Critical Process Died Loop - Help would be appreciated.

Max1968 · 28 Jul 2021

Hi,

Desktop PC has had a few issues with BSOD over the last year or so, usually a kernel power 41 issue. Usually it occurs after a windows update and I wonder if it could be down to graphics card drivers. My graphics card is old and games only run on an old Nvidia driver so there may be an issue there but that's not the problem I have now.

Basically I am only able to write this due to managing to boot to an old HDD Hard Disk. My main disk is an SDD. Yesterday morning I had received three BSOD in an hour or so so decided to do a system restore. That went ok but the start button wouldn't work so I decided to reboot,. That's where the "fun" started! Upon reboot i got a BSOD called "Critical Process Died" and the PC couldn't repair itself. Tried absolutely everything on the Troubleshoot options, even down to resetting my PC but nothing worked. Furthest I managed was I think with a command called "rstrui.exe", although I may be wrong, but whatever it was is allowed me to try a system restore as previous efforts my C drive was greyed out. However each system restore (3 points) failed with a different error, the first a registry error, so that was useless. Then one screen showed the main BIOS was corrupted but the system recovered from the backup BIOS.

Tried CHKDSK etc from command prompt in the Advanced options. No bad sectors were found but at the end it stated "failed to transfer messages to the event log with status 6. It also seemed to have the drive down as Drive X rather than Drive C so not sure what is going on there. DISM Restore Health didn't work at all.

I have Acronis and NAS Dlink so tried to see if I could find an image to backup from. I managed to get a shot of the drivers but it showed -

Local Disk (c) which is my drive but I can't access it.
Local Disk (e) which is the one I am on at the moment.
Boot (x:) No idea what that is?

No luck with that either!

At that point I thought the motherboard had fried but this morning I tried to boot from SATA PS Samsung HD103 SJ and it took me to a Windows 8 set up. Rebooted and tried to boot from UEFI Samsung HD103SJ and that successfully booted to the desktop albeit my old one from 2015 which is when I updated my drive from HDD to SSD. I then have spent all morning doing windows updates and trying now successfully to get me on the internet and have managed to get into my Windows Live Mail which seems to have downloded every email since 2015!

The main disk is now this one Local Disk C - Strangely Local Disk E is showing at 114GB of 222 GB which looking at the programs must be my normal SSD. It even shows up in device manager KINGSTON_SV300S37A240G ATA DEVICE and is listed as working properly although I am currently on the SAMSUNG_HD103SJ ATA DEVICE.

So I assume if I can boot to my old Hard Drive the Motherboard is ok, leaving a fried SDD or a corrupted Windows 10 on that drive as the culprits I assume?

What however can I do about it, especially ideally saving my files and documents on my SSD? I did back up my documents to a USB a couple of weeks ago but I've updated a few since then so it's not fully up to date.

Without being able to boot to that SSD is there a way I can download Windows 10, place it on a USB Stick and reinstall? If that is possible however would I lose all my files? I know programs would be erased.

Or is it somehow possible to use Acronis and DLINK and grab that downloaded image of my PC from three days ago although I have no idea if that is possible without being able to boot?

In my head I am thinking I could boot from the USB with Windows. Do a clean install so I can boot to the drive and then once in would Volume 1 Drive Z (DLINK) still be there to then download the Acronis backup saved? My only worry is it's also Acronis 2014 so maybe a tad old!

Or is it likely the SSD is the problem, therefore rendering any attempts to reboot to it futile?

Apologies for such as long winded post but could really do with some help.

Thanks.

ThrashZone · 28 Jul 2021

Hi,
ssd is probably dying

Max1968 · 30 Jul 2021

Hi all, well some strange goings on today. After being in that never ending loop and ending up on my old hard drive last night I decided one last throw of the dice and tried to perform an install of a back up from my DLink through Acronis 2014. The first I tried from Monday night was corrupt so I tried Sundays back up.

This morning it asked me to restart my PC, which I did. It brought me back to my old hard drive which now was very very basic. Start button didn't work, couldn't get into most apps and yet sat by C Drive was F Drive,,,, my current SSD! Everything was there, including under Users were my documents and files, albeit, from Sunday. Slowly, painfully I managed to copy the more up to date documents to a USB stick. I was going to try and back it up to BT Cloud, but that only allows you to back up a document at a time as far as I can see.

I then decided to download Windows on to a USB to see if I could salvage my SSD back as normal. That uploaded onto USB fine and then had to beboot. Strangely a boot menu appeared with UEFI - Kingston listed. Just out of hope rather than expectation I clicked it and I was bizarrely back on my SSD drive as per normal?! As it loaded up a quick box appeared saying something about "corrupted settings" but that disapeared and so far most things seem to work ok.

I rebooted to the boot menu and saw this UEFI - Kingston as a new entry as it wasn't there yesterday. Others were UEFI - Samsung, which boots to my old HDD and SATA SM - Kingston which boots to "Reboot and Select Proper Boot Device". I went to the BIOS and placed UEFI - Kingston as the main boot and booted back to my current SSD without an issue. Rebooted to double check it worked and to start with a screen came up saying the BIOS was corrupted "again" and a back up would be performed. That finished and I went to the boot menu again. This time UEFI - Kingston had strangely disapeared BUT if I clicked Windows Boot Manager that thankfully boots to the my current Kingston SSD so alll good,,, at the moment!!

I am sure before all of this the boot menu only had SATA options and pretty sure I had never seen a UEFI option, but now SATA options don't boot but UEFI currently do at least. Anyone know how this can be as it's really confusing me!

Also strangely the roles have now reversed and I can see under Local Disk D is my old hard drive which was never showing 5 ddays ago!!

Not sure this is the calm before the storm and BSOD will arrive again after the next Windows update but it's been really strange and just a bunch of hit and hope chances have worked albeit not the way I was intending. Thankfully none of the above create the critical process died so I am wondering if I did actuually succeed in restoring the image fully from Sunday evening and that wiped out whatever corruption was produced on Monday?!?!

In the meantime I post the current System Information and hope a trained eye may be able to advise if all looks ok or not as the case may be?!

Thank you.

Critical Process Died Loop - Help would be appreciated.-system-information.jpg

- - - Updated - - -

Couple of other questions if I may.

1. Ran a CHKDSK this morning and it didn't pick up any issues. My only oncern is the text marked in red on the sxcreen shot. Is that orf any concern?

2. Upon reboot from time to time, not always I am getting this "Corrupted Bios Message". It seems to solve the issue by doing what it says it will do but is there an issue here? Should I update the BIOS, as I don't think I havbe ever done that as I don't know how. If I should, could someone please advise how?

****Site isn't allowing me to upload BIOS Image for some reason.

Thank you.,

Critical Process Died Loop - Help would be appreciated.-chkdsk.jpg

Max1968 · 02 Aug 2021

Have now done what was asked on the post rules, apologies. Hoping I have done it correctly? File at bottom of post.

Since the upload I have also had another Kernel Error (attached) These have been going on sporadically for months. Sometimes leaving a free two week gap then having several in succession., It's the most frequent BSOD and it often happens after a windows update.. Noticed it mainly happened when I play Football Manager and assumed it was to do with the fact my graphics card is too old. It will only run on really old Nvidia drivers and any update the games don't run smoothly so I use 21.21.13.7653 (376.53) whichb is a few years old. I also in the last few days made sure FM was exempt from Norton and in the game swapped to Software from GPU Assisted under rendering mode. So far no crash when playing FM but this Kernel BSOD appeared when I was just browsing the web.

Critical Process Died Loop - Help would be appreciated.-kernel-error.jpg

axe0 · 02 Aug 2021

1. Ran a CHKDSK this morning and it didn't pick up any issues. My only oncern is the text marked in red on the sxcreen shot. Is that orf any concern?

No, all chkdsk is saying is how the partition has been formatted. NTFS is the most common format.

2. Upon reboot from time to time, not always I am getting this "Corrupted Bios Message". It seems to solve the issue by doing what it says it will do but is there an issue here? Should I update the BIOS, as I don't think I havbe ever done that as I don't know how. If I should, could someone please advise how?

Updating the BIOS usually does the trick. You already downloaded the BIOS image, what you now should do is read this guide carefully. It describes all steps to be taken to successfully flash the BIOS.
https://www.gigabyte.com/FileUpload/global/WebPage/20/images/utiltiy_qflash_uefi.pdf

Have you considered testing the RAM? While it's likely there are drive issues, I recommend covering bases because you have multiple crashes that occur due to system file corruption which can be caused by drive problems as well as faulty RAM.
MemTest86+ - Test RAM

Code:

FAULTY_HARDWARE_CORRUPTED_PAGE (12b)
This bugcheck indicates that a single bit error was found in this page.  This is a hardware memory error.
Arguments:
Arg1: ffffffffc00002c4, virtual address mapping the corrupted page
Arg2: 000000000000050e, physical page number
Arg3: 000001eee9bdbf10, zero
Arg4: ffffc30191fc4000, zero

2: kd> !error c00002c4
Error code: (NTSTATUS) 0xc00002c4 (3221226180) - The system file %1 has become corrupt and has been replaced.

Max1968 · 02 Aug 2021

Thank you I appreciate your reply. I will look through what you have suggested but bit worried I could make things worse if I get it wrong! Re my motherboard

Manufacturer Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd.
Model Z77-D3H (Intel Core i5-3570K CPU @ 3.40GHz)
Version To be filled by O.E.M.
Chipset Vendor Intel
Chipset Model Ivy Bridge
Chipset Revision 09
Southbridge Vendor Intel
Southbridge Model Z77
Southbridge Revision 04

Just to clarify it would be manufacturer and model I need to get right? Also not sure what "VersionTo be filled by O.E.M" means?

I've become a bit obsessed with the Event Viewer now and I am seeing warnings pop up, although they may well have been there before all of this as I only ever concentrated on "critical" Not sure iof any of these are cause for concern?

Critical Process Died Loop - Help would be appreciated.-esrv-svc-williamette.jpg

Critical Process Died Loop - Help would be appreciated.-kernel-event-tracing.jpg

Critical Process Died Loop - Help would be appreciated.-windows-hello-business.jpg

Critical Process Died Loop - Help would be appreciated.-distributed-com.jpg

Thank you.

axe0 · 03 Aug 2021

You need the manufacturer, model, and revision version. This revision version is printed on your motherboard physically.
GA-Z77-D3H (rev. 1.2) Gallery | Motherboard - GIGABYTE Global for example for the revision 1.2

Version to be filled is data that the OEM should enter, nothing of concern to you.

I would not pay much attention on the event logs, most of these events are natural occurring events. You can spend (waste may be more accurate) months on trying to fix every one of them but you won't ever succeed. A small update could trigger new events and you're back to square one. A lot of these events are triggered by Windows itself, you could even get them with a clean install and the only way to get rid of it for good would be to use Linux or Mac. Here is an example of some DCOM 10016 events, there are many users that want to fix those because they occur a lot, but like many others these are events that occur naturally throughout time.
Why Certain DCOM 10016 Events Don't Matter

Whenever I go through the events, I ignore events that are not indicative of something that went crucially wrong or should be addressed to ensure the stability of Windows. What I look for is system file or file system problems, corruption, many retries to access the drive, chkdsk logs, crash data, etc. Of course this is specifically for BSOD related problems. If it were other issues, say a program keeps crashing, it's a different story although most events should then still be ignored.

Max1968 · 03 Aug 2021

Thank you that's really helpful. I'm just going to concentrate any critical ones that cause a BSOD. Thankfully re playing Football Manager I haven't (touch wood) haven't had a BSOD upon exit since I changed the rendering mode to "software". I also don't "click" into another program like email immediately after exiting giving it a few seconds as I notice the BSOD is usually upon exit and say immediately accessing email. It's almsot as if one task hasn't finished before a new one starts!

I'm going to buy a new USB stick as others are full and do the memory test. Did Windows Memory Diagnostic and no errors were found but am aware tha's probably a far from perfect check. With the BIOS I'll leave it for now as I've restarted a few times last couple of days and there has been no error, although it may happen after a proper shutdown I guess., I'll wait till my friend comes over as he is pretty PC savvy so I'll let him do it.

Any ideas on what might have caused that massive Critical Process Died crash last week and why it left me totally unable to access my PC even through all the advanced troubleshooting options>?

Also before all this the one BSOD I got quite a lot was Kernel 41. It was odd because it didn't happen for a couple of weeks then you would get it two times a day for no reason at all. I know Kernel 41 can be anything from drivers to memory but I'm pretty sure it changed it's pattern and frequency after some Windows update,.

axe0 · 03 Aug 2021

Your drive is the likely cause for that critical process died last week.

There are two common causes for the critical process died, RAM and the drive. The critical process died crash occurs when a process Windows considers as critical has to terminate for whatever reason. These processes are considered critical because Windows cannot run without them, most other processes (like explorer.exe for example) can be terminated safely. These critical processes have a fundamental role in running Windows so if something happens they terminate and Windows has no other choice but to crash. From my experience this is typically caused by RAM or the drive and given your description I lean towards the drive.

Kernel 41 is not a BSOD, it is an event. It means that Windows failed to shutdown the system properly. It can also happen without a BSOD, like with a sudden restart or shutdown.

Max1968 · 04 Aug 2021

Thank you again for your reply?

Does that possibly mean that the drive is on its way out? Been pretty relieved since I got it up and running again with possibly the image and only had one crash and that was Kernel 41. Ran scannow and haven't seen any problems so all seems as stable as could be so far. Do you know what possible causes the Kernel events?