A machine that looks normal only during its first minutes often deserves a different diagnostic order than one with a steady always-on fault.
A short stable window creates false comfort because it gives everyone something normal to hold onto. In practice, that ten-minute grace period can be one of the strongest reasons to reorder the diagnostic path instead of following the same routine you would use for a constant fault.
What this repeatable field pattern usually looks like
The machine starts cleanly, accepts normal interaction, and may even pass a quick check. Then, under ordinary runtime, the same instability returns: image drift, workflow hesitation, console inconsistency, or mode-specific weakness. The pattern is not random; it is condition-dependent.
Why restart or cooldown can create a false sense of recovery
Restart does not prove software. Cooldown does not prove coincidence. Both can temporarily move the machine back inside a narrower operating margin, which is exactly why the fault waits until normal heat, load, or repeated activity rebuilds.
What diagnostic order makes the pattern easier to isolate
Start by measuring the return window. Compare cold versus warm, light use versus sustained use, and one probe or mode versus another. The goal is not just to reproduce the fault, but to identify which condition shortens the healthy window fastest.
When the symptom is strong enough to justify parts suspicion
Once the same condition repeatedly shrinks the stable window, you are no longer looking at a harmless transient. You are looking at a runtime-sensitive weak layer that deserves targeted hardware suspicion before the pattern gets noisier.