FanControl causes system to hang for 1-2 seconds during startup.

[Ozzuneoj]

Describe the bug
I have been using Fan Control for a few years now (and loving it!), but at some point relatively recently (possibly weeks?) I have noticed that my cursor and the rest of the system hangs when FC loads.
Disabling Fan Control at startup makes the system not freeze\hang on startup. If I prevent it from starting with windows and then run FC manually it will freeze the first time I load it, reliably. Closing FC and opening it again does not cause it to freeze again. It only happens the first time it loads.

Fan Control seems to be working fine aside from this.

Is there a log.txt file next to FanControl.exe with recent date entries?
No recent entries in the log file.

Relevant hardware specs and setup
Custom Built tower:
Windows 10 Pro 22H2
Gigabyte X570 Aorus Elite
5800X3D
Asus 3080 TUF 10GB (driver version 551.61)
64GB DDR4-3600

Sensors enabled:
Motherboard
CPU
GPU
NvApiWrapper = Enabled

Nothing else is enabled.

FC always auto updates, and it is currently on v209.

I am only using NvApiWrapper to monitor GPU temps to control case fans, I am not controlling the 3080's fans with FC. I am using MSI Afterburner to apply a voltage curve and fan curve to the 3080 (monitoring in AB is paused), but it has been running alongside FC this way for a year with the 3080 and for a year or two before that with a 3060 Ti. The freezing just started recently.

Let me know if there is anything I can do to narrow down the cause, and I will help however I can. Thank you for your time!

[Rem0o]

One thing you could do is to enable only one source at a time and see which one of them is causing the freeze if any.

Create a new config to not mess with your existing. Have one of the source enabled and only one, save that config, exit, then do that reliable routine you did to make it freeze.

Repeat for each.

[Ozzuneoj]

Thank you for the reply. I just tried disabling each source, and surprisingly, none of it made a difference. As long as the program will actually load (meaning, at least some sensor) it will cause the hang. I notice now it is actually two hangs, with a very brief moment between them where the cursor can move.

I've tried completely disabling afterburner (and rivatuner statistic server) just to be sure they weren't interfering, and it made no difference.

I will say though, I have found a very odd connection between this hang and another issue I've been having. When I right click the desktop and open Display Settings, the system will hang for about one second while the settings window opens. The kicker is that if I do this before loading FC, FC does NOT cause the system hang. Likewise, if I load FC first, the display window does not hang.

I was trying to diagnose an unrelated issue today and have rebooted about 50 times, which kind of forced me to realize the freezing issues were repeatable and possibly related.

I ran some tests using Windows Performance Recorder\Analyzer and the results are a bit confusing but in one test it appeared that the dxgkrnl "profiler" was starting and stopping when these freezes were happening. Another test simply pointed to "microsoft.windows.immersivecontrolpanel" which makes sense for opening the display settings.

So yeah, I have no idea if you'd have any insight on where the connection would be between these things. I'm about ready to install a much older nvidia driver because there are several reports of drivers newer than 537.58 causing freezing and stuttering issues.

It is strange to have a connection between these things though, because FC loads minimized (no visible thing to cause a freeze), and I can run very intensive games and load relatively heavy\large programs and none of them freeze this way.

[Ozzuneoj]

Just to follow up on my previous message, I have tried doing a clean install of the latest nvidia drivers (566.36) and a clean install of the much older 537.58 drivers. The newest ones had the same freeze when FC loads or when opening Display Settings (whichever is first). The older driver also froze but it was a significantly shorter freeze.

Both were clean installs. Very strange. Hard to say what exactly it is that FC is doing that is making the system trip up, and how that would also relate to opening Display Settings.