Your computer has encountered an error and needs to restart

Not Myself said:

Forum search did not return any entries, and on-line search did, but those replies were either vague or contradictory, so here I am at the source...When you get it, ...Windows collects some data and then restarts. Where should I start to find out and fix whatever it is that is causing this?

This is the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) and can be very tricky to diagnose. It will likely be a driver, but precisely which one is hard to track down. Each case is unique and Googling for answers is a fruitless task, someone else's answer will NOT be applicable to your PC. This BSOD may be a one-off, but if it becomes a regular occurrence then ask for advice.

You are not quite at the source, but you are very close to it. The real experts at BSOD diagnosis hang out here. Read ALL the instructions before posting.

Before posting a BSOD thread, please read the instructions here: Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) Posting Instructions
...
Please do not post anything other than Windows 10 Blue Screen Of Death problems in this section.

BSOD Crashes and Debugging - Windows 10 Forums

I downloaded and run the beta version twice; both times it had problems:

1. Several entries in red went by very fast, and don't show.

2. AppData\Local\Temp\genuiine.xml does not exist.

3. msinfo.nfo not found in the log file. msinfo may have crashed or been cancelled by the user.

I opened msinfo32 and exported the file, which I am posting, but I don't know if it is usable.

Well, I would upload the two files, if I could, but so far, I have had no luck whatsoever in getting that to work. I have done this in the past, but now I cannot, so further instructions are needed. I go through the motions to upload the two files, but they never appear in this message. (Not even sure if a .nfo file can be uploaded, as that extension does not show in "Manage Attachments", and I don't know if I could or should add it to the zip file.

Today MUST be Monday, or at least the first Monday of the week....

Let me try using Google Chrome, with the msinfo file added::

Attachment 217662

Ztruker said:

Did you follow the directions starting after step 9 in the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) Posting Instructions ?

Yes, that is why I used the beta version of the collector, as the original version does not work on my computer; otherwise, I don't understand your question.

To sum up what I'd like you to try:

• Disconnect all USB hard drives and non-essential peripherals.
• Update your Intel Rapid Store driver from Intel's website.
• Try running your computer with only 2 (matching!) DIMMs rather than all 4.
• Test your RAM with memtest86.
• Test your hardware using Dell's ePSA.

Longer response:

It looks like you ran into some errors when running the log collector. I have some questions about what happened when you ran it.

1. When you run the log collection script, does the msinfo32.exe window open and show a progress bar? It appears that it hit the timeout (5 minutes) and was killed, did it appear to be making progress or was it frozen?

2. The script running into problems, as well as the number of crashes reported in the Application Event log and WER logs indicates general system instability - how long have these application crashes been happening?

Unfortunately no crash dumps were generated, so we'll have to go off of the other information gathered.

Looking at the event logs here is what immediately stands out to me:

2 instances of:

Code:

Event[11895]:
  Log Name: System
  Source: Microsoft-Windows-WER-SystemErrorReporting
  Date: 2018-12-16T10:15:44.058
  Event ID: 1001
  Task: N/A
  Level: Error
  Opcode: N/A
  Keyword: Classic
  User: N/A
  User Name: N/A
  Computer: John-PC1
  Description: 
The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck.  The bugcheck was: 0x0000001e (0xffffffffc0000094, 0xfffff80795ebbd55, 0x00000000ffffffff, 0x0000000000007fff). A dump was saved in: C:\WINDOWS\MEMORY.DMP.

In both cases the bugcheck was 0x1e, which generally indicates a problem with memory management - generally RAM but sometimes with memory that was paged out to disk.

I see that you are running some mismatched RAM - you have 2x Micron DIMMs at 2133Mhz and 2x Crucial DIMMs at 2400Mhz. Often the system handles this well and simply sets all 4 DIMMs to the lowest common speed, but there have been cases where mismatched RAM causes system instability. To rule this out, see if the crashes continue with DIMMs from only one vendor installed.

If they do continue, check your memory with memtest86 (I recommend this over memtest86+ because you are using DDR4 RAM).

33 instances of:

Code:

Event[233]:
  Log Name: System
  Source: Microsoft-Windows-HAL
  Date: 2018-11-18T09:04:20.542
  Event ID: 12
  Task: N/A
  Level: Error
  Opcode: Info
  Keyword: N/A
  User: N/A
  User Name: N/A
  Computer: John-PC1
  Description: 
The platform firmware has corrupted memory across the previous system power transition.  Please check for updated firmware for your system.

46 instances of:

Code:

Event[2917]:
  Log Name: System
  Source: Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power
  Date: 2018-11-22T11:11:11.639
  Event ID: 40
  Task: N/A
  Level: Information
  Opcode: N/A
  Keyword: N/A
  User: N/A
  User Name: N/A
  Computer: John-PC1
  Description: 
The driver \Driver\WSDScan for device SWD\DAFWSDProvider\urn:uuid:e3248000-80ce-11db-8000-30055ca8bdd6/uri:e3248000-80ce-11db-8000-30055ca8bdd6/ScannerService stopped the power transition.

Both of the above event types indicate something is going wrong when your computer is transitioning between power states (e.g. Sleep -> Wake, or Wake -> Sleep).

The first entry points to there being problems with how your firmware (BIOS/UEFI) is handling these power transitions, I see that you are running the latest firmware for your XPS 8900, but continue to check on Dell's website to see if they post updates in the future.

Regarding the second entry, you have some printing/scanning software that is preventing your computer for moving between power states, I would suggest at least temporarily removing it from your computer to rule it out as a problem.

1082 instances of:

Code:

Event[453]:
  Log Name: System
  Source: Disk
  Date: 2018-11-19T05:56:20.689
  Event ID: 51
  Task: N/A
  Level: Warning
  Opcode: N/A
  Keyword: Classic
  User: N/A
  User Name: N/A
  Computer: John-PC1
  Description: 
An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk1\DR1 during a paging operation.

I believe \Device\Harddisk1 is your USB Western Digital Passport (it contains your E: volume).

Before you bother with testing the drive's health, just disconnect *all* external drives and non-essential peripherals from your computer for now to see if the problems persist with them out of the equation. Also update to the latest Intel Rapid Storage driver, as older versions often have serious bugs.

Spectrum: Thank you for the lengthy reply, which rather reminded me of my outline for my Master's degree, the only difference between that and your posting is that mine was in Medieval Studies.

Given the length of your message, which would take a lot of time to edit for a reply, I am going to take the liberty of just indicating what my replies are about.

Starting off, 1. When you run the log collection script, does the msinfo32.exe window open and show a progress bar? It appears that it hit the timeout (5 minutes) and was killed, did it appear to be making progress or was it frozen?

I did not notice msinfo.32 ever opening, just the error message as the log collection script ended.

2. The script running into problems, as well as the number of crashes reported in the Application Event log and WER logs indicates general system instability - how long have these application crashes been happening?

Only twice, once per day two and three days ago, I believe.

I see that you are running some mismatched RAM - you have 2x Micron DIMMs at 2133Mhz and 2x Crucial DIMMs at 2400Mhz.

I called Crucial and verified the purchase before placing the order. I installed the second bank of memory around 15August2018, and have noticed no instability. I ran memtest, which returned zero errors.

The first entry points to there being problems with how your firmware (BIOS/UEFI) is handling these power transitions, I see that you are running the latest firmware for your XPS 8900, but continue to check on Dell's website to see if they post updates in the future.

Dell Support runs once every week.

Regarding the second entry, you have some printing/scanning software that is preventing your computer for moving between power states, I would suggest at least temporarily removing it from your computer to rule it out as a problem.

Which software are you referring to?

Before you bother with testing the drive's health,

Internal hard disk was replaced by Dell within the last month or so.

update to the latest Intel Rapid Storage drive

I will look into that.