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Tech Support GAF Thread: No Case Too Big, No Case Too Small

woodland

Member
Getting wifi from Charter Spectrum installed next week, using their own router (no charge for a year), is there any reason for me to get my own router? Not 100% sure what model they'll be using but I would think worst case scenario I could just change routers to my own if theirs sucks?
 
Hey everyone. I had a windows 10 update installed on the 9th and now my internet drops out after being active for about 10 minutes. I've reset the network connection, reinstalled the network driver, and I'm still having the same problem. I tried to roll it back and the rollback failed. I'm not sure what to do at this point. Any suggestions?

Also, this is on my main PC which is hard wired. Everything else in the house works fine on wifi so I'm assuming this is my main PC and the windows update fucked it up. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
 

Anustart

Member
On PC, i'm looking for a way for a game to output audio through my tv and my heaphones simultaneously. This possible without extra hardware?
 
I gave my parents a Chromebook and I thought they didn't get viruses, but it must have some kind of unwanted thing running. The home page was changed to some ad landing page. And ads are served in Chrome in the bottom-right corner. And trying to access my mother's Dayforce HCM portal is sketchy in that the earnings page can't be accessed for some reason, even though I was able to access it the first time. And there's always activity for some ad server going on in the background.
Maybe Dayforce isn't good because I can't access it from my desktop Firefox, but that's another issue. The only way I can see these forms for her is through my desktop Chrome. What a mess.
 

Samaritan

Member
Earlier today while in the middle of a PUBG match, my system shut off suddenly after a quick sizzle/fizzle sound, followed by the unmistakable smell of burnt electronics.

I sniffed around my case for a minute and the smell is centralized to around where my CPU is, but it could just as well be my video card as it's around in the same spot. I think I can (mostly) rule out my PSU being the issue, as it smells pretty neutral.

I've thoroughly inspected the top of my motherboard for scorches, as well as any blown or bulging capacitors without finding anything.

I have some extra components on hand that I can test with, but I'm afraid to even turn the thing on, in case it is a PSU issue. I just don't want to take the risk of damaging any components further while testing different parts out.

I don't have an extra PSU around, so I can't simply swap it out and test that way. Am I being too worried about damaging components by turning it on again?

EDIT: I should give some context for my system. I built this system a little less than 2 years ago. I swapped out the power supply for the one currently in it one year ago, so it's still very new. Here are the specs:

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/ztt8NN

CPU: Intel - Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (Lightly overclocked)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG - H7 49.0 CFM CPU Cooler
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-Z170XP-SLI ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Memory: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (Running at XMP settings)
Storage: Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Video Card: Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Video Card (Lightly overclocked)
Case: Fractal Design - Define R5 Blackout Edition w/ Window ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G2 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit
Sound Card: Creative Labs - Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD 24-bit 96 KHz Sound Card
Case Fan: Corsair - ML140 Pro 97.0 CFM  140mm Fan
Case Fan: Corsair - ML140 97.0 CFM  140mm Fans
 

Mistake

Member
what is some good free backup and restore software? Just to an external HDD. Windows backup takes ages and keeps taking more space than it should
 
I've got two problems; hopefully, someone can help out!

Windows Activation
I had Windows 7 since 2011, and since have long lost the serial. Later I downloaded Windows 10 during the free period and activated it on a fresh drive (if I recall correctly).

Recently I upgraded some hardware (including mainboard) and now Windows says it needs to be activated. I tried entering my user account details but it says there's no Windows 10 version associated with that account.

How can I activate Windows short of reinstalling Windows 10? If there's no choice, would buying an OEM key work to activate it?

Laptop combo headphone/mic jack won't recognize mic from headsets
I recently purchased a laptop with Realtek HD Audio and when I plug in any combo headset, no mic will be detected. Checking the recording settings in Windows doesn't show any mic apart from the one built-in to the laptop.

I also purchased a headphone/mic adapter with another headset with separate headphone/mic plugs and that didn't work either.

What do I need to do to get the mic working on my laptop?
 

Dynomutt

Member
Getting wifi from Charter Spectrum installed next week, using their own router (no charge for a year), is there any reason for me to get my own router? Not 100% sure what model they'll be using but I would think worst case scenario I could just change routers to my own if theirs sucks?

It depends what are you trying to do? Is it a modem router combo? If so look up its specs and range. The issue I've noticed with ISP provided equipment is that it sometimes is not as capable as a aftermarket router.

How many devices will be connecting to it wirelessly?

Does the device have a pretty capable firmware? Certain routers let you set QoS or quality of service and you can condition you can condition you service for better performance.

I run my ISP provided router modem in bridge mode and let my Asus AC1900 do all of the heavy lifting. I get consistent and great performance for about 7-10 different devices and 2 hardwired.

I would look at the specs and if not satisfied see if it can be put into a bridge mode for a aftermarket router. Hope this helps!
 

Leeness

Member
May as well ask because googling hasn't helped...

At work, we're on outlook/exchange 2013. One of the users, her computer needed to be switched out. When she signed back into her (roaming) profile, her outlook had basically...blown out? She started in May 2016, and every single email she'd ever received since her account was opened had come back (like close to 4000).

Any idea on a fix? Things have definitely been going into her trash and deleted from the "recover deleted items", etc., so it's not like she hasn't been deleting things.

...we're just going to end up proxying into her inbox and helping her clean up, but...yeah. If there was a way to not have to help her delete almost 4000 emails, it would be nice...

I'm not super techie (like...honorary IT lol), but was talking to her about this yesterday while she was crying at me, so I want to try to help, and IT is just as puzzled.
 

Samaritan

Member
What's the best way to determine why a system is crashing randomly? I'm in the middle of finishing a build for my girlfriend and the system is crashing/locking up randomly, like, after it's been on and running fine for 20 - 30 minutes.

When this crash happens, my case lights freeze up and stay like that, but my keyboard/mouse lights shut off, and my monitor loses all signal. Hitting the power button/reset button on my case do nothing, and I'm forced to turn off my PSU manually. Upon booting back up, the system has trouble starting up 2-3 times before finally booting into Windows successfully on the 3rd/4th attempt.

If someone wants to help me/can help me figure out why this is happening, I'd appreciate the help, cause it could be so many different things and I have no idea where to start looking. Here are the specs of the computer:

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/WhTJr7
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/WhTJr7/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor
Motherboard: Asus - STRIX B350-F GAMING ATX AM4 Motherboard
Memory: G.Skill - Trident Z RGB 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory
Storage: Western Digital - Blue 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB SSC GAMING Video Card
Case: Phanteks - ECLIPSE P400S TEMPERED GLASS ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link - TL-WDN4800 PCI-Express x1 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi Adapter
Case Fan: Corsair - HD120 RGB 54.4 CFM 120mm Fan
Case Fan: Corsair - HD140 RGB 2-Pack w/Controller 74.0 CFM 140mm Fans
Monitor: Asus - VC239H 23.0" 1920x1080 60Hz Monitor
Keyboard: Logitech - G410 Atlas Spectrum Wired Gaming Keyboard
Mouse: Logitech - G203 Prodigy Wired Optical Mouse
Headphones: SteelSeries - Arctis 5 7.1 Channel Headset
Peripherals: Corsair Lighting Node PRO
 

StoneFox

Member
What's the best way to determine why a system is crashing randomly? I'm in the middle of finishing a build for my girlfriend and the system is crashing/locking up randomly, like, after it's been on and running fine for 20 - 30 minutes.

If someone wants to help me/can help me figure out why this is happening, I'd appreciate the help, cause it could be so many different things and I have no idea where to start looking. Here are the specs of the computer:

Does it fully turn off or software crash?

WhoCrashed is a program that can help you. Just run it and it'll pull any available crash logs.
 

Samaritan

Member
Does it fully turn off or software crash?

WhoCrashed is a program that can help you. Just run it and it'll pull any available crash logs.

It fully turns off I believe. Like I said, hitting the power/reset button on my case doesn't even do anything after this happens, and I have to reset my system via the switch on my PSU. I'll give this program a try and see if I can reproduce the crash during a stress test.
 

woodland

Member
Thanks for the help with the router! Just decided to go the company provided route instead. On another note, anyone have experience with Kodak printers? I got a Verite 50 at Wal-mart and been trying to set it up but been struggling really bad with it. The firmwares updated to the latest version and the drivers installed before but had issues so I uninstalled and reinstalled after a ton of trouble. Trying again now but it's been at the last 5% forever. Feels like it's killing my laptop.
 

Samaritan

Member
Are you monitoring your temps?

After the first crash, I have been, and nothing seems out of the ordinary. In fact, this computer runs incredibly cool, and nothing has even approached what I'd consider to be "load" temperatures, even when under load. Hell, the third time it happened I was just deleting a folder from my desktop lol.
 

Pagusas

Elden Member
Random issue I've been having with my Macbook Pro (2017) Wifi.

I use steam's game stream feature A TON to play Civ 6 on my laptops (streaming from my 1080ti desktop). All my PC laptops, using our r7000 Nighthawk Router and the 5G signal, do more than fine, no stuttering or anything.

The macbook though will basically "pause/long stutter" every few minutes. Other times it will just randomly kill the stream and send me back to desktop, but I can cilick back on Steam again and click stream and the stream will start back up just fine.

Is this a Macbook wifi issue, a router wifi issue, or a steam mac client issue?
 

MissChief

Member
Hi ! I'm not sure if this is the correct thread, but I have a question. I have been using a xbox one controller on the PC (using a micro usb cable), but lately one of my controller keeps disconnecting. It still works perfectly when holding it perfectly still but if I move the controller, or touch the usb cable slightly, it disconnects and reconnects again. The usb port on the controller doesn't seem to be damaged, and the usb cable fits perfectly (if I touch it, I don't feel any movement). Does anybody else have simular problems / experience with xbox one controller ?
 

III-V

Member
Hi ! I'm not sure if this is the correct thread, but I have a question. I have been using a xbox one controller on the PC (using a micro usb cable), but lately one of my controller keeps disconnecting. It still works perfectly when holding it perfectly still but if I move the controller, or touch the usb cable slightly, it disconnects and reconnects again. The usb port on the controller doesn't seem to be damaged, and the usb cable fits perfectly (if I touch it, I don't feel any movement). Does anybody else have simular problems / experience with xbox one controller ?

Try this: take some compressed air and shoot it inside the micro usb slot on the controller. Sometimes dust gets in there and screws things up.
 
Have an Acer Aspire V15. Worked fine this morning. Now though all I can get is a blue light (indicating a full battery charge) when the AC adapter is plugged in. Nothing else. No beeps, no flashing light, no fans turn on...absolutely nothing else.

If the AC adapter is unplugged, I also get absolutely nothing. Not even the blue light.

Tried disconnecting AC adapter and battery/resetting battery, holding down and tapping power button. Nothing.

I just bought a new adapter (wont arrive for another 5 days) but not sure that's the problem since I do at least get the blue battery light when it's plugged in. No power light though.

So, any other ideas? Could bad memory cause that? I would think it'd at least give me a beep or a power indicator light if that were the case so I don't know. I dont want to get into the memory since you have to literally remove the damn motherboard to access it on this thing. Unreal.

I'm thinking I try the $24 power supply/adapter and if that isnt the problem it's time to junk this thing. Just pisses me off since it's only 2 1/2 years old or so.
 

Jyrii

Banned
I'll post here as I don't really want to spam the PC building thread more.

The problem is that I get no video on a new rig I just assembled.

The CPU fan and case fans start to run, but nothing else happens.

What I have tried:
- checking all cords. MB's 24 pin and 4 pin cords are connected.
- tried with old GPU (5870). This has 2x 6pin PCI-E cords, unlike the 1050ti that gets power from the MB
- tried moving the ram to another slot

The rig is.
CPU: Ryzen 3 1200
MB: Asrock A320M-HDV
RAM: Corsair Valueram 2133 1xGB
GPU: Palit 1050ti
SSD: WD Green 240GB
Case. Fractal design 1100
PSU: Corsair VS450

Any ideas what could cause this?
 

Jyrii

Banned
I ran some additional testing. I think the cause is ram, since that doesn't work on my own computer either having the exact same issue. Weirdly enough, if I try my own computer's ram on the new rig, it just shut downs instantly.

I have also tested with another PSU and GPU, so they aren't the problem.
 

Sunster

Member
my laptop is slow as shit after the last update. start ups take 10 minutes can't even use chrome anymore. scanned for malware and there's none.
 

ZOONAMI

Junior Member
My desktop keeps restarting on it's own. I've never observed it happening. Happening while mining. 2x 1070s, pulling about 100w each, with an evga 800w psu. It just started doing this last week. This will happen once a day overnight while mining.

Have updated mb bios, audio driver, Nvidia drivers.

Any ideas? I guess the psu could be going bad but it's only a couple years old and before I started mining a few months ago it was rarely even used.

Hibernation and sleep are disabled.

Event log says Kernal 41 power critical error.
 

Jzero

Member
My desktop keeps restarting on it's own. I've never observed it happening. Happening while mining. 2x 1070s, pulling about 100w each, with an evga 800w psu. It just started doing this last week. This will happen once a day overnight while mining.

Have updated mb bios, audio driver, Nvidia drivers.

Any ideas? I guess the psu could be going bad but it's only a couple years old and before I started mining a few months ago it was rarely even used.

Hibernation and sleep are disabled.

Event log says Kernal 41 power critical error.

Hows the temperature situation? Your system could be overheating.
 

Menome

Member
I've ordered a 1TB SSD drive to replace my three ten-year old HDD drives in one fell swoop.

I'm going to partition the SSD drive into three segments so that I keep my C:/D:/E: designations and avoid numerous programs throwing a hissy fit.

What's the recommended program to use these days? The last occasion I had to do any partitioning was the early 2000s and at the time I used my grandfather's copy of PartitionMagic.

Plus, when it comes to transferring the data from the HDDs to the SSD partitions, is a simple copy+paste enough to do the job these days?
 
I have two questions.

1. How much is it to replace a disc drive on a laptop? I bought it used and it arrived broken (well, when I put a disc in the tray and try to load it, it starts making this weird noise and I can't open it again unless I use the paperclip method) so I want to fix it. Or even add a Blu-Ray disc drive instead.

2. We have Google Fiber here and even though we're paying for 1000 mbps it's not very fast at all on Wi-Fi and I had to buy a Powerline adapter so that I can even play online games on my PS4 and Xbox One. Any tips on how I can improve the darn thing? We're paying 70 a month for this.
 

Syriel

Member
I have two questions.

1. How much is it to replace a disc drive on a laptop? I bought it used and it arrived broken (well, when I put a disc in the tray and try to load it, it starts making this weird noise and I can't open it again unless I use the paperclip method) so I want to fix it. Or even add a Blu-Ray disc drive instead.

2. We have Google Fiber here and even though we're paying for 1000 mbps it's not very fast at all on Wi-Fi and I had to buy a Powerline adapter so that I can even play online games on my PS4 and Xbox One. Any tips on how I can improve the darn thing? We're paying 70 a month for this.

Buy a better router.
 

Kinan

Member
I have two questions.

1. How much is it to replace a disc drive on a laptop? I bought it used and it arrived broken (well, when I put a disc in the tray and try to load it, it starts making this weird noise and I can't open it again unless I use the paperclip method) so I want to fix it. Or even add a Blu-Ray disc drive instead.

2. We have Google Fiber here and even though we're paying for 1000 mbps it's not very fast at all on Wi-Fi and I had to buy a Powerline adapter so that I can even play online games on my PS4 and Xbox One. Any tips on how I can improve the darn thing? We're paying 70 a month for this.


For 1 you obviously need to provide the laptop model. They are often easily removable, so it just a matter of buying appropriate one from the manufacturer and inserting. Though nowadays I just use option to insert additional battery instead if available, do not use disks much last 10 years or so.


For 2 make sure you use 5GHz band. If necessary, buy 5GHz USB wifi adapter for like 10-20$, you can get up to 450Mbs nowadays (~300 realistically ) which is fast enough for almost everything imo.
 
For 1 you obviously need to provide the laptop model. They are often easily removable, so it just a matter of buying appropriate one from the manufacturer and inserting. Though nowadays I just use option to insert additional battery instead if available, do not use disks much last 10 years or so.


For 2 make sure you use 5GHz band. If necessary, buy 5GHz USB wifi adapter for like 10-20$, you can get up to 450Mbs nowadays (~300 realistically ) which is fast enough for almost everything imo.
Okay! It's an Asus GL552V I believe.

And I'll check out that adapter thing too. Does that work on consoles?

One more question: how do I deal with stuck pixels? I just found a green one and it's bothering the heck out of me.
 

Jyrii

Banned
I ran some additional testing. I think the cause is ram, since that doesn't work on my own computer either having the exact same issue. Weirdly enough, if I try my own computer's ram on the new rig, it just shut downs instantly.

I have also tested with another PSU and GPU, so they aren't the problem.

Yep, it was the RAM, replacement works just fine and I got to post.
 

dubc35

Member
The HDD died on my wife's old laptop. I don't have the OEM recovery disk(s) and can't boot to windows to generate one. Anyone have a recommendation for a place to get one? I see a couple places after a basic search; generally ~$25. I don't see it supported on HP's website anymore. Any place that archives them? The computer is pretty old and of little value to me but she likes it and it does the basic websurfing, etc.

hp g6-1d60us

Thanks!
 

Kinan

Member
And I'll check out that adapter thing too. Does that work on consoles?

Afaik, X1 supports 5 GHz in all revisions. OG PS4 does not, but all newer revisions (Slim/Pro) do.
Not sure about that google router settings, seems like it likes to decide for yourself what frequency band to use: https://support.google.com/fiber/answer/2732316?hl=en


As for the laptop it looks like you need a 9.5mm drive, this Panasonic BD should do. Check this post/thread for instructions.
 
Afaik, X1 supports 5 GHz in all revisions. OG PS4 does not, but all newer revisions (Slim/Pro) do.
Not sure about that google router settings, seems like it likes to decide for yourself what frequency band to use: https://support.google.com/fiber/answer/2732316?hl=en


As for the laptop it looks like you need a 9.5mm drive, this Panasonic BD should do. Check this post/thread for instructions.
Thank you! I don't know how to configure the frequency band since my father was the one who got Google Fiber when I came home from the two year service so I'll need to read up on that.

Wow that's a pricey drive. Which means it's actually a decently priced one and I'm just poor haha! Thanks I'll look up how to install the darn thing.
You'd have to list a model number. I've seen people call $50 specials "pretty good" routers. ;)

The higher end Netgear Nighthawks are usually pretty safe options.
Honestly it was the one that came with Google Fiber. The customer service rep told me it was a "pretty darn good" router and that the problem might be that you have too many things connected to it through Wi-Fi.

But I'll check out the Nighthawk models. Thanks!
 

Syriel

Member
Honestly it was the one that came with Google Fiber. The customer service rep told me it was a "pretty darn good" router and that the problem might be that you have too many things connected to it through Wi-Fi.

But I'll check out the Nighthawk models. Thanks!

If it's an older Network Box (Google's name) then it is limited to N, and you'll be lucky to hit 50-60 mbps over WiFi.

If it's a newer model, I believe those have single band AC, and will get up to 150-200 mbps.

By comparison, a Nighthawk will get you 500-700 mbps via WiFi.
 

Bluenoser

Member
Any network experts in here that might be able to give me some advice?

First, a little back story. I have fibre internet, and the main modem/router that they provided with the service is situated in my office on the top floor of my split entry style house. It's fairly centrally located, but early on I was having issues when in my basement, where my laptop wifi would just disconnect, even at 4-5 bars of signal strength. It wasn't that I was at low signal, and the inevitable happened, but that a strong signal would randomly drop.

So the ISP's solution was to (from what I can tell) intercept the WAN, and add a split, which then feeds back to the main router, and put a network hub in the middle, which comes out in the basement. They thought by doing this, I could simply run network cables to any device I want, or to a router I can use as an access point. To keep things clean and wireless (hub is on the other side of the room 20 ft away from where my consoles are), I bought a fairly inexpensive d-link router to connect to from the basement with my consoles, and laptop.

So that was the backstory- I felt like I had to explain what had happened to give a better understanding of the layout. With that said, does anyone have any recommendations on what I need to do in order to get the most out of this setup? For playing online with consoles, I am getting moderate NAT, may have connection issues/etc. and I feel like it's because I'm not really understanding the complexity of how I'm actually connected. (via router, via hub, via modem). Or if anyone has any suggestions on how to fix it, that would be great too.

For reference, my dlink is set up as it's own SSID, not as an access point for my main router, since when I tried to do that, I had nothing but problems. (but maybe this is the problem and it should be an access point, or extender?)
 

ZOONAMI

Junior Member
So I am still getting Kernal 41 computer restarted not able to shut down cleanly. What kind of makes me doubt it's the Psu is that it runs fine for hours at load without issue. Would a psu issue randomly have a restart like this if the Psu has been holding the load withput issue for hours? And for months before this started happening without issue?

The other thing I moticed is that my bios was actually running at stock and my ram was running at 1600mhz vs the 2133mhz its rated for xeon 1231v3. I think it's because I moved a while back and had the computer unplugged and had the Psu switch I believe got flipped, I had to reset the cmos jumper a while back and never bothered with reapplying 3.8ghz and 2133mhz ram. Is it possible that the ramming running at a slower speed than its used to could be the problem? I just put it back at 2133 last night and the comp hasn't crashed since then.

I may just call evga about a new Psu I guess to because it's still under warranty.

The only other significant hardware change is that I did add another 1070, but max load I should still be looking at like 350-400w max system load while mining as I have power limited each card and the miner is reporting just over 100w for each card. Is an 850w evga b2 (only bronze rated) not able to handle that despite being rated for twice that?

Do I need a gold rated Psu?
 

ZOONAMI

Junior Member
OK so I think I have this figured out. Basically did a litany of things. New SSD firmware, disabled Nvidia audio, unplugged a bunch of USB dongles, disabled sli while mining, changed ram to proper speed, ram memory test no errors. If this keeps happening I'm gonna get a usp and if that doesn't work it's time to rma the Psu.
 

Menome

Member
I've ordered a 1TB SSD drive to replace my three ten-year old HDD drives in one fell swoop.

I'm going to partition the SSD drive into three segments so that I keep my C:/D:/E: designations and avoid numerous programs throwing a hissy fit.

What's the recommended program to use these days? The last occasion I had to do any partitioning was the early 2000s and at the time I used my grandfather's copy of PartitionMagic.

Plus, when it comes to transferring the data from the HDDs to the SSD partitions, is a simple copy+paste enough to do the job these days?

As this drive is arriving tomorrow, just bumping the question because it's been a few days and could do with the help to not mess things up!
 
I gave my parents a Chromebook and I thought they didn't get viruses, but it must have some kind of unwanted thing running. The home page was changed to some ad landing page. And ads are served in Chrome in the bottom-right corner. And trying to access my mother's Dayforce HCM portal is sketchy in that the earnings page can't be accessed for some reason, even though I was able to access it the first time. And there's always activity for some ad server going on in the background.
Maybe Dayforce isn't good because I can't access it from my desktop Firefox, but that's another issue. The only way I can see these forms for her is through my desktop Chrome. What a mess.

Just a minor update to this, in case anyone else runs into this problem. Now not even YouTube was working. It turns out there was this extension called "The Game Comfort" that was installed and had all kinds of sketchy permissions it didn't need. Removing it fixed YouTube. I haven't checked the rest, but it should be better, I hope.
 

Kilrogg

paid requisite penance
Normally I would try and find the solution on my own, but since I've been having so many crashes with different error messages each time over the last few hours I'm kinda puzzled and worried. I don't even know where to start.

My laptop refused to boot this morning. The screen would just get glitchy on the login screen and the computer wouldn't respond. I thought my GPU was dying, but after trying to reboot several times I finally managed to get it to work... after a failed attempt at booting it in safe mode, ironically. But then, it began...

After a few minutes of regular use (PowerPoint, GAF on FireFox, Thunderbird), I get a blue screen, PC restarts automatically. From then, 5 or 6 more crashes, each after a few minutes of regular use (10-30 minutes I'd say), but the error message was different each time. Here's what I got:

1) PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

2) KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
What failed: Wdf01000.sys

3) SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION
What failed: dx????? (didn't have enough time to write it down)

4) DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
What failed: avgStm.sys

5) CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED (this one happened while I was watching a YouTube vid through GAF)

6) Nothing, just a good old computer freeze while I was using Excel (not a heavy complex file by any means). Had to reboot manually. Got a gray screen upon rebooting, mouse cursor appeared after a few seconds and was fully functional. The loading wheel would appear next to it every few seconds. Rebooted once more, worked this time.

7) New crash as I was typing this post lol. Got "KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE"

I'm expecting more crashes as the day goes by, honestly.

I have a Dell XPS 15 9560 with Windows 10 64-bit, all updates installed. 512 NVMe SSD, 16GBs of RAM, GeForce 1050. The computer was running fine yesterday, and I didn't install or do anything weird prior to the crashes. No driver updates or registry modifications or antivirus shenanigans.

Where should I start looking?
 
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