Question Windows 10 random infrequent crashes

[articunobreeze]

I've had my current desktop computer (came pre-installed with Windows 10) for nearly 3 years now. Haven't really had any issues with it until around August 2019, when it randomly decided to reboot without warning one day. Nothing happened again until around October when it randomly rebooted again one evening, then twice in December I believe, once in March and once again today.

Every single time this occurs, the computer has been idle for a bit. Doesn't really matter how long, could have been an hour, could have been 5 minutes. There's no real patterns, but it's only happened when idle so far. It doesn't note that the computer shut down improperly once it has rebooted (aside from in the event viewer where it shows error 6008 and critical error 41), and the computer still runs fine normally aside from this infrequent random reboots/crashes. Haven't had any issues when running games on it or anything. I mostly just use this computer for browsing the internet and wordpad though. I also haven't gotten any BSODs. I do normally keep this computer in sleep most of the time, if that makes any difference.

I've tried running multiple tests on my computer such as chkdsk, memtest, checking the SMART attributes for the HDD, etc. But nothing has brought back any errors. I can't really think of anything that changed back in August either, aside from a Windows update a few days prior.

The main issue is that the computer is also failing to create dump files each time (getting error event ID 161 in event viewer). I have double checked my file explorer to be sure, and there's indeed no dump files present. Since the last crash back in March, I did check the "recovery" options for my PC, and set it so it creates a complete memory dump, and disabled automatic restart when it encounters and error. During the crash today, I noticed my computer didn't restart, it just completely locked up, no response from my keyboard or mouse at all. The computer was still on but just wouldn't respond to anything, I had to press the power button and reboot it to get it working again. Once again, it failed to create a dump file. I've decided to change it to create a kernel dump file instead and re-enabled automatic restart.

I am unsure what could be causing these issues. I have thought maybe it could be the PSU (which is an external power brick), but it seems unlikely I'd imagine given how infrequent it is, and given the fact the computer will just freeze and not reboot on its own if automatic restart is disabled.

Does anyone have any advice on how I can figure out what this issue is and how I could perhaps solve it? I'm unsure what information would be relevant to help with this aside from what I've already stated, so please let me know if there's anything else I could provide to help with this.

 

[Grobe]

From what you write here, the only indication of possible cause is the windows update. Maybe a driver update too, but that is speculative anyways.

Have the reboots being more frequent over time? Have you ever seen it when it happens?

 

[articunobreeze]

From what you write here, the only indication of possible cause is the windows update. Maybe a driver update too, but that is speculative anyways.

Have the reboots being more frequent over time? Have you ever seen it when it happens?

The reboots have actually seemingly gotten less frequent, since I didn't have any at all for 3 months (between mid December and late March). Though the reboot I got today occurred just slightly over a month since my last one.

I've seen all the reboots except one since I'm usually in the room at the time and the computer is normally in sleep if I'm not at home or not currently using it. The monitor will just suddenly go black and then the computer immediately restarts. No prior warning or anything.

 

[Grobe]

For an occurrence that is this rare - expected time between is about 3 months - I'd say it is very little you can do simply because you're unable to test if something works better or not.

Therefore, I'd recommend you use the computer as normally - until the error one day might occurs more frequently. Remember to take backups of important files on a regular basis.