Computer very unstable; shuts off without BSOD

I've had trouble with this computer ever since I built it, but until yesterday it was more of an annoyance than anything else. The usual issue is it will just turn off without notice. If I'm using the computer at the time, it'll completely freeze for 30-90 seconds then just shut down. It comes back up and usually is fine after that for a while. Sometimes it'll be a week, sometimes months before it shuts off again. (Today, I've been lucky to keep the computer on for more than an hour! The only time I had any luck was in safe mode. After I post I'm going to put it in safe mode again and see if it makes it through the night.)

Recently, though, another symptom has come up: certain programs will stop working until I uninstall and reinstall them, namely Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft Office. Acrobat will give me a message about some security setting not being right, and then it says it's missing a dll. When I reinstall it works fine. I forget what error Office was telling me, but doing a "full repair" (i.e. reinstall and reentering the product key) fixed the issue, until now. Office was telling me that my product key was invalid or unavailable or something, so I reinstalled, but I got an error when entering the key. I tried everything I found online clean boot, full uninstall, nothing.


At this point I'm ready to reinstall Windows, but first I wanted to try a couple of things. First I tried the sfc, but that didn't work ("found corrupt files but couldn't fix them"). Then I tried the DISM, but that didn't work ("the source files could not be downloaded"). I scoured the internet for fixes to these, but the fixes also didn't work. So many of the problems seem to be related to Windows that I decided screw it, I'm just going to do a refresh. That didn't work ("there was a problem fixing your PC"). I tried downloading the Media Creation Tool. The first time it was working, and then my computer shut down in the middle. Then after that the tool wouldn't work anymore (it gave error messages at various stages of the process). I downloaded it a second time and it's not working either (the first time I opened it the computer instantly crashed. Oh, and somewhere along the way (maybe before I started the process?) whenever I go into the Windows Settings App it tells me that my OS is not activated...

So here I am. Honestly, I just want to wipe and start over, but I just can't get it to work.


· OS -- Windows 10 x64
· What was original installed OS on system? Windows 8.1
· Is the OS an OEM version (came pre-installed on system) or full retail version (YOU purchased it from retailer)? Retail
· Age of system (hardware) ~18 months, some hardware is older
· Age of OS installation - have you re-installed the OS? ~18 months (Windows 10 for ~12 months). As I said above, I want to reinstall, but it won't work

· CPU -- AMD FX-6300 @ stock settings
· Video Card -- Radeon R7 200
· MotherBoard - Gigabyte GA-970A-D3p
· Power Supply - Antec BP550 Plus (550W)
· The main hard drive is an OCZ ARC-100 240GB SDD and only the operating system is on this disk

· System Manufacturer me
· Exact model number N/A

· Laptop or Desktop? Desktop

Note also: I couldn't get an output from performance monitor, so I only have one file to upload. It just kept spinning and never gave me a report.

If you can't finish an install using the Media Creation Tool, then this is most likely a hardware problem.

I think it would be to your benefit to ensure that you've identified the faulting hardware component before proceeding.
To do this, try these 2 things:

- hardware diagnostics:  http://www.carrona.org/hwdiag.html

- hardware diagnostics by stripdown:  http://www.carrona.org/strpdown.html

 

We can also take a look at these 2 sets of reports to see if we can find something out from them:

Let's try looking at these 2 sets of reports:

1)  Please run this report collecting tool (even though you may not be experiencing BSOD's) so that we can provide a complete analysis: (from the pinned topic at the top of the forum)   http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/t/576314/blue-screen-of-death-bsod-posting-instructions-windows-10-81-8-7-vista/
FYI - I don't often use the Perfmon report, so if it doesn't work please just let me know.

2)  Please do the following:
- open Event Viewer (run eventvwr.msc from the "Run" dialog)
- expand the Custom Views category (left click on the > next to the words "Custom Views")
- right click on the "Administrative Events" heading
- select "Save all Events in Custom View as..."
- save the file as Admin.evtx
- zip up the file (right click on it, select "Send to", select "Compressed (zipped) folder")
- upload it with your next post (if it's too big, then upload it to a free file-hosting service and post a link here).

FYI - If we're looking for Event ID 41 errors (unexplained shutdowns), there's more info on that here:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2028504

While waiting for a reply, please monitor your temps with this free utility:  http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

 

Well, I'm now getting BSOD's...

• This morning (before your post) I decided to try the HDD Diagnostics as suggested in the sticky. It immediately failed the long test, and when I got back from work the short test was stuck at 10% (the icon was still spinning, but the test never got past 10%).
• I took out the CD and rebooted into the normal Windows environment. It froze and turned off when it was logging in (after I entered my password).
• I turned the computer back on and booted into the normal Windows environment again. This time I got all the way to opening up the browser, loading BleepingComputer, and attaching the output from the Sysnative BSOD Dump + System File Collection App that I ran last night (I messed up my post and it didn't attach). Before I could save it, the computer turned off again.
• When I turned the computer back on, I got a BSOD: BAD_SYSTEM_CONFIG_INFO. It went into an automatic repair and started repairing disk errors. I stepped away for a moment, so I didn't see what happened. When I came back, I was seeing the same BSOD. Long story short, now I keep seeing the same error and can't get Windows to boot, even in safe mode (standard or with networking).

So while I wait for a reply I'm going to run MemTest (since I already have an image on a CD somewhere).

Please finish the diagnostics.

 

It looks like you'll need to purchase a new HDD (unless the system is under warranty) and some recovery media.

If you have your 8.1 product key (or can recover it from within Windows), that'll be sufficient to install W10.

I'd suggest that you do all of this prior to 28 July - so you won't have to worry about the free upgrade offer expiring.

Ok, MemTest86 made it through 3 passes and is 44% way through a fourth after 12 hours with no errors found. When you say to finish the diagnostics, do you mean check the remaining hard drives with SeaTools? I'll try and get that started before I go to work.

Check all the hard drives, and run the other diagnostics (Furmark, the other video, Prime95, and the CPU stress tests)

I checked the remaining hard drives, and they all passed the test. I retried the main SDD and it still immediately failed the long test.

 

I can't run any of the other diagnostics because I still can't get the computer to boot into Windows.

 

As a last ditch effort, I removed all extra cards, cables, and whatnot. I had nothing but the SDD, RAM, GFX, and fans. Didn't work. And just for kicks, I plugged the hard drive into a different SATA port to see if that would make a difference... it did not.

 

I'm guessing it's now time to go figure out the warranty process for my hard drive?

I agree.

Good luck!

Thanks for your help I've sent off the customer service request to OCZ so we'll see what they say.

Whelp, on 7/25 I got the new hard drive, installed it, and did a fresh install of Windows. Everything worked great until last Saturday (8/6). I was on the computer all day then I left to make dinner. When I came back it had turned itself off. When I booted up it automatically repaired the C: drive, then booted up normally. It worked fine until Sunday, 8/7. Again, I was on it most of the day, and it started acting kind of sluggish. Next thing I knew, the thing froze for 30-60 seconds, then turned off. (No disk repair this time). This is the exact same behavior I had for about a year on this computer, so I think I can safely say that the hard drive wasn't the isse.

 

However, the computer is so much more stable than it was last time I was posting, so I was able to get the log files that I never could before. (Note: Perfmon has been running for ~5 minutes without outputting anything. If it ever resolves I'll edit this post to add it).

Your UEFI/BIOS (version F5) dates from 2013.  Please check at the manufacturer's website to see if there are any UEFI/BIOS updates available for your system.  If you are able to install the update through Windows (without booting from an external drive), then go ahead and update it.  WARNING - if the computer might shut down during this procedure, please don't do it, as this may physically damage the computer and prevent it from booting.
FYI - W8 and W10 communicate more with the UEFI/BIOS than previous versions of Windows, so it's important to ensure that the UEFI/BIOS is kept up to date (and that outdated UEFI/BIOS' may be the cause of some compatibility issues).

Only 3 Windows Update hotfixes installed.  Most build 10586 (TH2/1511) systems have more than this.  Please visit Windows Update and get ALL available Windows Updates.
The actual number is not important.  Rather it's important that you checked manually, installed any available updates, and didn't experience any errors when checking or updating.

L: drive only has about 8% free space, N: drive only has about 6% free space.  Windows likes 15% free space in order to perform stuff "behind the scenes" without adversely affecting the system's performance.  Please free up 15% on ALL hard drives (you can get away with 10% on larger drives and won't notice a large performance penalty).  Low free space can cause BSOD's - but the actual amount depends on the files being used by the system.

You have 4 or 5 hard drives.  What is the age of your Power Supply?  Do you think that a 550 watt PSU is enough (considering what you have installed on the system)?

This device has problems in Device Manager:

 

X1100 Series    USB\VID_043D&PID_007C\4134864    The drivers for this device are not installed.

I believe that this is related to USB devices associated with a Lexmark printer.  Please install the drivers for it.

 

If this doesn't help stop the shutdowns, please wait for the next time it shuts down.
Then immediately recover and generate this report:

Please do the following:
- open Event Viewer (run eventvwr.msc from the "Run" dialog)
- expand the Custom Views category (left click on the > next to the words "Custom Views")
- right click on the "Administrative Events" heading
- select "Save all Events in Custom View as..."
- save the file as Admin.evtx
- zip up the file (right click on it, select "Send to", select "Compressed (zipped) folder")
- upload it with your next post (if it's too big, then upload it to a free file-hosting service and post a link here).

FYI - If we're looking for Event ID 41 errors (unexplained shutdowns), there's more info on that here:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2028504

While waiting for a reply, please monitor your temps with this free utility:  http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

 

 

Thanks for your reply!

 

BIOS: The only newer version is a beta version from 2014 (they did a new revision of the board after that), so I'll leave it be for now. I'm too paranoid of it crashing in the middle of the update.

Windows Updates: It looks like I had a couple more ready so I'll install them.

Hard Drives: the L and N drives are externals. I turned them off for the time being (they are just for backup).

PSU: According to this calculator the total wattage is high enough, but I'm pushing the limits of the amperage on the individual rails. It's also fairly old. I think I have a bigger one in my spare parts box so I'll see if I have time to switch it out this weekend.

Drivers: this is a very old printer and I couldn't find any drivers on Lexmark's site. I had a lot of trouble getting it to work (last time it actually worked) so I just uninstalled the drivers and unplugged the printer.

 

If I get a crash before this weekend I'll post the log. Otherwise, I'll switch out my PSU this weekend and see what happens.

BIOS - yes, it's probably a good idea to leave it alone for now.

But remember that W10 communicates more with the BIOS than previous OS's - so that may be a source of an incompatibility.

 

Ensure the L and N drives are disconnected (just in case).

Yes, I'm a bit paranoid about that :0)

 

PSU calculators are estimates.
PSU's take a large surge of power when starting, then require less power when running

Either way, if a device doesn't like the low power, it's gonna cause problems

Also, PSU's degrade with time - so they won't be as powerful as when you first purchased them.

Try disconnecting any non-essential devices that draw current (in addition to the more powerful PSU).

 

If the printer is old, it may cause problems even if you force it to install.

Printers have become "throwaway" items - it's cheaper to replace them than to fix them.

External harddrives completely disconnected, Windows Updates all installed, but before I could change out the PSU (literally a few hours before), I got two shutdowns in a row. So here are the logs of that while I spend a couple hours switching out this PSU.

There's a lot of issues with a USB memory card reader.

Do you have one of these?

 

A couple of errors for disk 2, accompanied by storage controller events.

Try disconnecting disk 2 (no disk 2 listed in your previous MSINFO32 report)and see if that helps.

 

Beyond that, nothing stands out.
As such, we suspect hardware problems.

Disk 2 is my main suspect at this point - as the errors occur a couple of times.