[SOLVED] Consistent bsods and each time I have to reinstall windows for it to work again

[Suri-]

So my pc is around 6 years old and back when I bought it I bought some cheapo ocz 120gb ssd just for Windows.

Around last week we had a power outage and when I started the pc back up the loading animation was all messed up and it wouldn't let me boot into safe mode or anything so I reinstalled Windows on the ssd and ever since then at the end of each day I've had a different bsod error each time.

This has already happened around 11 times in the past week and each and every time windows got corrupted somehow and I've had to reinstall windows so I assumed it was an SSD problem since everything else in my system is high quality and has had no issues. I did a check with crystaldiskinfo on my ssd but it came up with no issues.

After each reinstall I've let windows reinstall all the drivers from updates and windows has been updated to version 2004 every time. The only drivers I manually install are the graphics and the audio drivers.

Some of the errors I've gotten:

Loading screen changes and turns glitchy and doesn't let me boot into the system.

Bsod: process1 initialization failed

Bsod: critical process died(something like that)

It booted me into windows and it kept refreshing? And when I tried to open anything it said memory could not be written and other times it said memory could not be read


More errors of the same kind. I've never been able to boot into safe mode after any of these errors and windows automatic repair hasn't done anything.

Are these errors due to my ssd or something else like my ram? Is there a way I can find out which part is defective?

If the issue is with my ssd, I've ordered a new M.2 ssd from WD, will that be more reliable than this? My ssd arrives in 2 days so an early reply is appreciated because then if the problem is not with my ssd then I can cancel the order.

 

[cdrkf]

So my pc is around 6 years old and back when I bought it I bought some cheapo ocz 120gb ssd just for Windows.

Around last week we had a power outage and when I started the pc back up the loading animation was all messed up and it wouldn't let me boot into safe mode or anything so I reinstalled Windows on the ssd and ever since then at the end of each day I've had a different bsod error each time.

This has already happened around 11 times in the past week and each and every time windows got corrupted somehow and I've had to reinstall windows so I assumed it was an SSD problem since everything else in my system is high quality and has had no issues. I did a check with crystaldiskinfo on my ssd but it came up with no issues.

After each reinstall I've let windows reinstall all the drivers from updates and windows has been updated to version 2004 every time. The only drivers I manually install are the graphics and the audio drivers.

Some of the errors I've gotten:

Loading screen changes and turns glitchy and doesn't let me boot into the system.

Bsod: process1 initialization failed

Bsod: critical process died(something like that)

It booted me into windows and it kept refreshing? And when I tried to open anything it said memory could not be written and other times it said memory could not be read


More errors of the same kind. I've never been able to boot into safe mode after any of these errors and windows automatic repair hasn't done anything.

Are these errors due to my ssd or something else like my ram? Is there a way I can find out which part is defective?

If the issue is with my ssd, I've ordered a new M.2 ssd from WD, will that be more reliable than this? My ssd arrives in 2 days so an early reply is appreciated because then if the problem is not with my ssd then I can cancel the order.

There are a few things that could cause this behaviour, although I wonder if it might actually be the SSD....

Something most people don't realise is that SSD drives have a finite life span - each memory cell in the drive can only be written a certain number of times before it can no longer be used. SSD drives usually include more memory cells than the space on offer as a buffer to maintain the drive for it's intended life span, however the smaller the drive and the closer it is to full capacity the less time it will take for the drive to reach the end of it's life.

In terms of if the NVME drive will be more reliable, that depends on the drive you have purchased, although newer SSD drives are typically better for this than older drives. The specs for the drive should include a rating for total amount of data that can be written to the drive - the larger this number the longer the drive should live - if the new drive is larger it will likely be better out of the gate.

 

[Colif]

If errors only happen after install and not during, its unlikely to be ram but you can check

Try running memtest86 on each of your ram sticks, one stick at a time, up to 4 passes. Only error count you want is 0, any higher could be cause of the BSOD. Remove/replace ram sticks with errors. Memtest is created as a bootable USB so that you don’t need windows to run it

Could be the ssd if its 6 years old. Even hdd of that age would be getting potentially dangerous to use as a boot drive. 120gb for a boot drive is also getting a little small now, easier to get new SSD as they larger too for much less.

 

[Suri-]

There are a few things that could cause this behaviour, although I wonder if it might actually be the SSD....

Something most people don't realise is that SSD drives have a finite life span - each memory cell in the drive can only be written a certain number of times before it can no longer be used. SSD drives usually include more memory cells than the space on offer as a buffer to maintain the drive for it's intended life span, however the smaller the drive and the closer it is to full capacity the less time it will take for the drive to reach the end of it's life.

In terms of if the NVME drive will be more reliable, that depends on the drive you have purchased, although newer SSD drives are typically better for this than older drives. The specs for the drive should include a rating for total amount of data that can be written to the drive - the larger this number the longer the drive should live - if the new drive is larger it will likely be better out of the gate.

Thank you for your response, I didn't know about the finite life of an SSD. You've been very helpful

 

[Suri-]

If errors only happen after install and not during, its unlikely to be ram but you can check

Try running memtest86 on each of your ram sticks, one stick at a time, up to 4 passes. Only error count you want is 0, any higher could be cause of the BSOD. Remove/replace ram sticks with errors. Memtest is created as a bootable USB so that you don’t need windows to run it

Could be the ssd if its 6 years old. Even hdd of that age would be getting potentially dangerous to use as a boot drive. 120gb for a boot drive is also getting a little small now, easier to get new SSD as they larger too for much less.

Alright I'll try this and let you know