As long as they are simple to use I'm willing to give it a try. Will they create a log that shows a failure point when it BSOD's or something like that?
Brand new computer keeps crashing
- Thread starter jamesGF
- Start date
As long as they are simple to use I'm willing to give it a try. Will they create a log that shows a failure point when it BSOD's or something like that?
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
Well lets start with a simple one and work up.
Windows maintains something called the Reliability Monitor which gives you a quick way of viewing errors that have occurred over time. Right-click the start icon at bottom left and select Run. In the command window that pops up enter the command perfmon /rel, and the Reliability Monitor will open. It looks something like this...
Look first for the red circles with an X in them, you can use the small arrows at left and right to scroll through the dates. If you click on each of these red circles the lower half will show the errors that were generated. Focus first on the Windows Failures row, double-click each error in the lower half and the full error description will be shown. As long as there aren't too many copy and paste those here. You may find many of the same type, only post one of each in that case. Then look at the application failures row and finally the miscellaneous failures row. Note that we're only interested in red circles with an X, not any other icons you may see.
Lets see what that reveals before going further.
Lets see what that reveals before going further.
Mine looks like a minefield lol. There's a bunch of application errors and hardware errors, but none of them line up with the BSOD times. The last BSOD I got was on 17/06/2020 but the application error on that day was way later in the evening than when it happened and it there wasn't any crashes or BSOD at that time. You can see all the driver installation and update events from when I did a fresh Windows install, the BSOD happened about 45 mins after that. I haven't had any BSOD's since that day because I haven't opened up any modern games (kinda tired of trying).
The 3 Windows errors all look like this, though none of them correspond to any crashes or BSOD.
EDIT: I've just had a second look and for some reason I can see that I have the 18/06 day highlighted as the day when all those events happened, which is impossible because I did all those installations on the 17th. I even have a message log to a PCS tech support person confirming that. There is nothing on the 17th at all even though that is the day I had my last problems and did the installs.
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
LiveKernelEvent 141 is a kind of general error that indicates some bit of hardware didn't behave as expected. It's not common but it's not terribly helpful either, though it does point to some sort of hardware problem. So we'll need to look deeper.
The next simplest thing to do is to look at the dump files generated when the system took a BSOD. These are a copy of what was in memory at the time of the error and can often point to what caused the failure (though not always). I can analyse the dumps for you but you need to upload them to the cloud somewhere from where I can download them - they're way too large to attach on here. A service like Dropbox, One Drive, Google Drive etc. will let you upload the dump files, you then post the link to those files here so I can download them.
The dump files are found in a couple of places. First navigate to C:\Windows and see whether there is a folder called Minidumps, if there is upload the latest three dumps to the cloud and post a link to them. If that folder is empty or doesn't exist see whether there is a file called MEMORY.DMP under C:\Windows, if there is upload that.
If you can't find any dump files let me know and I'll show you how to configure Windows so that there will be dump files next time your system BSODs.
The next simplest thing to do is to look at the dump files generated when the system took a BSOD. These are a copy of what was in memory at the time of the error and can often point to what caused the failure (though not always). I can analyse the dumps for you but you need to upload them to the cloud somewhere from where I can download them - they're way too large to attach on here. A service like Dropbox, One Drive, Google Drive etc. will let you upload the dump files, you then post the link to those files here so I can download them.
The dump files are found in a couple of places. First navigate to C:\Windows and see whether there is a folder called Minidumps, if there is upload the latest three dumps to the cloud and post a link to them. If that folder is empty or doesn't exist see whether there is a file called MEMORY.DMP under C:\Windows, if there is upload that.
If you can't find any dump files let me know and I'll show you how to configure Windows so that there will be dump files next time your system BSODs.
Here's the latest BSOD dump from 17/06 that happened while I was playing the game Assassin's Creed: Odyssey after about 30 minutes of gameplay. At the time of that crash there was absolutely nothing on the PC except a fresh Windows install, fresh drivers, fresh updates, the steam and uplay clients required for gaming, and this game. It's the same dump I sent to PCS tech support and they told me it indicates software/driver problems.... but it's a fresh install of everything. It should also be noted that this was different than all the other BSOD's i got, it technically wasn't a BSOD, the screen just went black and the PC rebooted, still generated this dump file though.
I did have like 30 other dump files that were removed when I reinstalled Windows so the only person who has them now is the PCS rep I sent them to a few weeks ago.
Also sorry to @jamesGF for hijacking your thread, hopefully we can get some insight together though since we have almost identical systems and problems.
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
That dump was generated by the Windows kernel. That's not unusual with a driver error, it's often the Windows kernel that realises a driver has done something dumb and BSODs. However the failure was a PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA and this could be a driver referencing the wrong memory location or it could simply be bad RAM.
Here's the latest BSOD dump from 17/06 that happened while I was playing the game Assassin's Creed: Odyssey after about 30 minutes of gameplay. At the time of that crash there was absolutely nothing on the PC except a fresh Windows install, fresh drivers, fresh updates, the steam and uplay clients required for gaming, and this game. It's the same dump I sent to PCS tech support and they told me it indicates software/driver problems.... but it's a fresh install of everything. It should also be noted that this was different than all the other BSOD's i got, it technically wasn't a BSOD, the screen just went black and the PC rebooted, still generated this dump file though.
I did have like 30 other dump files that were removed when I reinstalled Windows so the only person who has them now is the PCS rep I sent them to a few weeks ago.
Also sorry to @jamesGF for hijacking your thread, hopefully we can get some insight together though since we have almost identical systems and problems.
It's quite easy to check RAM, download Memtest and write that to a USB stick (instructions on how to do that are on that website). Boot that USB stick and Memtest will start running. Leave it running overnight. That free version only does 4 iterations of the various tests but that's usually good enough. If even one error is detected then bad RAM is your problem.
Yeah I've had a lot of stop codes that reference memory, MEMORY_MANAGEMENT was probably about 10-12 of the probably 25-30 BSOD's I've had so far. This page fault one has appeared probably 5-6 times as well.
The PCS tech told me to do memtest as well, I already have it installed onto a USB stick ready to go, but the PCS tech sent me the wrong instructions for my BIOS so I don't know what to do with it. They told me to do some stuff with UEFI settings before booting from it but the menus and options they directed me to don't exist in my BIOS... or maybe they do exist but look different I don't know. I'm an idiot at these things, they need to give me exact and precise guidance for my exact BIOS menus or I'll screw it up.
I did try to just open the boot menu and boot from the USB, but for some reason it just loaded into Windows so god knows.
Also if it means anything I did run the Windows in built memory diagnostic a few times and it didn't find anything.
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
Memtest86 boots on UEFI systems just fine, but you do need to change the boot priority order in your BIOS. This list specifies the order in which the BIOS searches for bootable systems.
Currently the Windows Boot Manager is first in your list, that why Windows boots. You need to locate the entry pointing to your USB stick and move that to the first entry in that list (and before the Windows Boot Manager).
That's all you need change.
Via Tapatalk
Currently the Windows Boot Manager is first in your list, that why Windows boots. You need to locate the entry pointing to your USB stick and move that to the first entry in that list (and before the Windows Boot Manager).
That's all you need change.
Via Tapatalk
I see, no idea what the tech support person was trying to tell me then. 🤷♂️ I'll give it a go tonight and let it run while I sleep, thanks for your efforts.
I was just about to go to bed and leave memtest running but I feel like I must be a real idiot or something because I still cannot get it to boot. This is what my boot prio looks like:
General UDisk is the USB stick I have memtest installed on. No idea why there are partitions on it or whatever, I didn't do anything, just installed memtest on it and that was that. I've tried putting both partitions and just the regular general udisk as boot prio #1, but none of them work. They all just do the same thing, load into this screen:
Just a black screen with a white bit on it, it hangs there like that and about 1 min later it restarts the PC by itself and boots back into Windows.
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
Memtest does create two partitions on your USB stick (on UEFI systems at least) and you boot partition 1. Clearly something has gone awry with writing the Memtest image to the USB stick.
The ideal would be to use a different USB stick, just in case it's a problem with the one you used.
When you ran the imageUSB.exe file you selected your USB stick and clicked the Write button. Yes? You didn't click any other radio buttons or checkboxes?
If you have to reuse the same USB stick then I'd suggest you do the following:
1. Insert your USB stick.
2. Run imageUSB.exe again.
3. This time, click the radio button for 'Zero USB drive' and then click the Zero button. (This will write binary zeros on the entire drive and may take some time).
4. Click the 'Refresh Drives' button.
4. Click the 'Write image to USB drive' radio button and then click the Write button to write the Memtest image to the drive again.
Reboot and select partition 1 on your USB drive. If that still won't boot you'll definitely need to use a different USB drive.
FWIW I just tried that entire process on a USB stick here and I was able to boot Memtest (partition 1) with no problem.
The ideal would be to use a different USB stick, just in case it's a problem with the one you used.
When you ran the imageUSB.exe file you selected your USB stick and clicked the Write button. Yes? You didn't click any other radio buttons or checkboxes?
If you have to reuse the same USB stick then I'd suggest you do the following:
1. Insert your USB stick.
2. Run imageUSB.exe again.
3. This time, click the radio button for 'Zero USB drive' and then click the Zero button. (This will write binary zeros on the entire drive and may take some time).
4. Click the 'Refresh Drives' button.
4. Click the 'Write image to USB drive' radio button and then click the Write button to write the Memtest image to the drive again.
Reboot and select partition 1 on your USB drive. If that still won't boot you'll definitely need to use a different USB drive.
FWIW I just tried that entire process on a USB stick here and I was able to boot Memtest (partition 1) with no problem.
Is the AIDA64 test GPU & CPU or just CPU?
ubuysa
The BSOD Doctor
All four BSODs are almost certainly driver related. If you have minidumps in C:\Windows\Minidumps or a MEMORY.DMP file in C:\Windows upload them to the cloud somewhere and post a link here. They may help us isolate which driver is causing the problems.
The Reliability Monitor output there contains a bunch of 'Windows didn't shutdown properly' (error code 41) messages. These are not a problem they just indicate that Windows didn't shutdown cleanly. There are a few errors for Windows Media Player and DaVinci Resolve, these may indicate that it's the graphics driver that's the issue.
It would be interesting to see those 'Windows Stopped Working' errors expanded further.
The AppHang for DaVinci Resolve is an application issue but could well be related to the same issue that's causing the BSODs, and the graphics driver again would be favourite.
Later Edit: This webpage might be useful? I've only scanned it but if they advise downloading any 'fix-it' tools please don't!
Last edited:
I did it twice, once GPU and CPU and once just CPU and it was fine with no crashes both times
Yeah, pretty straight forward. Just make sure you don't have anything you need on the primary drive before starting.
Download the creation tool here...
Plug in a USB stick with at least 8GB and point the tool at it.
Let it do its thing.
Reboot
Enter the BIOS using the BIOS key (F2, Del, or etc)
Go into the boot options
If there is a one time boot option, great, select the USB drive. If not, select the USB but you will need to go back in after the next reboot to set it back to the M2
When it boots and starts asking you questions, select advanced and make sure you select a clean install, rather than an update or etc.
You will be presented with drive options, identify your primary drive by its size. Delete the partitions (all of them associated with the drive).
Continue through the rest of the options until completion.
Once complete you want to download and update the Chipset drivers and the GPU drivers from the manufacturers. Everything else should be covered by the Windows update itself.
Download the creation tool here...
Plug in a USB stick with at least 8GB and point the tool at it.
Let it do its thing.
Reboot
Enter the BIOS using the BIOS key (F2, Del, or etc)
Go into the boot options
If there is a one time boot option, great, select the USB drive. If not, select the USB but you will need to go back in after the next reboot to set it back to the M2
When it boots and starts asking you questions, select advanced and make sure you select a clean install, rather than an update or etc.
You will be presented with drive options, identify your primary drive by its size. Delete the partitions (all of them associated with the drive).
Continue through the rest of the options until completion.
Once complete you want to download and update the Chipset drivers and the GPU drivers from the manufacturers. Everything else should be covered by the Windows update itself.