around and I decided to see if I could fix it. I have ruled out the charging port it due to continuity. The battery is fine as well. I was asking AI and they told me to check the solder pins where the charging port plugs into the motherboard. I found positive and negative in between the two it shows 0 V. AI said that the soldering could be bad. I am not a computer person. This is my first time doing anything like this and I was just wondering if anyone has any more information or suggestions?

Hey all. Can anyone help me please. I Just put pc on got a black Screen

Your Device Ran into a problem and couldn't be repaired.

Click or press enter to see other Recovery Options.

Log file. E:\Windows\System32\Logfiles\Srt\SrtTrail.txt