Windows 10 crashes

[Bryan]

I'm seeing occasional crashes of my Win 10 machine and they appear to be becoming more frequent. I get the dreaded message that my device has encountered a problem and needs to restart. Typically this occurs not long after switch on, once restarted it seems more stable. However the other day it happened twice in quick succession.

 

Fortunately I recently cleared out a load of stuff using Ccleaner so the restart is not too lengthy a process, but I'm wondering if my ageing machine has some intrinsic fault, or are other people also experiencing problems? 

[Mr Standfast]

Sorry Bryan, no W10 crashes here. Time to set backup diligence to ten.

 

Stay safe.

[gvallee]

I got Windows 10 a few weeks ago. So far no problems, except I am having issues with Excel which freezes. Sorting it out.

[wiskerke]

Not here either. Have you tried a systems performance report? It comes with every windows. In Win 10 it's an app.

It's easy to do and explained well here.

 

wim

[Niels Quist]

- and what kind of restart are you using?

 

When My Windows 10 computer (upgraded from w8) - won't boot I make the deep reboot by pressing F11 constantly and quickly up and down right after the power has been turned on until a screen turns up where I select "Reboot" - this will repair the errors and bad clusters on the harddisk. But you may already have been there - and the key may also be another one - as not all computers and Window versions are alike.

Edited December 30, 2020 by Niels Quist

[Bryan]

Thanks for all of the responses !

 

I carried out the check suggested by Wim. The good news is that no hardware faults were found. The bad news was that "A service is reported as having an unexpected error code. Service exited with code not equal to 0 or 1077. 

 

Also Warning Missing Events in Event Log

 

Under Basic Systems Checks everything OK other than System Service Checks. Abnormally Terminated Services Check, but Workstation Service Check Passed

 

Niels my computer does start OK and restarts automatically quite quickly after it crashes,.

 

Confess I'm well out of my depth with this one. I am running Malwarebytes ( free version) and I wonder if that is proving to be incompatible with Win 10. 

 

We have a good local computer guy whom I have used in the past.  If the problem persists I'll ask him to take a look when lockdown is over.

Edited December 30, 2020 by Bryan

[Niels Quist]

I also run the free version of Malwarebytes - haven't run into problems yet, I think.

 

Have you checked for any bad clusters and made your computer deal with this?

[Bryan]

23 minutes ago, Niels Quist said:

I also run the free version of Malwarebytes - haven't run into problems yet, I think.

 

Have you checked for any bad clusters and made your computer deal with this?

 

I think that the check that Win suggested looks at all of the hardware, but I may be wrong. I'll take a look.

 

Update. I took a look at hard drive Properties Check and got the message that it was fine but I can scan if I really want to !

Edited December 30, 2020 by Bryan

[Phil]

A free utility for HDD and SSD health is "CrystalDiskInfo".    It can show indicators of impending drive problems

 

https://crystaldiskinfo.en.uptodown.com/windows

 

[wiskerke]

If there are no obvious hardware problems and no corrupted system files,

you could do a memory check.

Windows Key + R again

now type mdsched.exe

This is quite lengthy. The more memory you have, your machine has, the longer it takes.

 

If everything else fails, first try a repair session of Windows, because CrapCleaner may have cleaned just a bit too well.

This is a pretty good write-up.

 

wim

[John Mitchell]

I was apprehensive about switching from Win 7 to Win 10. However, I've been running 10  for a year now with no problems. It is on a new-ish PC designed for Win 10, though. I don't use any cleaners, etc. Good luck fixing the problems, Bryan.

 

 

[Bryan]

Thanks again Wim you pointed me in the right direction, but there is a more recent document

 

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> sfc /scannow

Beginning system scan.  This process will take some time.  It took bloody ages

Beginning verification phase of system scan.
Verification 100% complete.

Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them.
For online repairs, details are included in the CBS log file located at
windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For example C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log

 

Hopefully that has done the trick 🙂

 

I couldn't find windir, but then I probably wouldn't understand the details had I found them. 🙃

[wiskerke]

5 hours ago, Bryan said:

It took bloody ages

 

Hopefully that has done the trick 🙂

 

It's not that bad, But yes, that's why it's a bit lower on the list.

 

Just to be sure, do use that fine MIT utility Phil recommended from time to time, just to make sure it's not a developing disk problem.

And have an eye on the Task Manager under the performance tab to see how the machine holds up under stress and under the Startup tab to see if something has been installed for the convenience of somebody or something other than yourself 😁:

10-15 items is fine; 100 (not uncommon) is like having an anchor behind your car.

 

wim

[Bryan]

6 hours ago, wiskerke said:

It's not that bad, But yes, that's why it's a bit lower on the list.

 

Just to be sure, do use that fine MIT utility Phil recommended from time to time, just to make sure it's not a developing disk problem.

And have an eye on the Task Manager under the performance tab to see how the machine holds up under stress and under the Startup tab to see if something has been installed for the convenience of somebody or something other than yourself 😁:

10-15 items is fine; 100 (not uncommon) is like having an anchor behind your car.

 

wim

 

That disc program is giving me a caution warning. Perhaps I need to consider replacing the drive. Hopefully it will last until we have vaccine for Covid when I'll get somebody who knows what they are doing to copy the contents onto a new disc.  Meanwhile I can back up the data. Would hate to have to re-install all of my software! 

[Bryan]

The computer crashed again, looks like I need to buy a new disc. Backed up the data ok.

[Phil]

19 hours ago, Bryan said:

The computer crashed again, looks like I need to buy a new disc. Backed up the data ok.

 

Replace with an SSD if possible - longer life.

[Bryan]

12 minutes ago, Phil said:

 

Replace with an SSD if possible - longer life.

 

Cheers Phil. Probably the best option, but eye wateringly expensive at present.

 

[Johnnie5]

You might open up the case of your computer and see how dirty it is.  If the cooling system is plugged up it will cause overheating and damage to the CPU or motherboard.  You can blow out the dust with canned air.   SSD's are really cheap right now $50 for 500gb.  Most come with a means to transfer all your software over to the new drive.

[wiskerke]

SSDs are  indeed not all that expensive.

I would go for the 1TB Samsung. In fact that's what I have in my desktop and in my laptop.

The first was 299; the second 225. Now they're just above the 100 mark. (It seems all our currencies are converging at the moment.)

 

wim

[Bryan]

Thanks for the cleaning prompt Johnnie, I once extended the life of a faulty TV set by vacuuming the innards, presumably shorting across the tracks due to dust.

 

Re SSD, my current HD is 2TB and the back up is 3TB and I was thinking of replacing the HD with a 3TB disc. However you guys are clear!y getting away with less storage so maybe  my strategy is wrong. Are you storing your data in the cloud and paying rental, or am I missing a trick here?

[Simon]

Hi Bryan,

I spend a significant amount of time supporting 200+ pcs running windows 10, and periodically and randomly this happens. Usually it’s something like a windows update that’s made one bit of hardware crash windows .. buggy device driver. If you want to dig deep it is possible to examine logs which can show what the faulting service and driver is. Don’t get too hung up on event error logs ( other than disk errors) as there are always some errors. I would say 1 - do a backup and check it’s ok. Then update the computer bios .. available from manufacturer if you have a HP, Dell or similar, do the latest Microsoft Windows updates,  similarly update all drivers available from the manufacturer. You can also see what programs load at startup via task manager and try disabling things in there to see f one of those is causing it.

[Bryan]

43 minutes ago, Simon said:

Hi Bryan,

I spend a significant amount of time supporting 200+ pcs running windows 10, and periodically and randomly this happens. Usually it’s something like a windows update that’s made one bit of hardware crash windows .. buggy device driver. If you want to dig deep it is possible to examine logs which can show what the faulting service and driver is. Don’t get too hung up on event error logs ( other than disk errors) as there are always some errors. I would say 1 - do a backup and check it’s ok. Then update the computer bios .. available from manufacturer if you have a HP, Dell or similar, do the latest Microsoft Windows updates,  similarly update all drivers available from the manufacturer. You can also see what programs load at startup via task manager and try disabling things in there to see f one of those is causing it.

Thanks Simon, the crashes do appear to be more frequent after a Windows update and my machine is getting a bit long in the tooth, so maybe that is an issue. I also see Google crashing after an update, the computer continuing to operate. It's been fine these last two days, but I always save Google related stuff frequently, e.g. responses to the forum. My box is a mongrel games machine from a local shop, so I guess getting bios updates might be a problem.

Edited January 3, 2021 by Bryan

[wiskerke]

13 hours ago, Bryan said:

Thanks for the cleaning prompt Johnnie, I once extended the life of a faulty TV set by vacuuming the innards, presumably shorting across the tracks due to dust.

 

Re SSD, my current HD is 2TB and the back up is 3TB and I was thinking of replacing the HD with a 3TB disc. However you guys are clear!y getting away with less storage so maybe  my strategy is wrong. Are you storing your data in the cloud and paying rental, or am I missing a trick here?

 

25 terabyte currently in total. Doesn't sound like less storage. 😂

Just not on the SSD. 3 regular hdd storing the rest.

It is the only one in the laptop though.

 

wim

[Bryan]

6 minutes ago, wiskerke said:

 

25 terabyte currently in total. Doesn't sound like less storage. 😂

Just not on the SSD. 3 regular hdd storing the rest.

It is the only one in the laptop though.

 

wim

Ok thanks Wim. Do I take it that the programs and operating system reside on the SSD and your data on the HDs ?

[wiskerke]

4 hours ago, Bryan said:

Ok thanks Wim. Do I take it that the programs and operating system reside on the SSD and your data on the HDs ?

 

Yes exactly that. 1TB SSD and 4/10/10GB WD Red HDDs for storage. Those are actually NAS disks (and not very quick), but I have them in my main workstation.

 

wim