Hi, I have a HP Pavilion Laptop and last night I started to run into a very specific issue: at some point, the device will just freeze, not in the way that I can't move the cursor anymore, but in a way that I can't close or open apps anymore. Not even the actions to shut down or restart works, I have to force it to shut down by holding the power button... and from there on, upon restarting, I have about a few seconds until it resumes into an unresponsive state. I have no idea how it got fixed last night, but it did, I was literally just forcing it to restart again and again, I did try to run the self diagnostic tool by holding the esc button upon startup and it didn't find anything at all, everything was perfectly fine apparently, so I kept forcing it to restart and suddenly it got fixed somehow.

And now it's back again, I've been trying the exact same things, forcing it to restart, the HP diagnostic tool, same thing, just no success yet in regards to the unresponsive stuff.

I did however just notice that I can open File Explorer, no problem, but not any programs. Recycle bin is fine too, but any other program stays unresponsive. Settings, Control Panel, Device Manager, also unresponsive, but File Explorer is fine still.

And since it's a gaming laptop, startup is usually really fast, except for when I have this issue, it's noticeably slow when powering on. Battery charging is fine too, I let the battery drain for a bit so I could check if it charges when I plug it back in, and it's recharging fine.

I'm really worried because it was quite an expensive investment for me, as we really aren't well off, in fact we've been struggling quite a lot in recent years, so I really cannot afford a new device, not even a cheap one, and repair is pretty costly as well...

I really hope I provided enough information and that I can receive some help here, I'm really lost otherwise, there's no family or friend that's experienced enough that I can rely on for this kind of stuff

Edit: forgot to add that I'm running Windows 11

Edit 2: i made a new discovery; when I manage to open my browser (I use opera gx if that's relevant) before the device freezes, I can open YouTube for example, and if it goes well, this page will be perfectly fine even after hours, but opening new tabs or programs won't work, only that one tab would work fine, reloading, clicking around, etc, all good. Just no new tab possible.

UPDATE: for anyone experiencing the same issue if you have Avira: delete it in Safe Mode, it should fix the device, it did for me and a commenter!