Question PC has developed stability issues with no clear consistent cause or behaviour ?

[SeanHL]

This is an ongoing problem that pops up quite inconsistently, taking days to resurface. It could therefore take a while before i can verify whether anything that's been attempted works. I'm keeping a regular log of events. What i've got so far is this:

Me and my girlfriend have a pair of almost identical PCs which we've been using for about 1.5 years. Hers has a slightly better GPU, and an M2 SSD instead of my SATA. I will post the exact specs later once i can have a look at them. She might also have a better power supply, but i'm not sure. They are both running on windows 10. Hers has recently developed a variety of problems that i can't seem to find an explanation for. The current sequences of events is this (dates are not exact, but near enough insofar i can remember):

- Dec 19th: I updated the BIOS to prevent CPU damage as per the recent trouble with intel CPUs. I performed the update for both PCs in the exact same way, applying default settings on both. There were no immediate problems, and my system runs fine.

- Jan 10th: Her PC bluescreened during regular browsing. The percentage indicated on there remained at 0%, and the system rebooted afer a while on its own, into BIOS. The BIOS could not find the boot drive. I messed around with it for a bit (reboots, exploring menus, more reboots, but changed no settings), and finally settled on trying to arrange for a system recovery/repair, when the problem fixed itself before i did anything. We could just boot into windows as normal, and i did not do a repair.

There is no dump file for the BSOD. Logs were already enabled, and there is a file for the 4th of january, but nothing for the 10th. I'm positive that it did not happen on the 4th. I'm assuming this is because it never got past 0%, and had no drive to write it to at the time. Some older logs were also present.

- Jan 11th: Just in case, i switched the SSD to a different M2 port. According to the motherboard manual, this should be fine. The PC booted with no issues. I took the opportunity to run a health check for the drive using Samsung Magician, and it all came back healthy. Maybe the SSD is fine, but the system struggles to reliably access it? i don't know.

- Jan 14th: At 10:00, The PC booted, but was unable to properly load windows. It got past the login screen, but then entered an endless cycle of crashing and loading explorer. This was accompanied by the screen flashing black, but with visible cursor. She tried again at 11:00, but that time only got as far as the login screen. I have videos of both events if you want them. Another attempt to boot was made at around 14:00.

At 18:00 or so, i tried booting the system myself, and was able to boot normally, as if nothing was wrong. After that i did the following things:
- I ran sfc/ scannow. This seemed to fix some things, though i can't make much sense of the log. It seemed to just repair some duplicates.
- Ran dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth. Found nothing.
- I changed the memory dump settings to a small memory dump, and told to PC to not automatically restart on a system failure. This is in case it BSODs again.
- I did a startup repair. This failed because it found nothing to repair, judging by the log file.
- I explored the event viewer, which revealed some things: There are occasional series of memory access errors, mostly (if not all) from the time of the explorer crash loop. There were also a few WHEA-logger errors, ID 3. One of those dates to May last year, the other 3 up to a few weeks after the BIOS update. My system does not have these events.
- I ran the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool. 2 passes, no errors.
- I updated the graphics drivers, and removed Armoury Crate.
- Given that our systems are largely identical, i swapped our RAM sticks to see if it would transfer the problem to my PC. The systems booted as normal.

- Jan 15 & 16: followed various bits of advice here.

- Jan 17th: replaced the CMOS battery and reseated the GPU. PC booted into a setup screen followed by BIOS once, and then normally.

 

[johnbl]

you might just set the xmp memory profile and run the memtest86
test. You can get memory errors from overclocked memory OR from underclocked memory (under voltage) basically the timing windows in the electronics gets violated. It often depends on which memory slots the modules are in. You can get several nanosecond delays. ie some RAM chip might work perfectly if it is in the slot that is closest to the CPU, but get errors if it is in a slot further away from the CPU. (distance slightly increases the Capacitance of the circuit and causes a slight delay of the timing signals to the circuit) It is one of the reasons I sometimes use 2T cmd delay on the memory timings to add a few nano second delay for the memory electronics stabilize. generally, most memory will not tell you the cmd delay requirement. cheaper memory often use 2T but the mother board vendor usually defaults to 1 T command delay. Then they update the bios months after the motherboard is released, sometime they update the memory qualified vendor list. motherboard vendor generally do not declare the setting change between bios version updates.

 

[SeanHL]

you might just set the xmp memory profile and run the memtest86
test. You can get memory errors from overclocked memory OR from underclocked memory (under voltage) basically the timing windows in the electronics gets violated. It often depends on which memory slots the modules are in. You can get several nanosecond delays. ie some RAM chip might work perfectly if it is in the slot that is closest to the CPU, but get errors if it is in a slot further away from the CPU. (distance slightly increases the Capacitance of the circuit and causes a slight delay of the timing signals to the circuit) It is one of the reasons I sometimes use 2T cmd delay on the memory timings to add a few nano second delay for the memory electronics stabilize. generally, most memory will not tell you the cmd delay requirement. cheaper memory often use 2T but the mother board vendor usually defaults to 1 T command delay. Then they update the bios months after the motherboard is released, sometime they update the memory qualified vendor list. motherboard vendor generally do not declare the setting change between bios version updates.

Okay... I think i got the gist of the reasoning behind it, but i have no idea how to actually accomplish it. I have never overclocked anything. If i'm understanding this correctly, the BIOS update may have changed something in the default settings that negatively affected the stability of the RAM? We didn't have any issues before that, and only got them several weeks after.

 

[SeanHL]

These images may have gotten lost on the previous page, since i edited them in later. I've now removed them from that post. I noticed this in the event viewer yesterday:





Don't know if it matters. I've seen the error show up a few times now.

Today I replaced the CMOS battery and reseated the GPU, because some idiot put the battery behind it. Two birds one stone i guess. The PC booted into a setup screen followed by BIOS once, and then normally.

The PC did seem fairly clean inside the case. I'll clean it properly this weekend, but it seems alright. One thing i noticed is the state of the wiring on the MOBO plug connecting to the front panel; it looks a bit gnarly. I'll take pictures of it during my inspection tomorrow.

 

[Ralston18]

FYI:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/t...ade-and-drivers/system-log-event-id-7000-7026

From the link:

"This problem may occur if a device isn't connected to the computer but the driver service of the device is enabled."

Look in Device Manager. Ensure View > "Show hidden devices" is checked.

You can also use "driverquery" via the Command Prompt as another way to look.

Or use Powershell's Get-WmiObject Win32_PnPSignedDriver cmdlet. Long, detailed listing.

 

[SeanHL]

FYI:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/t...ade-and-drivers/system-log-event-id-7000-7026

From the link:

"This problem may occur if a device isn't connected to the computer but the driver service of the device is enabled."

Look in Device Manager. Ensure View > "Show hidden devices" is checked.

You can also use "driverquery" via the Command Prompt as another way to look.

Or use Powershell's Get-WmiObject Win32_PnPSignedDriver cmdlet. Long, detailed listing.

Right, so worth fixing, but not critical.

I have a different question, maybe for johnbl: on the 14th, we rebooted the system several times. It behaved pretty much the same way every time - refusing to start. Why did it suddenly fix itself at around 18:00? Could we use that to temporarily fix its crashes if it happens again? (i realise this could be due to faulty wiring, in which case... i guess it's just down to what it feels like at the time)

And if it does happen again: what logs would you like to have, or want to me to look at?

 

[SeanHL]

I've got something. I looked into the event viewer again, and filtered out this (i'm learning how to use it, yay!):



These are all the same error, and the only critical errors. Notice how it became more frequent in the last month. I wasn't aware of this until now, but the system apparently sometimes tries to boot back up right at the end of a shutdown; my girlfriend usually shuts it down after i've gone to bed, so i was never there to notice. What happens is that it's almost shut down (the fans are spinning down & the screen is already off, before pressing the screen's power button), tries to boot back up, and then shuts down anyway because the system kills the power as part of the original shutdown command. Does that ring any bells? Personally, i'm suspecting that the relay for the power button might be worn out. This is an old case.

Could these be connected to the memory corruption issues? I'm ordering a new power strip today, which i figure might be a good thing to replace anyway, but it might be redundant.

 

[Ralston18]

As a general observation there is no "almost shutdown".....

If power is lost before Windows is finished doing whatever then that power loss will result in corrupted or lost files.

Is the computer's power being turned off in any way?

The PSU switch perhaps, or by using the power strip serving computer and monitor? Maybe even a wall switch that turns off power to the wall socket.

Not uncommon for a monitor display to go dark prior to the computer/Windows finishing up and shutting down.

 

[SeanHL]

No, we're not doing any of those things. The reason i know it's trying to boot back up is because i've got a piezo speaker attached to the motherboard, just in case. These have always beeped only once on boot, on both our systems, as an indication that the system is healthy:

"If all is successful, most computers will emit one beep as they start and continue their startup process without an issue."
(https://softwarekeep.com/blogs/news...DDQVIxSIQbWjhVRZUpV0ljR8pLIxzLKyfjKuULcos7qZi)

What my girlfriend is experiencing is that she tells the PC to shut down, it's almost done, but right at the last second (i suspect the moment that the system takes away power from the on/off button on the front panel, since it's right before it's light goes off) it makes the beep that we normally hear on startup, at which point it simultaneously shuts down. This doesn't always happen, but it's become frequent enough lately for her to notice. I think the power button is faulty.

Actually, now that i think of it, this could also explain why it sometimes boots back up on it's own when it's asleep! When asleep, it keeps blinking the light on the power button, as it should. If that general area is faulty, that blinking could be occasionally tripping the signal to wake up the system... unless i'm completely talking out of my ass. I do know a bit about circuits and relays, but not much. If this is true, that would be one hell of an unusual problem, and i need to look into a new case. Guess she might be getting that RGB lighting she likes so much.

Before i get over-excited: all of that power button stuff doesn't explain why we got that BSOD. I just know that this is something that needs fixing, if true.

(also, i apologise that i keep editing my posts so much after posting them. It can't be convenient)

 

[SeanHL]

Looking at the timestamps on the logs i posted before, some of them were created when being powering back on from sleep mode. Others are from when the system is powered on after a complete shutdown. There are not as many of them from the 14th as i would expect; the only one there is from when i succesfully booted in the evening. The vast majority of boot-ups create no errors, but they are clearly becoming more frequent.

I guess it doesn't have to be the power button. It could be something else entirely. I just don't know. I'm a bit at a loss.

EDIT: i've looked up the bugcheck codes associated with the errors in the screenshot. They are, in top-down order:

0
0
0
0
26
0
0
190
26
80
0
80
26

I hope this helps.
EDIT 2: it started showing mostly Bugcheck 0 from the 23rd of december onward. That is a few days after the BIOS update.

 

[Ralston18]

Not the PC's power button.

Use Window's icons and menus to shutdown.

Mouse over the Windows icon usually in the lower left screen corner.

Right click and in the presented menu select "Shut down or sign out".

A smaller window menu will open that includes "Shut down".

Select "Shut down".



Use those steps to shut down the system. Windows will turn off the power when Windows has finished its' housekeeping and preparations for the next boot.

Or if the system has gone into some lockdown or screensaver configuration the system can still be shutdown by clicking the power icon. Note: Likely there will be warning that the last user has not logged off and that powering down could result in data loss. Confirming the shutdown will initiate shutdown.

 

[SeanHL]

Use Window's icons and menus to shutdown.

Mouse over the Windows icon usually in the lower left screen corner.

Right click and in the presented menu select "Shut down or sign out".

A smaller window menu will open that includes "Shut down".

Select "Shut down".

This is already how she does it. I'm getting those errors despite initiating shutdown in the way you describe. What i'm saying is that the de-powering of the button light is one of the last visible/audible steps in shutting down the PC as performed by the PC, and if the wiring is faulty, that could be causing problems. Or it's the PSU. Or any other million things i'm finding online.

EDIT: I just discovered that i hadn't actually installed the chipset drivers... Turns out you need to click on 'show all' on the Asus download page before it shows up. What i had actually installed was the Intel Serial IO Software, which it did need, so it's all good i guess.