For the last couple of days my pc running windows 10 has been crashing unexpectedly and restarting by itself.
I disabled automatic restart during crash but that only caused the pc to lock up and become unresponsive when the crash occurred again,thereby forcing me to restart it manually.
I thought it could be occurring due to some software related glitch and so I reinstalled windows ,but the problem still persists.
When I tried to view the crash dumps using a tool called whocrashed,it could not detect any dump files(Even though dump file creation is enabled).
I checked my HDDs for issues,and also ran windows memory diagnostic tool to check my system's RAM but they all appear to be fine.
So what could be the cause of this issue?Is it possible that some other component,like the cpu,mobo,gpu etc may be malfunctioning and causing the random restarts?how can I isolate the device that's causing this error?
My system's config is: I5 3570s,Gigabyte b75 motherboard,Zotac 1050ti,WD 1tb+2tb hdds,4*3=12gb ram,Corsair TXm 550 psu.
OS: win 10 v 1803
How are the temperatures of various components ? Try Hwmonitor to check, if you haven't already. Could also be a hardware issue.
Try running PC with only necessary components. Removing non-critical components like GPU , extra HDD and see how it runs then.
The temps seem fine, i have checked using hwinfo.
Try win 7 install in another partition for testing purpose to see if issue remains,if yes then most likely it is hardware related.
I observed that the frequency of crashes increased greatly when i was connected to the internet - also a wifi adapter that i had been using these past few years was exhibiting connectivity issues - even when my internet was ok the adapter failed to recognize it and displayed a no internet error.
So i replaced the adapter a few days back and since then the no of crashes has greatly reduced - i've faced just one crash since then, although i have no idea why it occurred.
Can it be concluded then that the crashes were being caused by a faulty wifi adapter? Its hard to imagine that such a small piece of equipment can potentially cause so much system instability.
Even a keyboard/mouse can cause crash depending upon its latest driver updates clashing with latest windows update.
yeah windows 10 seems to be getting worse with each new cumulative update-so i reverted to an older version(1803) and disabled the update service completely.
that's good to know-can these security updates cause any kind of system instability/crashes or are they caused only by cumulative updates?
As far as I know most of the issues are caused by these "monthly feature updates/6 months version upgrades". Security updates will also be cumulative sometimes but just like security updates on win 7/8.1 they only deal with security & not OS features so much less chances of causing issues. Downside is that you will not get any feature update which you may like(e.g.LTSB 2016 version will never get dark/night mode windows explorer). LTSC 2019 has it because it is based on latest RS5 version of win 10 but then MS also added some more junk(like xbox settings etc) to it but still it has far fewer junk than pro version.
after almost 2 weeks of no freezes,they have started again in full force.
This is proving to be a very frustrating issue and its becoming really difficult to pinpoint the actual cause of the problem.One strange thing is that these system freezes(with stuttering sound playing in background as though its on a loop) tend to occur mostly when i'm browsing the internet,which forces me to hard-reset my pc.And upon doing that when the system boots into windows again it simply doesn't detect my wifi adapter even though its still plugged in.
Its not until i either remove it and reconnect it again or completely shut down and then turn the pc back on that the wifi adapter starts working.I thought that my previous wifi adapter was faulty and so i replaced it with a new one from tplink(wn725n) but the problem apparently still hasn't been resolved.
I haven't installed any windows updates or other software that could potentially cause such stability issues,and so i am really perplexed.Also another weird thing is that no dump files are being generated for these crashes.
Can these problems be caused by a faulty psu or motherboard?None of the components are very old-both the mobo and the psu were bought at the end of 2017.
Is microsoft's built in wifi driver causing these instabilities?Will i try installing updated drivers for my wifi adapter from tplink's website?
Try different browsers & if there is any "hardware acceleration setting" in browser then turn it off(search on google for specific browser for this setting).
When the system freezes and audio stutters, Windows might also get a chance to log this failure in the Event Viewer. Look in the event viewer for any possible error system/application level after you restart. It might give you a clue if there's any process/DLL/App that's causing this.
To isolate HW error you might need to test it with another OS. I think suggestion to try Win7 is already given above. You might need to patch Win7 with relevant USB 3 drivers specially if your mobo is recent one (last 2 - 3 years) as most newer boards may not have older USB 2 eHCI controllers anymore.
yes,i will do that.
recently i ran my system with a live cd of ubuntu 17 for over an hour and during that period i did some browsing,music playback etc-however i encountered no crashes or freezes whatsoever .
to confirm whats causing the issue i may have to test it out with win 7 like you've suggested-i will also check the entries in event viewer for any possible clues to this problem.
Today I tried to update the drivers for my nvidia 1050ti gpu-so I uninstalled the existing driver and ran my system with the default drivers included with windows for a while-as long as I used the default driver I experienced no crashes-but as soon as I installed the latest driver from nivida the crashes commenced again and I got two crashes in a row.
Does it indicate that the gpu might be failing and causing the system freezes and crashes?this is strange as the gpu apparently seems to be ok and I don't see any telltale signs of gpu malfunction like weird display artefacts,overheating etc.
Then I removed the gpu and started my system with the onboard intel igpu-when I booted into windows I experienced some red lines all over the display but as soon as I installed the drivers for the intel igpu they disappeared and haven't reappeared as of yet.But there have been no freezes or crashes till now.
If the crashes don't occur again,can I conclude that the gpu was faulty?Is it possible that the pcie slot on the mobo has gone bad and thus its causing the gpu to act up?Is there any way to test this?
PS: I checked the entries in the event manager but couldn't find any obvious indications as to what could be the culprit-there are no entries for the exact time when the crashes occurred-the entries only start when I rebooted into windows and mentions things like "dump file couldn't be created due to error during dump file creation" and "the system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first" etc which are rather vague and don't give any indication as to the actual causes of this error.
If you are using 1050Ti then try driver v385.28. GeForce 385.28 WHQL driver download
You can also try v398.11. Download: GeForce 398.11 WHQL driver
ok I will try them-but whats wrong with the latest drivers?Are they buggy?
have installed v 385.28-now it remains to be seen how things will turn out.
i used it with v 385.28 last night and all morning today and so far its been a crash free experience.
now in order to experiment i have installed a slightly more updated nvidia driver-v 411.70.I read somewhere that this too was regarded as a stable release.
i wonder how this newer driver will play along with the gpu-i'll be relieved when there are no more crashes or freezes.
those crashes have begun once more,although they are few and far in-between as compared to what was happening earlier.I think the gpu may be faulty and so was thinking of sending it for RMA.
Will zotac accept a gpu for rma that has no obvious signs of malfunction that can be discerned easily?Although the gpu apparently seems ok its causing crashes on my system whenever its being used for prolonged periods.
I did a bit of google search and found some posts made by people who were facing similar system crashes with their 1050tis-so this case may not be entirely an isolated one.For some of them the problem was resolved after rmaing their gpus.
*forums.geforce.com/default/topic/987738/geforce-gtx-1050-ti-keeps-crashing-/
This is becoming increasingly frustrating and it seems i will either have to rma the gpu or replace it with some other card.
Zotac will check it on their test system & if it works correctly there they will probably return the same with some dust cleanup etc. They may change it if you complain in a sincere way telling them it only happens after prolonged usage(may need to give exact figure like 4-5 hours etc) as they may not have the time to check so thoroughly a card which can be considered as low mid end.
Have you confirmed this issues with another OS(win 7)?
i tried installing windows 7 on an empty partition of my hdd but for some reason it wouldn't install-it showed some kind of cryptic error about the disk format being incompatible or something like that.The disk was formatted with ntfs-so i dont understand why win 7 setup didn't work,maybe i will give it a try once again after a while.
its really hard to predict when the crashes might occur as its really erratic-sometimes it happens shortly after i boot into windows and on other occasions it occurs after the computer's been running for 2 hours or more.So this issue may be difficult to reproduce if the folks at the service center attempt to test the card-and if for some reason they experience no crashes then they might assume the card is ok and return it,in which case it would be a total waste of time.
Another issue is that i had bought this card used from someone else-the seller had given me a consolidated bill of 4 or 5 zotac 1050tis in total-he said its a valid receipt and it contained the serial numbers of all the cards which were listed in the bill(including mine).
Will zotac's service center consider that to be a valid receipt and accept the gpu for rma?
Maybe your hdd is GPT,win 7 cannot boot from a GPT partition style hdd without UEFI enabled in bios(open disk management,right click disk 0/hdd in bottom half left side & then select properties--volumes where it will show partition style). Do you have some spare hdd?
That bill should be enough but if bill is all you got then you will get only 2 years warranty from the date of bill,for the extra 3 years warranty you must have email printout of email from zotac confirming extra 3 years warranty which you get after successful online registration of card at zotac India site within 28 days of purchase.
