Spontaneous crashes / reboots


  1. Posts : 7
    Windows 10 Home
       #1

    Spontaneous crashes / reboots


    Hi All,

    I’ll start with a potential apology – my W10 PC is crashing – but not with a blue screen. I’m posting here because I couldn’t see anywhere more appropriate. [EDIT - there obviously was a more appropriate place & I see this post has been moved. Thankyou whoever fixed that for me!]

    Background: I have a home-built desktop PC, which has been successfully running W7 Home rock solid since it was built.
    Topline specs are:

    • Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor
    • Gigabyte Z77-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
    • Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit
    • Asus GeForce GTX 970 DirectCU II OC Strix 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
    • XFX Pro 550W Core Edition '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply
    • Crucial MX100 256GB SSD (for system)
    • Toshiba 1TB SATA HDD (for files)
    • Two DVD±RW SATA ReWriters
    • 3.5" Internal Card Reader


    Two weeks ago I allowed W7 to upgrade to W10. Initially it was quite unstable, but I uninstalled various bits of old / incompatible software and it improved dramatically. (Getting rid of Acronis 2014, which I gather is a frequent culprit for W10 crashes, worked wonders).

    But the PC still has a persistent regular crash / reboot once or twice per day and I simply can't eliminate it. It’s not a classic ‘blue screen’ crash – the screens go black & the machine simply reboots spontaneously. Sometimes when it’s being used, sometimes when it’s unattended (I know it’s happened because Chrome has closed & offers to restore tabs when I reopen it).

    Looking at Event Viewer (which I’m none too sure how to interpret properly at the best of times…) it says “The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly”
    Source: Kernel-Power; Event ID 41; Task Category (63); Bugcheck codes all ‘0’s.

    Here’s what I’ve done with no success:

    • Opened up the case and reseated memory, graphics card, ATX cable, various other cables. A couple of weeks prior to getting W10 I’d installed a new internal card reader, which worked fine under W7 – but it occurred to me I may have disturbed something whilst I was in there. There was nothing amiss though.
    • Windows Update is not allowed to automatically restart the PC.
    • Turned off Fast Startup in the hidden Power Settings (following a YouTube instructional vid).
    • Checked my video drivers are up to date (the GeForce Experience software takes care of this for me)

    ...and at that I’m kind of out of ideas. Looking online the problem seems very common, but with no definitive fix. I’ve considered that my PSU is failing, but it worked fine with W7, so I’m dubious about that.

    I’d really rather not do a clean install of W10. Everything I read suggests that it doesn’t help, and I really can’t face the mammoth reinstall of all the family’s software. If it came to that I’d rather roll back to W7, which worked great for years.

    But I do like W10 a lot, and it’s running well on various computers in my office, and on my just-for-fun Microserver at home. So I’d like to keep it on my main PC if I can make it stable.

    I’ve attached a DM Log as per the sticky post, and will gladly add any more info / logs that you might want to see (might need to be told how to gather them…). Any advice anyone out there could give would be very gratefully received. Thanks for reading this marathon post!

    cheers, Simon
    Spontaneous crashes / reboots Attached Files
    Last edited by sijones; 01 Apr 2016 at 16:10. Reason: my incompetence
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 42,735
    Win 10 Pro (22H2) (2nd PC is 22H2)
       #2

    Hi, I think this is properly referred to the BSOD section, despite your comment.

    Meanwhile, have a look at the reliability history (Just type reliabl in the Cortana search box and you should find it).
    Check all the x's and see if there are any hints.

    Assuming the cause is some sort of conflict due to an installed program:
    a. Try a simple process of elimination:
    Clean Boot - Perform in Windows 10 to Troubleshoot Software Conflicts - Windows 10 Forums

    You may wish also to use Autoruns to disable further items.

    b. Another area to explore: eliminate (temporarily at least) all added shell extensions using Shellexview (freeware).
    Hide all MS items, disable the rest.
    If any improvement, progressively enable others.
    Note there is a 32 bit option in Shellexview which is relevant for 64 bit Windows. I found that rather confusing.

    ---------------------------
    And, assuming the crashes are frequent enough, you can compare performance in Safe Mode.

    Now clearly this could be anything from background services to drivers as well- too many variables without something more specific.

    You'll be aware you have 30 days to roll back, and hopefully you have a disk image of your Win 7 configuration before you upgraded which you can use to restore Win 7 if anything goes wrong.

    I would recommend creating a disk image before starting the above so you can be sure of being able to get back to where you are now.

    Many recommend Macrium Reflect (free) + boot medium + external storage.
      My Computers


  3. Posts : 7
    Windows 10 Home
    Thread Starter
       #3

    Many thanks for your reply & those tips Dalchina - I'll work through them all in turn.

    I was actually halfway through writing this post when the machine rebooted again!

    I should have mentioned in my previous post how I've also run sfc /scannow several times with no problems found. Also since I first posted I've increased the size of my C Drive's paging file to 4GB (half of my installed RAM size) - but since the machine just rebooted on me, obviously that's not made any difference.

    I have 2 weeks to roll back to W7, and I also have a disk image taken just before the upgrade to W10, as an added safety net. But I'm determined to give W10 the best chance I can, before I roll back.

    Will report back on developments as I work through your tips.

    cheers,
    Simon
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 42,735
    Win 10 Pro (22H2) (2nd PC is 22H2)
       #4

    Note that driver management in Win 10 is by Uncle MS who will replace any driver of different version to that he deems appropriate- unless you use one of the tutorials to block an update.

    Thus if you suspect a driver and want to use an older one that worked before, you need to take special steps.
      My Computers


  5. Posts : 7
    Windows 10 Home
    Thread Starter
       #5

    Just checking in to say that the process of elimination continues... all services & startups disabled = no spontaneous reboots. All services & half of the startups re-enabled so far = still no reboots. So maybe / hopefully the culprit is one of the startups still to be re-enabled... more news as it breaks!

    S
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 42,735
    Win 10 Pro (22H2) (2nd PC is 22H2)
       #6

    great- all we can hope for is consistency..
      My Computers


  7. Posts : 7
    Windows 10 Home
    Thread Starter
       #7

    Well, I'm back, with tentative good news. Though I don't really understand why...

    I've followed Dalchina's 'clean boot' how-to pretty thoroughly: disabling all non-Microsoft services & startup items, then re-enabling them in blocks. First I re-enabled the services in stages, then the startups, assuming that at some point the computer would misbehave again, and I'd be narrowing down to a culprit.

    But during all of this process, I didn't have any of the previous spontaneous reboots that had been bugging me before. Once everything was re-enabled, I still didn't have an unwanted reboot, which rather baffled me. In theory the system was then configured exactly as it was originally when I was having problems.

    So me & the PC now have an uneasy peace.

    Once the services & startups had been re-enabled, and I'd had a decent trial period with no unwanted reboots, I went back in & banished a few things that I'd come across during the process:
    * Uninstalled a software called 'Razer Synapse' that my lad had added to W7 - no longer needed.
    * Once again disabled the 'Xboxstat.exe' startup item (I gather it adds little or no value).
    * Once again disabled an instance of 'VIA HD Audio CPL' software startup, which weirdly appeared twice on the startups list:

    - the PC appeared to behave the same whether one or both were enabled, so I disabled the 2nd for now. If anyone knows why that would appear twice I'd be interested to hear about it.

    Also last night there was what looked like a fairly substantial W10 update.

    My 30-day window to roll back to W7 is nearly up, but as I've reached a state of truce with W10, I'm pleased to say I'm going to stick with it. If I live to regret that decision, there's always my W7 disk image to fall back on!

    Thankyou for the advice, I can't guarantee I won't be back asking for more!
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 42,735
    Win 10 Pro (22H2) (2nd PC is 22H2)
       #8

    Good.. strange, as you say. Now is the time to prepare for the next quirk/problem-

    - start using Macrium Reflect (free) + boot medium + external storage and routinely update your disk image.
    You can consider enabling System Restore (off by default in Win 10).

    Experts here say upgrades (as compared to clean installs) experience more issues.
      My Computers


 

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