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My PC crashes at irregular intervals, one-year old computer

Nickolaidas

Banned
Since this morning my PC crashes, just from me being on desktop, running the minimum of apps (Steam on the background, Microsoft Edge, a couple of programs maintaining my fan speed, etc.)

The screen freezes for 5-10 seconds, then either goes black (with the PC still operating), or I get a blue screen of death and the PC restarts itself.

It can take my PC 10-40 minutes to crash.

I think that this may be a memory issue - some of my PC's memory chips being faulty or something.

The only thing I can think of doing since last night was downloading the latest Nvidia drivers for my 2080 Super.

Any thoughts?
 
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Kuranghi

Member
Well gotta try safe mode first I'd say. Then if it continues and you suspect the RAM you should remove one or all but one stick and then add them back in until it happens again, since you mentioned the GPU driver I'd remove the GPU and boot it with the HDMI/video cable attached to the onboard GPU output and see if that helps.
 

Nickolaidas

Banned
Well gotta try safe mode first I'd say. Then if it continues and you suspect the RAM you should remove one or all but one stick and then add them back in until it happens again, since you mentioned the GPU driver I'd remove the GPU and boot it with the HDMI/video cable attached to the onboard GPU output and see if that helps.
How do I run safe mode? (booting is extremely fast with my NvMe, takes about ten seconds to go to my desktop)
 
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chigstoke

Member
Checked the logs on the Windows Error Reporter?

Probably wouldn't hurt also then to do a Memtest as well, and as suggested above, if you suspect memory issue (or is Memtest throws up errors), then it's time to get taking out sticks till the culprit is found.

You've got the usual scan disk and malware checks as well which won't do any harm to do either.
 

Kuranghi

Member
Windows has had some really submental updates recently that fuck things up and I had a BSOD when in the menu of Talos Principle the other day for seemingly no reason so maybe its them thats causing you issues.

If the issue persists then rollback your recent Windows updates, which should just be going to "add remove programs" and then clicking on "windows updates" and then clicking to remove/uninstall them.
 

brian0057

Banned
Maybe is the temperature on the GPU too high?
My old PC used to do that. Turned out the fan on my GPU had stopped working and as soon as I put any load on it, the PC would either blue screen or go black and shut down.
 
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Nickolaidas

Banned
Thanks for the replies, guys.

I was a Sony boy for a lot of time so I'm quite new to the PC hardcore universe.

do you overclock your gpu?

you can check event viewer, and see if you have 'display error' or 'nvlddmkm'
As far as I know, I've done no overclocking of any kind.

How do I check 'event viewer'?
 
A good test of software vs hardware is to load up a live distribution of linux on a usb stick and run that for a day, thus bypassing windows and drivers. If no problems, you can probably rule out a hardware issue.
 

Nickolaidas

Banned
VKM05ze.jpg
 

Kuranghi

Member
Wait a minute, did you forget to make a sacrifice at the alter of Crysis this week?!?

All those who flaunt this duty shall know only death and destruction, starting with a blue screen of death and ending with your first born child falling gravely ill.

If you have no children then your headphones will develop an annoying rattling noise and your bluetooth connectivity will forever be slightly spotty, the equivalent of extreme child illness for bachelors.
 

Nickolaidas

Banned
Wait a minute, did you forget to make a sacrifice at the alter of Crysis this week?!?

All those who flaunt this duty shall know only death and destruction, starting with a blue screen of death and ending with your first born child falling gravely ill.

If you have no children then your headphones will develop an annoying rattling noise and your bluetooth connectivity will forever be slightly spotty, the equivalent of extreme child illness for bachelors.
Ever since Prophet killed himself and gave me his suit, my life has been a living hell.
 

CloudNull

Banned
If you are getting the BSOD then there is a dump file being created. Open the dump in Windbg and get the error code. Google the error code and go from there.
 

Nickolaidas

Banned
If you are getting the BSOD then there is a dump file being created. Open the dump in Windbg and get the error code. Google the error code and go from there.
I got a BSoD once. The other times, my PC crashes and the screen freezes for 5-10 seconds, goes black and nothing happens from here on, but my PC is still working (lights, fan, etc.)
 

Solarstrike

Member
If you can get into the Bios, set your memory cards lower, don't max them out. Example if they say they are 4000MHz, set to 3.6MHZ. Reboot and see if that prevents the crashing. Do you have an ASUS motherboard?, they are finnicky when trying to adjust memory clocks. Basically just don't overclock them. Noone really needs to max out memory ram. 3.6 is fine, even 2.6MHZ for most games. Of course if you use video editing software, you might want higher clock. Set them a few hundred MHZ lower than they're threshold. It's what I had to do otherwise my PC did the same thing with CTD every 15mins/Bluescreen, etc

Also: Like others mentioned, make sure the memory ram modules are connected correctly. You should hear a "click" sound when they are connected into the slot.
 
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99Luffy

Banned
I had this issue with a brand new laptop, random bluescreens when just browsing or doing excel work. Multiple windows restores didnt help. Took me awhile to figure out but I finally found the issue.
Dells automatic updates had broken drivers.
I did a fresh install of windows and removed every trace of dell auto updates and that fixed it.
 

Nickolaidas

Banned
Remove your ram sticks and try one at a time. It could be a ram malefaction.
I have 4 sticks of 8GB ram, for a total of 32GBs. Can the PC work with three sticks or one? I was under the impression it always must have 2 or 4 sticks at the same time ...
If you can get into the Bios, set your memory cards lower, don't max them out. Example if they say they are 4000MHz, set to 3.6MHZ. Reboot and see if that prevents the crashing. Do you have an ASUS motherboard?, they are finnicky when trying to adjust memory clocks. Basically just don't overclock them. Set them a few hundred MHZ lower than they're threshold. It's what I had to do otherwise my PC did the same thing with CTD every 15mins/Bluescreen, etc
I have no idea if the RAM is overclocked. I never messed with the BIOS the store I bought it from set up.
 

rofif

Banned
check windows event viewer and see what was the cause of crash. No need to guess.
Ram is a good guess tho. Maybe enable xmp in uefi if you did not yet.
 
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Nickolaidas

Banned
I had this issue with a brand new laptop, random bluescreens when just browsing or doing excel work. Multiple windows restores didnt help. Took me awhile to figure out but I finally found the issue.
Dells automatic updates had broken drivers.
I did a fresh install of windows and removed every trace of dell auto updates and that fixed it.
What's the Dell automatic update?
 

mhirano

Member
You have to do some troubleshooting.
Main culprit seems to be Windows or RAM.
Download any Linux live distro (Like Ubuntu), put in a USB drive and boot it, then run Memtest.
If it get errors, it is faulty RAM chips, if not it is probably a buggy Windows instalation.
 

//DEVIL//

Member
I have 4 sticks of 8GB ram, for a total of 32GBs. Can the PC work with three sticks or one? I was under the impression it always must have 2 or 4 sticks at the same time ...

I have no idea if the RAM is overclocked. I never messed with the BIOS the store I bought it from set up.
To remove over clock on ram, when in bios just click on default setting and click apply. If there is over clock it’s gone .
And yes you can work with 1 ram . Try 1 at a time .
I do not think it’s ram per say because if ram is defective ( one of them ) your computer won’t boot. Just black screen ) . But what can happen that it boots normally then it over heat or stops working and your computer freeze .

it’s really either that or gpu problem . If the cpu is not heating then it’s not a cpu problem and I highly doubt it’s the motherboard. Motherboards either work or not ( unless you have an amd motherboard with a fan and that fan isn’t working and your motherboard chipset is over heating but most of the time the fan on the motherboard doesn’t need to even run
 

01011001

Banned
reseat every ram stick and your GPU

take out all the power cables from you GPU and reconnect them and make sure they're fully inserted.

do your GPU fans spin up like crazy when it crashes? if they do it is 100% the GPU power cable. had the same issue when I installed an SSD and accidentally loosened the power cables
 
Intel i7 9700 whatever.
ah ok. it's just i had an AMD cpu and was getting a similar issue. all these 41 errors in event viewer brought back some nasty memories. my PC could run stress tests for hours but would randomly crash when just browsing the internet and listening to music. i tried a new PSU, new CPU, new motherboard. my RAM sticks worked fine on my old PC (still have them in my current PC 2 years later...) so i doubt it was them. ended up just returning everything cause i spent weeks troubleshooting and couldn't figure it out. i have a 9900K now so i guess this isn't really any help.

all i can suggest is disable any overclocks and run it stock. do clean install of GPU drivers (use Display Driver Uninstaller). check that other drivers are up to date (check your motherboard support site). make sure your BIOS is up to date and reset to default settings. if it comes to it then do a clean install of Windows.

also run MemTest on your RAM sticks to check for errors. my AMD cpu was crashing during MemTest so that ruled out a Windows error so the issue was at a BIOS or hardware level.
 
No.

This is the bugcheck number I got the third time it crashed, which gave me a blue screen.
ue5VRNi.jpg

This is the bugcheck I got with the first crash, when the screen went black.
DZ5BxS5.jpg

I googled BugCheckCode 307, and got this guy having the same issue years ago.

Critical Event ID 41 with BugCheck Code 307 - Microsoft Community
not really much to go on. if you're getting BSODs download BlueScreenView (https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html) and load your memory dumps. it should tell you exactly what process/driver is causing the crash.

i reckon it's hardware related. maybe your CPU/motherboard/RAM/PSU has gone bad. seems to be an issue with low power usage.
 
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Videospel

Member
Try doing a complete uninstall of your graphics drivers using DDU (Display Driver Uninstaller). Then install the drivers again.
 
Maybe is the temperature on the GPU too high?
My old PC used to do that. Turned out the fan on my GPU had stopped working and as soon as I put any load on it, the PC would either blue screen or go black and shut down.
He better hope it's not that. Especially in today's gpu market. Good luck getting a replacement if that's the case. At that point I think I would see about an aftermarket gpu cooler (I'm sure they make them, i would think).
 

Golgo 13

The Man With The Golden Dong
Since this morning my PC crashes, just from me being on desktop, running the minimum of apps (Steam on the background, Microsoft Edge, a couple of programs maintaining my fan speed, etc.)

The screen freezes for 5-10 seconds, then either goes black (with the PC still operating), or I get a blue screen of death and the PC restarts itself.

It can take my PC 10-40 minutes to crash.

I think that this may be a memory issue - some of my PC's memory chips being faulty or something.

The only thing I can think of doing since last night was downloading the latest Nvidia drivers for my 2080 Super.

Any thoughts?
Plenty of thoughts, but some questions first.

When you reboot, do you hear AUDIBLE beeps before your system fully starts?

What was the last thing you downloaded?

What does event viewer say under “Administrative Events” after a crash?

These are all questions that need to be answered before the problem can be identified and I can offer advice.

Also, do NOT run “memtest” from a bootable USB. This is amateur advice that’s probably unnecessary and potentially damaging.
 

brian0057

Banned
He better hope it's not that. Especially in today's gpu market. Good luck getting a replacement if that's the case. At that point I think I would see about an aftermarket gpu cooler (I'm sure they make them, i would think).
To solve that, I just grabbed a case fan, plugged it to one of the available motherboard fan headers, and literally zip-tied the damn thing to the GPU.
It still works to this day.
 

GreenAlien

Member
Try a different power socket and reattach all the non-usb cables.. just to make sure it's not something really simple like a lose plug or faulty multiple socket outlet interrupting your power supply..
 

sircaw

Banned
Since this morning my PC crashes, just from me being on desktop, running the minimum of apps (Steam on the background, Microsoft Edge, a couple of programs maintaining my fan speed, etc.)

The screen freezes for 5-10 seconds, then either goes black (with the PC still operating), or I get a blue screen of death and the PC restarts itself.

It can take my PC 10-40 minutes to crash.

I think that this may be a memory issue - some of my PC's memory chips being faulty or something.

The only thing I can think of doing since last night was downloading the latest Nvidia drivers for my 2080 Super.

Any thoughts?

I remember you, your one of those turncoats that went to pc.

This is what you get FOR CROSSING TO THE DARK SIDE.

ps. Hope you get it fixed, and good to see you're still alive. hugs and peace :messenger_heart:
 
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