Diagnosing Why System Keeps Freezing/Crashing

[nicolaisafai]

My computer first crashed about 72 hours ago after 3 months of usage with no issues whatsoever. The first few times the PC crashed, I was playing games. Leading me to believe this could be my graphics card. However, then it crashed while I was not playing games, and later my PC crashed while accessing my BIOS settings.

Relevant info:
- I have no added any new parts. Parts list: https://pcpartpicker.com/user/nicolime/saved/q2Z6hM
- I am on automatic updates with Windows and GeForce so I have the latest drivers for both.
- It happens when using the integrated graphics card too
- After it crashes multiple times, it starts getting worse. It starts crashing faster. Screen will sometimes stay black after computer starts up. When it gets this bad, I can make it temporarily better by resetting CMOS.
- temperatures seem normal.
- In system logs, right before the crash, I see some patterns, but the logs are cryptic and nobody with the same error codes seem to have the same issue


What I've tried:
- resetting CMOS
- upgrading BIOS to latest stable release
- check that drivers are up to date for video card
- Using only 1 memory stick
- Removing hard drive and accessing BIOS settings (still crashed)
- Using motherboard's integrated graphics card instead
- Switching the motherboard

What I think it might be:
- Power Supply Unit. Just don't understand why resetting BIOS made anything better
- Memory. Could it be?

Any help is much appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Paul NZ]

Did you do a clean install of windows? Altho that doesnt explain why it crashes with no hdd

If you can still get into it, upload the small dmp files to onedrive then post the link

 

[Lkaos]

HAve you tried to look in the Event Viewer in Administration Tools for the cause of the problem?

 

[SkyNetRising]

Any help is much appreciated.

Reduce GPU overclock.
Also is your CPU overclocked?

 

[nicolaisafai]

Did you do a clean install of windows? Altho that doesnt explain why it crashes with no hdd

If you can still get into it, upload the small dmp files to onedrive then post the link

I did try a clean install of Windows before replacing the motherboard.

I unfortunately can't get into Windows anymore. After rebuilding the computer on a new motherboard, it now shows nothing on the screen when I power on the device. This is even true without a graphics card or the hard drive.

[Edit: After switching what slot the RAM is in, the PC is booting up. Unbelievably, I think something is wrong with the new motherboard's DIMM slots...]

[Edit 2: Even more puzzling, I tried each memory slot (including the one that it was originally in, and now computer will boot regardless of what memory slot the RAM is in.]

 

[nicolaisafai]

HAve you tried to look in the Event Viewer in Administration Tools for the cause of the problem?

Yes, there does seem to be a trend of what events precede the Kernel Power (41) event. I'll post my event logs if I can manage to boot back into Windows.

 

[nicolaisafai]

Any help is much appreciated.

Reduce GPU overclock.
Also is your CPU overclocked?

Right now neither CPU nor GPU are overclocked, as I just put in a brand new motherboard and am using default settings for everything including 0% overclock.

 

[nicolaisafai]

Not sure if this is related but Intel XMP was disabled and my 2666Mhz RAM was being read as 2133Mhz. Once I enabled XMP and left RAM detection on "Auto" it was read as 2400 MHz. If I manually changed it to 2666Mhz, computer wouldn't boot. It is booting fine now with Intel XMP enabled and RAM on Auto-detect at 2400Mhz

I managed to boot back up and export my event logs, here they are!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lo4fogk65vtqvo7/EventLogsSinceReplacingMotherboard.evtx?dl=0

Invariably, here are the events that lead up to the crash (in reverse chronological order):

Critical 12/22/2017 10:32:26 AM Kernel-Power 41 (63)

The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.

Information 12/22/2017 10:32:26 AM FilterManager 6 None

File System Filter 'npsvctrig' (10.0, ‎2070‎-‎05‎-‎05T06:38:28.000000000Z) has successfully loaded and registered with Filter Manager.

Information 12/22/2017 10:32:26 AM FilterManager 6 None

File System Filter 'FileCrypt' (10.0, ‎2013‎-‎05‎-‎08T04:49:03.000000000Z) has successfully loaded and registered with Filter Manager.

Error 12/22/2017 10:32:26 AM volmgr 161 None

Dump file creation failed due to error during dump creation.

Information 12/22/2017 10:32:26 AM Ntfs (Microsoft-Windows-Ntfs) 98 None

Volume C: (\Device\HarddiskVolume4) is healthy. No action is needed.

Information 12/22/2017 10:32:26 AM EnhancedStorage-EhStorTcgDrv 100 Driver

The following informational event has occurred (0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0).
DeviceStart

Information 12/22/2017 10:32:25 AM EnhancedStorage-EhStorTcgDrv 12 Driver

A TCG Silo has returned the capabilities value of 0x7.

Error 12/22/2017 10:32:25 AM EnhancedStorage-EhStorTcgDrv 10 Driver

A TCG Command has returned an error.
Desc: AuthenticateSession
Param1: 0x1
Param2: 0x60000001C
Param3: 0x900000006
Param4: 0x0
Status: 0x12

Information 12/22/2017 10:32:25 AM EnhancedStorage-EhStorTcgDrv 100 Driver

The following informational event has occurred (0x0, 0x5, 0x0, 0x0).
D0Entry

 

[Paul NZ]

The error 41 if you didnt press the reset button can mean a faulty PSU

The]http://forums.crucial.com/t5/Crucial-SSDs/MX100-EnhancedStorage-EhStorTcgDrv-error/td-p/167282]The last error is your ssd[/url]

Here's a similar prob with the same error for the ssd

You may have a conflict somewhere as the above link says. It may have something to do with encryption.

Also do you use bitlocker / have a TPM module on this?

 

[nicolaisafai]

The error 41 if you didnt press the reset button can mean a faulty PSU

The]http://forums.crucial.com/t5/Crucial-SSDs/MX100-EnhancedStorage-EhStorTcgDrv-error/td-p/167282]The last error is your ssd[/url]

Here's a similar prob with the same error for the ssd

You may have a conflict somewhere as the above link says. It may have something to do with encryption.

Also do you use bitlocker / have a TPM module on this?

First of all, thanks to everyone who is helping. Really appreciate it!

After the computer freezes, I do have to hold the power button for 3-5 seconds to power it off. However, given that the Kernel Power (41) error occurs less than 1 second after the hard drive failure, I'm inclined to think that this Kernel Power (41) error isn't because I'm holding the power button down.

As for the hard drive, I'm not using bitlocker (I checked inside Control Panel, it is off). I haven't enabled encryption and am not familiar with TPM modules.

It's quite unfortunate that in both posts you shared, the OP's problems aren't resolved!

Now basically the problem could be:
- RAM is not compatible despite what pcpartpicker.com says, and not being read correctly (breaking because its running at 2400Mhz instead of correct 2666Mhz)
- fault PSU (not sure how to test other than replacement)
- hard drive is correct (not sure how to test other than replacement)

 

[Paul NZ]

Hmm I wonder if this has anything to do it. It does look like these ssd's have encryption. And it does mention bitlocker

If you dont use bitlocker / have a TPM module, do you have to turn the encryption on the ssd off?? If so, how?

I would say this has something to do with the freezing

 

[nicolaisafai]

Well, I'm not sure what did it:
- changing the RAM settings in BIOS to enable XMP
- turning off fast boot
- updating BIOS on the new motherboard

But it seems to be working correctly now. I'll report back whether it hangs again or continues working.

 

[nicolaisafai]

I shouldn't have celebrated so soon, my PC just froze after many hours of working flawlessly.

Hmm I wonder if this has anything to do it. It does look like these ssd's have encryption. And it does mention bitlocker

If you dont use bitlocker / have a TPM module, do you have to turn the encryption on the ssd off?? If so, how?

I would say this has something to do with the freezing

^ How come? I have not installed Bitlocker.

 

[Paul NZ]

It has something to do with the ssd's encryption. I would contact Crucial and tell them about that TCG error

Error 12/22/2017 10:32:25 AM EnhancedStorage-EhStorTcgDrv 10 Driver

A TCG Command has returned an error.
Desc: AuthenticateSession
Param1: 0x1
Param2: 0x60000001C
Param3: 0x900000006
Param4: 0x0
Status: 0x12

 

[nicolaisafai]

I bought a new hard drive and new RAM. Before opening the hard drive, I replaced the RAM since that is so much easier.

It's been hours, and no crash so far. Fingers crossed! Will report back.

 

[nicolaisafai]

2.5 years later, I can confirm it was faulty ram.