Really at a loss trying to troubleshoot this. Googling says it could be a video card driver issue, but I've updated to the latest version a couple times.

Essentially, my computer just... freezes. At least a couple times a day. Full on screen freeze - no keyboard/mouse input possible. Sometimes it'll restart right away, sometimes I'll have to hold down the power button and turn it off.

Whatever's going on, it's maddeningly inconsistent. Sometimes it'll happen once a day, sometimes like six times. It's happened when I'm using Chrome, and it's happened when I'm just literally at the desktop with nothing open. I've yet to be able to pin down a "it happens only when I'm doing X". Which, yeah, points to a systemic issue.

Problem's been going on for months now; it's one of those things that I've just learned to live with, as the SSD means a random restart really only stops me for 30 seconds. But it seems - and this is pretty holistic, haven't been keeping track - to be happening more frequently.

This is a desktop that I built about a year and a half ago.

If anyone had a direction they could point me to explore / research, that would be lovely. I'm almost at a "just nuke it from orbit and re-install the OS" mindset, but that's such a hassle.

 

Did you check Event Viewer log to find if there is anything unusual in it?

 

could be adobe flash. I was having a similar problem with my work computer

 

A bunch of "Event ID: 41 / Task Category: (63) / Kernel-Power, The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly."

Looks like it's logging the freezes/restarts at least. What else am I looking for here?

 

Any error involving drivers. Could be that whatever causing your problems doesn't always reboots the system and there is a repeated error that appears from time to time.

Other thing I would check is a hardware. Once I had a problem with computer restarting after 1 minute of being used. It turned out that there was an issue with one of the motherboard's slots and simply using another resolved it. It's probably not your problem, but simply rechecking everything to be sure is usually a good choice when solving unusual problems.

 

I used to have a problem like this on my computer, and it was because the graphics card wasn't mounted properly. Maybe try removing it and plugging it back in?

 

Pretty generic. Could be many things. Last time this happened to me it was a faulty RAM stick. That's easy enough to test(Test one at a time and if it happens with both of them, then that is not the issue.

You can try doing a memtest, but that didn't work for me.

 

I am no expert

USUALLY I'd just backup up what I need and reinstall my OS, but sometimes the issue isn't with the OS, but the hardware.

moving on

I actually had a problem like this once, 1-2 years ago, at the time I thought it had something to do with my Graphics card/drivers too (because I got an error message from nvidia). So, I ended up getting help from Nvidia Support.
bla bla bla - it turned out my BIOS wasn't up to date: long story short updating my BIOS fixed it

But that probably won't work for you, what they told me to try first and it might fix your issue if it is with the Graphics Card.
They told me to try a "Clean install" instead of what I had tried: which was updating the graphics drivers, and reinstallations the graphics drivers.

Here is a guide I got from "NVIDIA Customer Care" around a year or so ago on how to do a clean install, it might work for you.

Guide from nvidia support:

"Here's the direct link for the Display driver uninstaller:

http://www.guru3d.com/files-get/display-driver-uninstaller-download,20.html

After the download is completed, it would prompt you to extract the file. Once the display driver uninstaller is extracted under download folder you would see Display driver uninstaller .exe file. Double click on it to proceed with the installation. After the Display driver uninstaller is installed, it would prompt for system restore point creation and booting the computer in safemode.

- Once done, Select NVIDIA on top and Put a check mark on all the NVIDIA components near the NVIDIA logo.
- Now click on Clean and Restart (Highly Recommended)
- Once the computer restarts and goes to the Windows, please follow the steps below

Delete the NVIDIA folders from your computer completely (from the Recycle Bin as well)

Check these locations:

C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation
C:\Program Files (x86)\NVIDIA Corporation
C:\NVIDIA


Download the driver version 368.81

http://www.nvidia.com/download/driverResults.aspx/105037/en-us

- Once the installer wizard begins, accept the license agreement.
- Select "Custom (Advanced)" install option and then click Next.
- Put a checkmark in the "Perform clean install" option and then click Next.
- Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation"





If you want to try what worked for me - updating your BIOS, I would start with checking my bios version and checking to see if it is up-to-date. I made a guide:

Checking BIOS Version

1. Press "Win" + "R" and type "msinfo32" and enter.
2. Find "SMBIOS Version" mine is "2.8" - I have another motherboard, obv.
3. As I said mine is "2.8" - for some reason or another it only displays the two first numbers of the version!
Mine is actually "2801" - whatever, if you want to get the full name: open Command Prompt: "Win" + "R" again and type "cmd" and press enter, now type "wmic bios get msbiosbiosversion" and press enter.

for my motherboard there exists a newer version "3503".

4. Check if there exists a newer version of your BIOS here (I googled your motherboard and here is what I found): https://www.msi.com/Motherboard/support/Z270-GAMING-PLUS#down-bios

5. Update BIOS.


more

I would also recommend if you haven't done so already try to change your Power settings to "High Performance"
Open "Control Panel" -> "Hardware and Sound" -> "Power Options" ->) tick on "High performance".


Make sure all your ram is correctly installed:
when nothing is running how much is your memory percentage at: press ctrl + shift + esc or right click the "taskbar" and choose "task manager"


Also in "msinfo32" check if it says that you have 16.0 gb RAM.

 

Not seeing anything related to drivers (at least anything containing that word, or anything about Nvidia or graphics).

1 second before my last freeze, it recorded the following error:

I'll check hardware; it's probably time to open up the case and do my bi-annual dusting anyway. I was *very* careful putting everything together though; it was my first PC build and I was taking everything super slow and careful, to the point of putting a plugged in toaster on my workbench so I could ground myself occasionally :v
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Thanks man, this gives me some very concrete stuff to go on.

I think you might be on to something with a clean install vs. just downloading the update. If it's a driver issue, and goggle-fu points to that being at least pretty likely, starting completely from scratch as opposed to overwriting seems like a good idea.

 

There's another way to test if it's GPU related (either hard- or software) - simply take it out for a day or two and use the integrated Intel GPU. If it's a driver problem, it might've been caused by the great update policy of win10, there were reports of it installing horrible out of date drivers in the past. And speaking of windows updates: did your windows install updates shorty before this started happening? If so, it might actually be one of those that's causing it.

If it's not software at all, it could be tricky to figure out. GPU can be tested by removing it and RAM with memtest86+, but the other components...you'd basically need another PSU to see if it's that, and if it isn't (and all other hardware is unplugged) then it'd be a CPU/Mainboard issue.

By the way, the standard recommendation is to use DDU in safe mode. Also don't fuck with BIOS if you don't have to - while each manufacturer has some sort of recovery stuff nowadays, a failed BIOS update could still brick your board (and ofc that's not covered under warranty). It's the last thing you should touch.

 

One thing I've noticed -

When it freezes, if I'm watching Netflix, the audio will continue for a time. A few minutes. (I'm assuming it's playing whatever was buffered.) The video (and screen, and mouse/keyboard inputs) are frozen, but the audio keeps playing.

That's got to be a software issue, right? If it's something like... bad connection from the video card to the PSU, it would just crash the whole thing, yeah?

 

Don't have any personal experience with this exact issue, but I would look into these links for solutions - if you haven't already:

https://appuals.com/fix-kernel-power-eventid-41-task-63/

https://blog.pcrisk.com/windows/12891-how-to-fix-kernel-power-error

https://social.technet.microsoft.co...roper-shutdowns-and-reboots?forum=w7itproperf

 

Is there anything in the Event Viewer under the Applications category before the crashes? Some drivers will report errors there instead of in the System category.

Stress testing the CPU/GPU/RAM separately might induce a crash and let you narrow down the root problem.

While stress testing, check voltage on the power supply, and tempurature on the graphics card and processor to see if it drops before a crash with hwmonitor (https://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html)

Stress testing tools I like below.

GPU :

1. Furmark - https://geeks3d.com/furmark/
2. Unigine Heaven - https://benchmark.unigine.com/heaven

CPU stress testing tools:

1. Intel burn test - https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/intelburntest.html
2. Prime95 (use smallFFT and if it doesn't crash then try blend) - https://www.mersenne.org/download/

RAM testing:

1. Memtest86 - https://www.memtest86.com/ (you will have to make a USB and boot to it)
2. Window Memory Diagnostic - Window + R to bring up the run prompt, then enter "mdsched" and hit enter.

If none of this will produce consistent crashes, it will get more annoying for you to troubleshoot.

In the hopes you have some corrupt system file, you can run
"DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth" from an elevated powershell.

In terms of hardware troubleshooting, you kinda just replace things until the problem is narrowed down. Having extra parts lying around helps here. I would go in this order, progressing down the list if nothing helps:

1. Remove the graphics card, live with Intel built in graphics for a few days.
2. Remove a stick of RAM.
3. Replace the stick you removed, and remove the other one.
4. Replace the power supply.
5. Replace the SSD (or whatever you use as the system drive).
6. Replace the motherboard.
7. Replace the CPU.

Obviously not everything on that list may be viable for you to do, but it's the order I'd use.

 

Volume manager is a windows drive service. From the error you're getting it looks like you're getting a read error from whichever hard drive is holding your OS or main programs you're using when crashing. If you have a spare sata cable try switching it, or doing a read/repair on whichever drive/volume is causing the problem.

Would recomend doing a full chkdsk on your primary drive and seeing if you have any bad sectors. Can use command prompt or built in tool.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2641432/check-your-hard-disk-for-errors-in-windows-7

Microsoft tech support with a similar issue. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...gr-error/18ebc814-fcbf-4b45-861d-6548b2fee781

 

Comes up clean; thanks for the suggestion though.

I'll add "swapping out sata cables" to my list of things to do when I open her up this weekend.

 

I had a situation where when I tried to play video games, my computer would freeze up after like 20 minutes of playing and I had to restart. This only happened while trying to play video games. It wasn't a graphics card issue though, it was an issue with one of my ram sticks. Perhaps reseat your ram, check if there's not some sort of sticky residue on them, and test if one of your ram sticks is faulty.

 

Just wanted to follow up and say all these suggestions were helpful and I learned a ton.

What it ultimately ended up being, I'm 99% sure, was a driver issue where my 1080Ti wasn't playing nice with windows 10 trying to run a 144Hz monitor and a 60Hz monitor both off the GPU. I finally narrowed down the crashing issue to "almost always happened when I switched focus between screens." After all the stuff I did, both hardware-wise taking almost everything apart and software-wise doing a clean install of my Nvidia drivers, it was as easy as plugging my secondary monitor into the motherboard directly instead of plugging it into the GPU.

Man.