CPU: Intel Celeron N2930 (BayTrail)
OS: Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSB 2016 (version 1607)
NIC: 2 x Intel i210 onboard
We have encountered a serious intermittent problem with the above configuration. When the PC is left running with a low CPU load for many hours, it will sometimes hang: all activity on the Windows desktop stops/"freezes", the Windows clock in the lower right corner stops, and the PC no longer responds to keyboard or mouse input. The PC is permanently hung - it will not recover.
After turning power off & on, the PC will typically boot Windows 10 successfully, and resume normal operation.
Note that the problem never occurs when the PC is in regular use, with moderate to heavy CPU utilization. Nor does the hang occur if the CPU is idle in Windows with no user applications running. The hang only occurs with light/low CPU loading.
The problem also occurs in these versions of Windows on the same hardware: Windows 8.1 Pro, Windows 10 Pro version 1706. In all cases, we have applied all available Windows Updates.
We are able to reproduce the problem on all such units in our lab - sometimes it takes a few hours, sometimes a few days before the hang occurs. It is not a single unit failure, or a bad production run.
We are using the latest available Intel device drivers for this hardware:
Intel Graphics Driver v. 10.18.10.4885 - 12/11/2017
Intel Network Driver v. 12.15.184.0 - 10/10/2017
Intel Sideband Fabric Device (MBI = Mailbox Interface) Driver v. 604.10146.2655.573 - 5/26/2015
On the Embedded Communities, there are at least 2 topics describing a similar problem:
- https://embedded.communities.intel.com/message/21059#21059
- https://embedded.communities.intel.com/message/21509#21509
In both cases, the users were asked to attempt to reproduce the problem in operating systems other than Windows 10. There is no further reply on either thread.
As described above, we have also reproduced the issue in Windows 8.1 Pro.