Irregular BSODs for many months.

I bought this computer 2nd hand from eBay at the start of this year. When I got it, my cousin installed DriverPack in my computer and when while updating some drivers, it crashed for the first time.
Since then I've tried various things to try and find out the problem. Here is the list in chronological order.

• The usual google advices. Updated my drivers via windows, dell website, manually and even driver softwares. Also, a lot of commands to enter in Powershell.

• Did a memtest. Since I have a 32GB ram, it took a long time, but it passed once.

• Did a clean installation

• Kept the entire computer in safe mode for more than 48 hours. Did not crash.

• Finally formatted the computer a month back. Waited 2 days before I installed the first software (Chrome). Drivers were automatically installed. Crashed after another 24 hours.

A few notes about the crashes.

• They are irregular. They can happen anywhere from once every day to once every 3 days. Once it didn't crash for more than a week.

• The usual errors are 'Critical process died' and 'Unexpected Store Exception'. Only once did I get a 'Driver state failure' and very rarely 'System Service Exception'.

• 98% of the time, they don't create a dump file. The Blue screen appears for a second and then the computer restarts. I've disabled auto-restart once and it was just stuck in the blue screen until I force restarted it.

• I've checked with WhoCrashed and triggered a crash to see if the system is incapable of creating a dump file. I wasn't. It created a dump file just fine in that scenario. Only 'Critical process...' and 'Unexpected...' fails to create a dump file.

• It comes randomly. I don't have to be doing anything. PC could be idle, I could be browsing, playing a game, watching a movie, etc. No particular behavior triggers it.

I can understand if it is a hardware issue. But I want to be sure. I want evidence of whatever is causing it so I can then move forward in fixing/replacing it.

Test your disk with SeaTools (SeaTools for DOS - Hard Drive Diagnostic) and HD Tune

MrPepka said:

Test your disk with SeaTools (SeaTools for DOS - Hard Drive Diagnostic) and HD Tune

I wasn't exactly sure what tests you needed me to do. So with the HD Tune software, I did all the tests available.
With the SeaTools software, I did the 'long generic' test and it passed my system.

The screengrabs of all the tests I did with HD Tune are here

See rule #4

https://www.tenforums.com/misc.php?do=showrules

No piracy or discussion of piracy allowed at all.
Such as software, music, videos and other intellectual property violations (e.g. downloading youtube videos locally etc) - it is forum policy that no help shall be given to people who knowingly steal software or services.

If there is any unlicensed software or tools used to bypass the activation of software please make sure that they are uninstalled.

zbook said:

See rule #4

https://www.tenforums.com/misc.php?do=showrules

No piracy or discussion of piracy allowed at all.
Such as software, music, videos and other intellectual property violations (e.g. downloading youtube videos locally etc) - it is forum policy that no help shall be given to people who knowingly steal software or services.

If there is any unlicensed software or tools used to bypass the activation of software please make sure that they are uninstalled.

I did not pirate the software. It was a trial version and I just took a screenshot of it. I don't know which software you are referring to.
Please do not ban me or do anything of that sort at least before we talk it out. I used a trial version and it was completely legal.

Which software is on trial?
Which software has tools used to bypass activation?

zbook said:

Which software is on trial?
Which software has tools used to bypass activation?

The software HD Tune which was recommended to me to user MrPepka. That's the software on trial. The other software (SeaTools) is free to use.
These were the only two softwares discussed in this thread.

HD Tune is offered in both freeware and pro versions so I think the zbook user just got it wrong. As for the tests, I meant if the disks do not have any bad sectors, errors in SMART etc. However, if you do not have errors, and the system does not create memory dumps then see:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...6-a7128d12e06d

Like I've told before, the computer does create dumps. Just not in the problems that I mostly get. It has produced a dump when the error was 'Driver Power state failure' and when I forced a crash using WhoCrashed.

However, I've made the necessary changes in the settings and I'm waiting for the next crash. Will let you know asap.