Everything is crashing on windows 7, should I factory reset?

mirthi

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Feb 12, 2015
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Everything on my computer crashes and when i try to use them too much or keep trying to use them while they keep crashing I get a blue screen. idk what happened, this problem started at friday march 4th 2016. This never happened before and i never encountered an issue like this. everything was working fine until that day.

TL DR:

Everything crashes, tried a bunch of stuff to fix, only can use browsers for a short time. will upgrading from window7 to window10 fix? if not then where can i find disk that makes me keep my windows 7 after factory reset unless there is a way to factory reset without it.




Before the day (i think on wednsday)
1) I had a windows update that updates once you turn off your computer.
2) A friend of mine was teaching me how to use java by making a notepad in my user thing in my C drive and then using the command line to execute it. I think i deleted the files already im not too sure if im missing one more file.

on friday
3) using VirtualBox to do my computer science hmwk on friday (it started to go haywire at this time). the starting of friday i played games and what not like usual and it was fine, i did my lab using virtual box around 5. for 2 or 3 hours it worked fine, although sometimes the virtualbox wouldn't find my phone connected to my computer, so I turned it off and on a few times. after the 2nd time i turned it off and on my andriod studio would not open and i got a bluescreen after trying continuously. this happened 2 times after, at which point i stopped trying to open it. later i realized nothing on my computer works and it wasnt just my Vbox. my games wouldnt work and etc.

What I tried to do to fix it:

1) restore point. I tried to restore my computer to a different point but there was only a restore point on wednsday so thats how far I restored it too.

2) defrag tool for my harddrives. both my c and d drives are defraged.

3) error check for both harddrives, took like 6 hours or more, but didnt fix anything

4) disk cleanup for C drive, D drive didnt have anythign to clean up and i was told not to clean the system files.

5) removed some games and stuff to free some space. my C drive can actually use this becasue i have 24 gb left on it out of 111gb, but I cant delete anything else on it I think.

6) updated drives. my nvidia geforce 650 ti had an update which i installed. C and D drives had no updates.

EDIT: 7) scaned with malwarebytes and bit defender and also used ccleaner

Im not sure what to do now. maybe delete my Vbox and all its files, but i would lose some work I would need for my labtest comming next week (I will delete if its reccommended). I can also upgrade to windows 10 from windows 7, i never did it because I didnt like the windows 10 look. But if it will 100% fix the problem then I will do it.

Im planning on doing a factory reset if no one recommends upgrading to windows 10 to fix the problem because it wont fix the problem. but i heard I need some sort of disk to keep my windows 7 after the update. idk where i can find this disk, i never got one from ibuypower when they sent me my computer.....i think?
 
Solution


Oh yes forgot to put that. I tried both malwarebytes/bitdefender and ccleaner, didnt change anything. I've found some other threads with asking similar problems as mine but I havent found one that had a solution yet.

Apparently it could be my graphics card or one of my ram sticks that have an error.
 
The memory is easy to check with memtest. Run it for at least one full pass on each stick of RAM individually. If any errors at all show up, the stick is bad. http://www.memtest86.com/
The gfx card is harder to verify. Same if it is a HDD.
 


I tried it but it said no error, i did 2 tests, or passes or whatever its called. Am i suppose to run it when I remove one of my ram sticks (I have 2 8gb) and then after testing that one do I put it back in and remove the tested ram stick? or can I keep them both installed while the test runs? also if that is the case :/ there was no error, so i might guess its a graphics card error, just got to figure out how to find that out.
 


I used that bluescreenview thing and i get this ntoskrnl.exe +"some different code like 7575 something" from all my bluescreens. i searched online and it said that it may most likely be ram issues but since memtest didnt give me any errors at all, i dont know what it could be. Im going to remove them 1 after the other and see if my computer works after they are both tested, if not, then maybe it will be a driver issue?

Also used this thing called winthruster that said I had 505 errors in my registry after a registry scan, idk what that is but i think thats alot of errors, I dont want to buy the full version for 50$ for a month subscription, is there any other way to fix this?
 


Auslogic's Registry cleaner is more thorough than CCleaner's is. I use it too.
http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/registry-cleaner/

I would definetly run Memtest again, but this time with only 1 stick installed. Then replace that stick with the next stick. And so on. Only have one stick in at a time and let the test run for at least one full pass. Some folks say it should run for several passes so the memory gets good and hot in case the RAM stick is failing due to heat.
 
Solution


ahhhhhh i was a little too quick on the draw. so yea I tested it out by removing one after the other, one of them had an error, i took it out and my Virtualbox opens up the android studio just fine and etc, my computer was on for a bit while i happily told my friends it was working fine, once I turned off my vbox though, my computer got a bluescreen, now I only see one blue screen error:

driver irql less then something something

i got my hopes up, but atleast I fixed one problem....even though i thought I only had 1 problem.

Im guessing this error means theres a problem with one of my drives? like my graphics card/hdd/ssd ?

 
There's really not enough there to know. It is referring to a driver interrupt request.
Btw, Did you ever run DDU from safe mode? http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/display_driver_uninstaller.html
It basically does a search and destroy of all driver remnants and registry errors while uninstalling video drivers. I like to uninstall my gfx driver with it before installing the new driver.
You could run it, boot back to Win, run CC again, then install the latest driver for your card and OS. Next best thing to starting over.

I'm not familiar with VirtualBox, so I'll not make any assumptions about it being the culprit or not. But if the problems are only present when that is active, it might be something to investigate.
 


i just did and now it wont let me install the driver using safe mode and i cant get into my normal mode because im getting the bsod whenever i get in. atleast this means its not the graphics driver right? lol
 
You can't install device drivers (like a gxf driver) in safe mode. Yes, it seems it is not the gfx driver causing the issue, but it could be the card.
It could also be something you have installed that relies on the gfx driver you just uninstalled. Boot back to safe mode and start disabling as much stuff that starts with Win as possible. Start with that VirtualBox.