[SOLVED] Windows 8.1 Constantly Crashing

Mar 11, 2022
1
0
10
Hi everyone, I’ve been having bad issues with my Windows 8.1 desktop I built about a decade ago.

It used to run flawlessly until about a year ago. It started to randomly crash / restart itself with no triggers that I can correlate to causing the crashes.

I’ve reset the computer to factory defaults maybe a dozen times now and it used to work fine for a couple weeks after each reset then would start to intermittently crash. Next best solution was to just keep the power disconnected from the power supply over night and it would work fine for a few days until it starts to crash again.

I always installed and updated all drivers after each reset.

I thought after resetting it that the automatic updates that Windows would install was the issue but when I turned off automatic updates, it just made it worse.

Half the time it crashes, it will reset itself or show a blue screen withYour PC ran into a problem and needs to restart." Below are the error codes below that it tells me to look into.

CACHE_MANAGER
MEMORY_MANAGEMENT
UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP
KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE
KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED

Files sent to Microsoft after a crash:
C:\Windows\Minidump\031122-12250-01.dmp
C:\Users\RobPC\AppData\Local\Temp\WER\38125-0.sysdata.xml
C:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP

Link to current Windows Error Reporting:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=280262

This is all very frustrating since I run my business from this computer and it’s making it difficult to work. I’d like to avoid having to buy/build a new computer. I’m fine with replacing a part or two if necessary. I just don’t know enough about computers to figure this out myself. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

If you need anymore information, let me know and I will respond to your comment and add to the post.

Thanks in advance!
 
Solution
Hello.

Are the components the original ones from a decade ago? If so, it's impressive that you haven't had hardware failures before. Some components, like hard disks, rarely last this long.

The fact that this is an old system and you have various different system halt issues suggest a hardware problem. The best course of action would be to check each component individually, but this will require you to either have access to another similar system to test your parts, or have replacement parts to test (ideally without having to buy them before knowing which is bad).

My first bet would be memory. If you can find some compatible memory to test it would be a good idea. When testing for hardware issues, it's advisable to remove whatever is...
Hello.

Are the components the original ones from a decade ago? If so, it's impressive that you haven't had hardware failures before. Some components, like hard disks, rarely last this long.

The fact that this is an old system and you have various different system halt issues suggest a hardware problem. The best course of action would be to check each component individually, but this will require you to either have access to another similar system to test your parts, or have replacement parts to test (ideally without having to buy them before knowing which is bad).

My first bet would be memory. If you can find some compatible memory to test it would be a good idea. When testing for hardware issues, it's advisable to remove whatever is not essential to reduce the possible sources of errors. So when troubleshooting remove any unnecessary peripherals, leave only the system disk, motherboard, memory, CPU and VGA. If you have both a discrete and onboard VGA, use the onboard one and remove the discrete one.

If this sounds like too much, maybe it would be better to find a local shop and ask them to troubleshoot this for you.

I know this is probably not what you want to hear, but I have to ask: is it worth it to maintain this computer? Computer hardware usually lasts about 5 years reliably, after that the risk of failure rises considerably. You might be able to find out and fix the issue only to have a different one a few months down the line.
 
Solution