L
LochlanWilson
Hi all, thanks for reading! It's a bit of a doozy because I tried a few things at the advice of some more tech savvy friends and forum posts.
TL;DR my newly built Windows 10 Home Gaming/Work PC started crashing repeatedly, with a shorter and shorter period between crashes each time. I tried a fresh Windows reinstall and was able to muscle my way through setup by repeatedly using the Win+Ctrl+Shift+B shortcut to reset my GPU drivers, but it still crashes in and out of Safe Mode.
Context
I built my first gaming PC with the help of a friend this week (I'll put the specs below), and it worked fine for a few days. I tried to update the graphics card drivers as it was a pre-owned GPU, and it said there was and error, but the screen resolution updated and looked way better right after so I assumed it was fine.
The next day, I tried playing Mordhau and after about 30 minutes I had my first crash. The screen went black, showed the first post, and then I was back at the sign-in screen. I had played a few hours of a less taxing game earlier, and noticed by GPU was at 99% load with Mordhau, so I guessed that I had it on too high of settings. I lowered the graphics settings and tried again, but it kept crashing (black screen, first post, Windows login screen), and at a shorter interval. My friend suggested it might be the GPU drivers so I tried to update them from the NVIDIA website/GeForce Experience app. It said there was an error in the install but the drivers themselves had installed properly.
The Issue
The PC kept crashing, and after a while I was barely getting to the sign in screen, until I couldn't even get there - Windows would try an automatic repair and it would fail, and I'd end up in WinRE. I tried a system restore (didn't work, and when I tried again it wouldn't let me do it), and a system reset failed as well. I then did a fresh Windows install from a Windows Media creation tool (had to reformat the SSD from MBR to GPT) and it seemed to work after some troubleshooting. It would repeatedly crash during setup after an install, after varying amounts of time, and sometimes it crashed 5-6x in a row before returning to the WinRE page. Sometimes the crashes were a cut to black and restart, other times it was a BSOD with various error messages (I've had Critical Process Died, System Thread Exception Not Handled, 0xc0000225, and a few others I'm forgetting).
For a while, I was unable to progress through the Setup after the install because it would crash, but after disconnecting and reconnecting my GPU, I was able to finish the setup while repeatedly using the "Win+Ctrl+Shift+B" shortcut to reset my GPU drivers (it sounds silly to try but it worked, while not doing the shortcut would crash).
I can hang out in the BIOS screen indefinitely, and generally I'm okay in WinRE but it will still restart occasionally there too.
What I've Tried
Now that I've been able to get to the desktop I was able to update the GPU drivers using Device Manager. After doing so, the computer worked crash-free for about 5 minutes (the longest I've had in a while). I seem to be able to stave off crashes by using "Win+Ctrl+Shift+B" somewhat, but the crash still happens after a while, even in safe mode. The time before crash seems to last longer when I have let the computer stay off for a while, and gets shorter with each successive crash.
I also ran verifier.exe based on a tutorial I found, but it did not seem to make any difference.
My Thoughts
My thoughts are that it is related to the GPU. It is the only pre-owned component I have in the build, and anything I've tried to tweak it has extended the time before a crash (resetting it using a shortcut, unplugging and re-plugging it into the motherboard, updating the drivers). However, I don't know what else there is I can do!
Power: My computer was previously plugged into a power bar daisy chained to another surge protected power bar as a temporary cord solution. I thought this could be an issue so I moved it so it is directly plugged into the surge protected bar, and it took longer to crash, but this could be coincidental. I don't think it's a power issue as the CPU and exhaust fans, as well as the case's built-in LED lights stay on during a crash.
Any help would be greatly appreciated! My friends thought could be related to the GPU drivers, but I have now updated those (and I tried to update other drivers before a crash, but Device Manager did not find any out of date among the drivers that I checked.)
Please let me know if you need any more information! I wanted to see if there was any ideas you fine people had before I bring it to a repair shop.
Components
CPU: AMD RYZEN 5 3600
Motherboard: ASUS Prime B450M-A (updated to the latest BIOS)
Memory: 2x8GB XPG Gammix D10 3200MHz
SSD: WD Black SN750 NVMe SSD
GPU: ASUS Turbo GTX 1070 (pre-owned, unsure if drivers properly installed but should be up to date now)
PSU: EGVA 500W 80+
Continue reading...
TL;DR my newly built Windows 10 Home Gaming/Work PC started crashing repeatedly, with a shorter and shorter period between crashes each time. I tried a fresh Windows reinstall and was able to muscle my way through setup by repeatedly using the Win+Ctrl+Shift+B shortcut to reset my GPU drivers, but it still crashes in and out of Safe Mode.
Context
I built my first gaming PC with the help of a friend this week (I'll put the specs below), and it worked fine for a few days. I tried to update the graphics card drivers as it was a pre-owned GPU, and it said there was and error, but the screen resolution updated and looked way better right after so I assumed it was fine.
The next day, I tried playing Mordhau and after about 30 minutes I had my first crash. The screen went black, showed the first post, and then I was back at the sign-in screen. I had played a few hours of a less taxing game earlier, and noticed by GPU was at 99% load with Mordhau, so I guessed that I had it on too high of settings. I lowered the graphics settings and tried again, but it kept crashing (black screen, first post, Windows login screen), and at a shorter interval. My friend suggested it might be the GPU drivers so I tried to update them from the NVIDIA website/GeForce Experience app. It said there was an error in the install but the drivers themselves had installed properly.
The Issue
The PC kept crashing, and after a while I was barely getting to the sign in screen, until I couldn't even get there - Windows would try an automatic repair and it would fail, and I'd end up in WinRE. I tried a system restore (didn't work, and when I tried again it wouldn't let me do it), and a system reset failed as well. I then did a fresh Windows install from a Windows Media creation tool (had to reformat the SSD from MBR to GPT) and it seemed to work after some troubleshooting. It would repeatedly crash during setup after an install, after varying amounts of time, and sometimes it crashed 5-6x in a row before returning to the WinRE page. Sometimes the crashes were a cut to black and restart, other times it was a BSOD with various error messages (I've had Critical Process Died, System Thread Exception Not Handled, 0xc0000225, and a few others I'm forgetting).
For a while, I was unable to progress through the Setup after the install because it would crash, but after disconnecting and reconnecting my GPU, I was able to finish the setup while repeatedly using the "Win+Ctrl+Shift+B" shortcut to reset my GPU drivers (it sounds silly to try but it worked, while not doing the shortcut would crash).
I can hang out in the BIOS screen indefinitely, and generally I'm okay in WinRE but it will still restart occasionally there too.
What I've Tried
Now that I've been able to get to the desktop I was able to update the GPU drivers using Device Manager. After doing so, the computer worked crash-free for about 5 minutes (the longest I've had in a while). I seem to be able to stave off crashes by using "Win+Ctrl+Shift+B" somewhat, but the crash still happens after a while, even in safe mode. The time before crash seems to last longer when I have let the computer stay off for a while, and gets shorter with each successive crash.
I also ran verifier.exe based on a tutorial I found, but it did not seem to make any difference.
My Thoughts
My thoughts are that it is related to the GPU. It is the only pre-owned component I have in the build, and anything I've tried to tweak it has extended the time before a crash (resetting it using a shortcut, unplugging and re-plugging it into the motherboard, updating the drivers). However, I don't know what else there is I can do!
Power: My computer was previously plugged into a power bar daisy chained to another surge protected power bar as a temporary cord solution. I thought this could be an issue so I moved it so it is directly plugged into the surge protected bar, and it took longer to crash, but this could be coincidental. I don't think it's a power issue as the CPU and exhaust fans, as well as the case's built-in LED lights stay on during a crash.
Any help would be greatly appreciated! My friends thought could be related to the GPU drivers, but I have now updated those (and I tried to update other drivers before a crash, but Device Manager did not find any out of date among the drivers that I checked.)
Please let me know if you need any more information! I wanted to see if there was any ideas you fine people had before I bring it to a repair shop.
Components
CPU: AMD RYZEN 5 3600
Motherboard: ASUS Prime B450M-A (updated to the latest BIOS)
Memory: 2x8GB XPG Gammix D10 3200MHz
SSD: WD Black SN750 NVMe SSD
GPU: ASUS Turbo GTX 1070 (pre-owned, unsure if drivers properly installed but should be up to date now)
PSU: EGVA 500W 80+
Continue reading...