Use this comparison only for a known secondary disk whose wake-up coincides with the stall. Record the active plan’s original hard-disk timeout.
- The desktop froze for two to five seconds while Windows waited for a sleeping secondary disk.
- Changed the power-plan hard-disk sleep timer to Never.
Reported outcome: The reporter says the freezes never occurred again.
Open the active plan’s advanced power settings and change only Hard disk > Turn off hard disk after for the comparison. Restore the old value if the same workload still freezes.