I have been building my own PC's for about the last twenty years. I have had no source of formal training, but early in use, I started modifying brand name PC's by adding or switching out drives and RAM or occasionally adding a PCI card of some sort or improving the graphics card or sound card. Then I bought a kit one time, and it occurred to me after that experience, that although I did not understand all the technology behind it, the physical act of putting a PC together was fairly straightforward and sort of like a modern day equivalent of the old time Erector Set. I use them primarily for musical production, where speed is important in terms of being able to generate complex musical sound files without excessive latency, that being the amount of time that passes between triggering a musical note using MIDI and hearing the intended sound, and as musical hardware peripherals and the software drivers associated with them have gotten faster, I have built progressively faster computers, generally with good benefit, beyond simply saving a lot of money compared to buying a commercially branded product. In addition to that benefit, I find it fun to design a PC, collect the components, put it together, and see what I've got.
Some major distractions in my personal life delayed the most recent build by a couple of years. I say that only because it meant the components I used were not right up to date by the time I built it, but they were still quite good. It was based on the Intel Core-i7 8700-k processor, an MIS gaming mobo, the Z370 Gaming Plus, 64 GB of RAM, and a Samsung 1 TB SSD as the boot drive, with Windows 10-64 bit Home as the OS. It worked beautifully for the purposes of producing music using VST synthesizers and samplers until about a month ago, when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I started getting frequent BSOD's. This is something I have experienced rarely with any PC I have built, but all of a sudden, they were occurring frequently, until finally it got to a point that I could not boot to Windows, because it always booted and rebooted to a BSOD, rather than to Windows. I had not added any peripherals to the system around the time, and the only software change I was aware of was a Windows 10 update that had occurred overnight the night before the problem hit. Despite the fact I knew it meant I would have to install over half a terabyte of music software--a daunting and time-demanding chore, I saw no other way around it and reinstalled Windows. Since that time, I did cross paths with something in my online research suggesting some sort of software app that will remove recently added software and particularly a recent, potentially faulty Windows update, but by the time I found mention of it, it was too late to use it. Although that is not the main point of this discussion, I would appreciate it if anyone could direct me to such software, in case I find myself in similar circumstances in the future, of finding a major fault in PC function that appears timewise to be tied to a likely faulty Windows update..
At first, I was happy with the reinstallation. I suspect with the original build I had failed to find the best drivers for a peripheral used for high quality digital to analog sound production, so as consequence of finding and installing a more up to date and better functioning driver for that, the sound quality was amazing after reinstalling all the software. It seemed I had built the best music synthesizing PC yet.
Unfortunately, after just a few days using the PC with this major improvement, the BSOD's started again. Of course, after reinstalling Windows and all the use-specific software tied to this PC, it could no longer be tied to that former problematic Windows update that caused the initial blow. I did considerable head scratching, but nothing came up in my thinking that would explain where the problem arose from this time, until I could no longer boot the machine to investigate it. The PC would function fine episodically between episodes of BSOD, but once again, those blue screens became progressively more and more frequent, until I could not boot to Windows, even just to continue investigating, and I decided I must reinstall Windows and start from scratch once again. In fact, I had spent significant time trying to sort out the cause of the trouble, but it got to the point where, once again, it would only boot to a BSOD, and I had to reinstall Windows once again.
Of course, now I am in a bit of a panic mode about the potential of installing Windows and another half Terabyte of apps and data, yet again, when I still have no certain idea of why it ends up going so frequently to a blue screen, now fearful that it will happen yet again,. I have one new thought, which I actually hope is the likely cause, because it is something I can avoid allowing to happen again. I simply don't know whether it is something that would be likely to cause such trouble. I write this basically seeking a response to that question. It finally occurred to me, as I was preparing to reinstall Windows yet a third time, that with the prior Windows reinstall after the debacle set off by the initial problematic Windows update, it never occurred to me that the Intel drivers associated with the function of the motherboard would have been lost with reinstalling Windows, and I did not reinstall them. So, my basic question comes down to this: can failure to install the drivers that control interaction of the various hardware components on the motherboard prove to be a source of frequent and ultimately incessant BSOD's? (for what it's worth, I was able to evaluate the condition of the boot drive, and it was reported to be flawless, and somehow I managed to find a test that would evaluate function of D-RAM, and it was reported to all be fully functional, as well).
Some major distractions in my personal life delayed the most recent build by a couple of years. I say that only because it meant the components I used were not right up to date by the time I built it, but they were still quite good. It was based on the Intel Core-i7 8700-k processor, an MIS gaming mobo, the Z370 Gaming Plus, 64 GB of RAM, and a Samsung 1 TB SSD as the boot drive, with Windows 10-64 bit Home as the OS. It worked beautifully for the purposes of producing music using VST synthesizers and samplers until about a month ago, when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I started getting frequent BSOD's. This is something I have experienced rarely with any PC I have built, but all of a sudden, they were occurring frequently, until finally it got to a point that I could not boot to Windows, because it always booted and rebooted to a BSOD, rather than to Windows. I had not added any peripherals to the system around the time, and the only software change I was aware of was a Windows 10 update that had occurred overnight the night before the problem hit. Despite the fact I knew it meant I would have to install over half a terabyte of music software--a daunting and time-demanding chore, I saw no other way around it and reinstalled Windows. Since that time, I did cross paths with something in my online research suggesting some sort of software app that will remove recently added software and particularly a recent, potentially faulty Windows update, but by the time I found mention of it, it was too late to use it. Although that is not the main point of this discussion, I would appreciate it if anyone could direct me to such software, in case I find myself in similar circumstances in the future, of finding a major fault in PC function that appears timewise to be tied to a likely faulty Windows update..
At first, I was happy with the reinstallation. I suspect with the original build I had failed to find the best drivers for a peripheral used for high quality digital to analog sound production, so as consequence of finding and installing a more up to date and better functioning driver for that, the sound quality was amazing after reinstalling all the software. It seemed I had built the best music synthesizing PC yet.
Unfortunately, after just a few days using the PC with this major improvement, the BSOD's started again. Of course, after reinstalling Windows and all the use-specific software tied to this PC, it could no longer be tied to that former problematic Windows update that caused the initial blow. I did considerable head scratching, but nothing came up in my thinking that would explain where the problem arose from this time, until I could no longer boot the machine to investigate it. The PC would function fine episodically between episodes of BSOD, but once again, those blue screens became progressively more and more frequent, until I could not boot to Windows, even just to continue investigating, and I decided I must reinstall Windows and start from scratch once again. In fact, I had spent significant time trying to sort out the cause of the trouble, but it got to the point where, once again, it would only boot to a BSOD, and I had to reinstall Windows once again.
Of course, now I am in a bit of a panic mode about the potential of installing Windows and another half Terabyte of apps and data, yet again, when I still have no certain idea of why it ends up going so frequently to a blue screen, now fearful that it will happen yet again,. I have one new thought, which I actually hope is the likely cause, because it is something I can avoid allowing to happen again. I simply don't know whether it is something that would be likely to cause such trouble. I write this basically seeking a response to that question. It finally occurred to me, as I was preparing to reinstall Windows yet a third time, that with the prior Windows reinstall after the debacle set off by the initial problematic Windows update, it never occurred to me that the Intel drivers associated with the function of the motherboard would have been lost with reinstalling Windows, and I did not reinstall them. So, my basic question comes down to this: can failure to install the drivers that control interaction of the various hardware components on the motherboard prove to be a source of frequent and ultimately incessant BSOD's? (for what it's worth, I was able to evaluate the condition of the boot drive, and it was reported to be flawless, and somehow I managed to find a test that would evaluate function of D-RAM, and it was reported to all be fully functional, as well).
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