New
#1
BSOD or freezing during Shutdown/Restart, no USB, No Update
I recently built a new PC, initially everything was OK but now I get a number of problem sysmptoms (please see SYMPTOMS below).
It's slightly more complicated than that because the PC switches between Good Mode and Bad Mode.
In Bad Mode I get all the SYMPTOMS but in Good Mode I only get the "Windows Update fails" symptom.
I can see no obvious reason why the PC switches between these two modes.
I've no idea what's going on here so if anybody has any suggestions I'd be very interested to hear them.
SYMPTOMS
1) Shutdown/Restart Freeze
Sometimes selecting Shutdown/Restart (including the "update" variants) starts the blue screen with the marbles rolling round their circular track but after a few seconds the marbles feeze, the cursor/pointer stops responding to mouse movements and nothing happens until either the power or reset button is pressed.
2) Shutdown/Restart BSOD
If the Shutdown/Restart doesn't freeze then it goes on for about five minutes then the un-smily screen appears (BSOD?) with the error message DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE. Then the PC restarts.
3) Sleep never wakes
When Sleep is selected the PC appears to sleep but does not wake from keyboard or mouse.
4) USB devices not detected
Memory sticks, Cameras, Hubs, Phones, Microscope, nothing is ever detected unless it is plugged in before the PC is started up. By "Not Detected" I mean that when I plug a device in the PC shows absolutely no indication that anything has happedned, not even a "device not recognised" message, nothing appears in the Device Manager, nothng appears in the "Safely Remove" section, zero, zip, zilch, nada, nothing.
5) Windows Update fails to install updates.
Windows asks to schedule a restart for updates but only Windows Defender ever updates. The upgrade to Windows 10 Pro, version 1511, 10586 never happens. (Please see diagnostic seciton.)
6) System process continuously uses 13% CPU
When Windows first starts Task Manager reports the System process using between zero and a couple of percent CPU. At some point this increases to about 13% CPU and stays there continuously.
7) Driver details
Looking at the properties window for any device (from device manager) selecting General tab, Driver tab, Event tab etc. works OK but selecting the Details tab causes the Computer Management app to freeze ("Not responding"). "End Task" from the task manager closes the Computer Managment window but not the Device Properties window.
DIAGNOSTICS
WhoCrashed suggests that ntoskrnl.exe causes the BSODs (but not what to do about it).
sfc /scannow says "...did not find any integrity violations."
I have checked every single driver in Device Manager. "Search automatically" either updated the driver or reported "Already best driver". After the updates the PC is still in Bad Mode. I have seen few instances where the driver installation crashed ( "Not Responding" ) but after I'd reset the PC the driver properies showed that the update had worked.
I have tried to restart the Windows Update process by stopping wuauserv, cryptSvc, bits and msiserver, renaming \SoftwareDistribution and \Catroot2 then restarting the update processes. Windows downloaded about 200MB into the replacement folders but when I did "Update and Restart" the installation process got stuck at 59%. After reseting the PC the update still hadn't happened.
I have un-installed Zonealarm (as I've had trouble with it before) and applied their Clean.exe but I still get Bad Mode.