Summary: The latest Windows 11 22H2 December 2022 Patch Tuesday update ( KB5021255) is allegedly causing freezing problems on PCs running on AMD Ryzen CPUs. Let's look at the causes behind this along with ways to fix it.
Windows 11, though almost a year old now, receives regular patches and updates to squash bugs and become more user friendly. The latest buzz around Windows 11, however, is related to a newly found bug. Users running Windows 11 22H2 with the latest December Patch Tuesday update (KB5021255) are suddenly facing freezing issues on their AMD CPU-powered systems.
Incidentally, the November 2022’s Patch Tuesday update with build number KB5019980 fixed some security vulnerabilities related to the Spectre variant 2 on most AMD processors. However, users who updated their systems with this patch, started facing random system freezes The latest Windows 11 22H2 with December 2022 Patch Tuesday update ( KB5021255) is allegedly causing freezing problems on PCs running on AMD Ryzen CPUs.
There are Reddit threads (Thread 1, Thread 2) where various users are complaining about freezing issues after going forward with the latest patch. As reported by the affected users, the freezing is annoying as it is random but not permanent and lasts for a couple of seconds or minutes. They also reported that during the frozen state, the Task Manager shows ‘System interrupts’ at 100% activity, which returns to normal when the system unfreezes.
Affected users have found a temporary workaround to fix this issue – by unplugging USB devices from the system. The issue gets resolved using this fix and the system unfreezes.
These are temporary workarounds, which may or may not work for others.
Some users are speculating that this affects only those systems with AMD CPUs and Nvidia GPUs. Others suggest uninstalling Zonealarm Firewall (if installed). Some also suggested that the freezing issue on the systems running on AMD CPUs is caused by the latest update containing scheduler updates to fix issues with Intel 12th and 13th gen CPUs, which is interfering with the functioning of AMD CPUs.
While there is nothing to back these speculations, affected users are warning all the AMD users running Windows 11 22H2 not to install the December Patch Tuesday update and are suggesting putting the updates on hold and wait for a fix.
Microsoft has yet to confirm the user reports and this issue regarding the December Patch Tuesday update, but due to the holiday season, some delay is expected until a permanent fix is released.
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