Windows freezes during Skype and Zoom video conference calls

[jmt356]

Throughout 2022, Windows 10 Pro on my HP laptop completed freezes up about half the time on video conference calls on Skype and Zoom.
I believe the same issue would occur on Teams, but I don’t use Teams much on the laptop and am not sure.
It happens about half the time for me on calls, and of those times, it is usually during longer calls.
The only way for me to unfreeze the computer is to force shutdown by holding down the power button and restart.

[stuck]

I've been a heavy user of MS Teams since I started working from home at the end of March 2020 and I've never experienced anything like you describe. My hardware is a Dell Latitude laptop and it connects to my home router (an old but reliable Netgear device) over Ethernet (occasionally wifi). My internet connection is only copper / not fibre (even so I get about 18MBS down). The laptop runs Win10 Enterprise (21H1 I think) and connects to the corporate systems over a VPN.

In the same house my personal desktop PC is an old Dell Optiplex 9010 (only has a 3rd gen CPU). I occasionally use Skype on it, again never had any problems.

I am far from an expert but I'd be looking at things like your laptop over heating and the stability of your internet connection. Hopefully others wil have better suggestions.

Ken

[jmt356]

I am pretty sure it is some kind of software problem, not a hardware or internet connection problem.

Based on Google searches for these crashes, it looks like trying to research this is going to be a minimum of 8 to 10 hours. Most posts attempt a dozen solutions and usually don't find one. It looks like a major time investment.

[stuck]

I am pretty sure it is some kind of software problem...

As I said, It's not a problem I've ever had so I can't help any further.

Ken

[StuartR]

In my experience this kind of problem is often caused by video drivers. The first thing that I would do is check whether there are any updates to these

[Leif]

I am pretty sure it is some kind of software problem, not a hardware or internet connection problem.

Next time, open up Task Manager and monitor CPU and memory use and see if you notice anything untoward.