[SOLVED] Computer occasionally crashes minutes after powering on

[bagu_no_kiseki]

Hello,

For the past several months, I've had a problem with my computer crashing. This doesn't happen frequently enough to prevent me from using it, but it's concerning, and all my attempts to diagnose and fix it so far have failed. I thought I would turn to this forum for help.

I'm not sure exactly when this started happening, but the first instance I recorded was on January 11th, so likely December at the earliest. The crashes seem to happen within several minutes of either turning on the computer or resuming from sleep. I can go anywhere from one day to over one month between crashes, and if my computer runs for 10 or 15 minutes without crashing, it seems I can be confident it will continue without problems as long as I keep it powered on. When it does crash, I either get a bluescreen with one of various errors (so far I have seen unexpected kernel power trap, system service exception, page fault in nonpaged area, and IRQL not less or equal), or the computer just freezes (sometimes the screen turns black or blue, sometimes the current picture just sticks) and I have to force it to shut down.

So far I have tried the following:
-Running a memory test twice, which didn't return any errors.
-Running CHKDSK on both of my drives. It found errors on the C drive, and said these were fixed and no further action was required.
-Running the system file checker three times. The first run found two corrupted files and repaired them. The next two runs didn't find any problems.
-Making sure everything is up to date that I can find. I'm not sure of the best way to do this, but Windows Update says I'm up to date, and I manually checked to ensure I have the latest versions of my video and network card drivers. The network card was already up to date, and the video card had to be updated manually (though I didn't do a clean install).

I can't say for certain that all of these crashes have had the same cause, so I figure I'll focus on the crash that happened this morning, where (like it has the past several times) the computer froze without showing a bluescreen. I left the computer on at the login screen to see if it would run, and after a few minutes, I saw that the screen had gone black and my keyboard stopped responding (the Num Lock light went out and I couldn't toggle anything). After forcing it to shut down and turn back on, it ran without errors, and I saw that it produced a memory dump and a minidump.

Unfortunately, I have trouble uploading large files; my connection tends to shut down when I upload for more than a few seconds, which is a longer-standing problem I have never been able to fix. The full dump is over 400 megabytes, which would be difficult for me to share, but I uploaded the minidump at the link below:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wpjh1bshholwp51/051720-25656-01.dmp?dl=0

My specs are below: (Copied from the summary page of Speccy)
Operating System
Windows 10 Home 64-bit
CPU
AMD FX-4300
Vishera 32nm Technology
RAM
12.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 803MHz (11-11-11-28)
Motherboard
Gigabyte Technology Co. Ltd. GA-78LMT-S2 (Socket M2)
Graphics
X322BV-MQC (1360x768@60Hz)
4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (MSI)
Storage
931GB TOSHIBA DT01ACA100 ATA Device (SATA )
476GB SPCC Solid State Disk ATA Device (SATA (SSD))
Optical Drives
No optical disk drives detected
Audio
USB Audio Device (specifically, Sades SA902 headphones)

I used WhoCrashed to analyze the dump files, and it said both reported a REFERENCE_BY_POINTER error, but I'm unsure where to go from here. If anything needs to be done with the full dump file, it might be easiest for me to follow instructions and do it myself, but I can find a way to upload it if necessary.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[The_Prophecy]

So in checking the dump file, I noticed that it points the faulting process as WifiSvc.exe, which appears to be a component of a Netgear or Linksys Wifi adapter. Do you have one of them installed either as a PCI-E card, or a USB adapter?

If so, I would look for updated software/drivers for the adapter. I would also suggest updating to Windows 10 1909, or to 2004 in a few weeks. According to the dump, you're still on 1903.

 

[bagu_no_kiseki]

So in checking the dump file, I noticed that it points the faulting process as WifiSvc.exe, which appears to be a component of a Netgear or Linksys Wifi adapter. Do you have one of them installed either as a PCI-E card, or a USB adapter?

If so, I would look for updated software/drivers for the adapter. I would also suggest updating to Windows 10 1909, or to 2004 in a few weeks. According to the dump, you're still on 1903.

I have a Netgear WNA1100 N150 USB adapter. According to the Netgear Genie, I have version 2.2.0.1 installed, which seems to be the latest version. According to the Windows Device Manager, the driver is version 10.0.0.28. I'm not sure why the two programs say I have different driver versions, but both tell me the driver is up to date. I could uninstall and reinstall it with the latest version anyway, and see if that helps.

As for the Windows 10 update, Windows Update says no new updates are available, and the About page says I'm on version 1909 with OS build 18363.836. I'm not sure why the dump says differently. Is there anything more I should do to make sure I'm up to date?

 

[The_Prophecy]

The application version commonly differs from the driver version, due to how they are developed. Updates to the application are going to be much more common, and just because the developer makes a change to the application, doesn't mean they also need to update the driver bundled with the software (they don't even need to bundle the two together either).

Removing and reinstalling the driver from a fresh copy is a good step. When troubleshooting bluescreen issues that appear to be driver related, this is always a good idea.

The version and build look current... was the machine updated to 1909 recently? As in after the system bluescreened, but before you posted here? Either way, it appears you are indeed up to date now. There will be a new build (2004) coming at the end of May, but I would suggest giving it a couple extra weeks before moving up to it.

 

[bagu_no_kiseki]

I don't remember when I updated to 1909, but it wasn't in between the crash and my post here. I've been trying to keep my computer up to date for a while now, in case an update fixed my problems. I'll keep an eye out for the next update, though, and remember to wait before installing it (I found a lot of reports about problems with recent updates while researching my own issues).

I uninstalled and reinstalled the driver for my USB network adapter, so hopefully that will help. There's no easy way to test it, with how random problems seem to be, but I'll keep an eye on things.

Thank you for the help so far.

 

[bagu_no_kiseki]

Unfortunately, it happened again this morning. The screen didn't go black and I didn't get a memory dump this time, but otherwise, the computer froze on the login screen a few minutes after I turned it on. I forced it to shut down and turned it on again, and it seems to be working fine now.

A couple of things I noticed:
-I can tell when the computer freezes by the sound of the fan. It suddenly gets louder and remains at a consistent speed, unlike when it's working properly, where the speed varies. I suspect this is normal (if the computer freezes, I'm guessing whatever regulates the speed also freezes, and it defaults to something higher than usual).
-The blue light on my USB adapter stayed on without blinking, like it does when my computer is working normally. This struck me as unusual, because the lights on my keyboard go out soon after it crashes, and normally the light on the USB adapter blinks (I'm guessing to indicate activity).

I'm not sure if any of this means anything, but I thought I would mention it in case it's a clue. Otherwise, I don't have much to go on. I don't see any error messages in the event log from around the time of the crash, apart from the usual unexpected shutdown messages.

My next idea is to try uninstalling my Netgear and using a different adapter. It's difficult for me to get replacement parts now, so I've been focusing on software (and hoping it isn't a hardware problem), but I do have a newer replacement.

I have only been hesitant to start using it since... well, it's a little suspicious. It was purchased from Amazon (I believe this is the one), but when I got it, I saw that the instructions were very poorly translated, I had to download the drivers by typing in a Google Drive link, and I couldn't find a company name or website listed anywhere. Maybe I should ask about that elsewhere on this forum, though looking at the Amazon reviews, it seems the worst that might happen is that it doesn't work.

Also, I noticed that my problem sounds very similar to the one described in this thread. I haven't seen a bluescreen in a while, but the symptoms otherwise seem the same, and I have seen the PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA error twice in the past.

 

[bagu_no_kiseki]

I installed a new USB adapter and got it working, so it's back to waiting and hoping I won't have any more crashes. I had to reset a few times during the process and I didn't get any crashes, so that's promising, at least.

Thank you for all the help. I've had several crashes over the past week, so I figure I'll wait 7 more days and see what happens. If I don't have any more problems, I'll report back and mark this as resolved.

 

[bagu_no_kiseki]

So far, so good. I've gone longer than this without crashes, but they were frequent when I posted this thread, so I'm hopeful this is resolved.

I marked this as solved and deleted the memory dump from Dropbox. I still have a backup saved in case I need to reload it, but hopefully this is the end of my problems.