I am not writing this for the second time. The first time I tried to write this post it crashed mid-me writing it. I found that kind of humorous. Anyways, based on the windows reliability reports the crashes started happening on 5/30. Since then I have had approximately 22 crashes. The crashes happen at random. I can identify no particular series of events that cause it to happen. It happens independently if I am on my PC, if I am running many apps, if I have a game open, or anything else. It just randomly happens.
I will use my knowledge, the apps and features tab, and the windows update history tab to list everything I can think of that changed on 5/30.
- Apps and Features: I installed MSI Afterburner (I was trying to get performance heading so I downloaded it, then deleted the other install of it)
- Apps and Features: It says something about "Microsoft OneDrive", I do not know what this is about
- Update History: I got the feature update 21H1
- Update History: I got the security update KB2267602 Version: 1.339.1702.0
- I think this was the day I unplugged my PC and went out to dust it out. This involved taking off the side panel and just blowing air in it. I am not sure if it was exactly this date though.
Whenever I say crashes I am referring to a windows bluscreen. Everything stops, then the screen turns blue and I get white text saying "Your device ran into a problem..." It then goes through sending some error info as a percentage, then it restarts.
I have had the bluescreens say a few different things. I cannot remember what the earlier ones were, but I think I remember them as being different a lot. Recently I have been getting them saying "System_Service_Exception" and most recently during writing the other post it said "Critical_Process_Died".
I have looked into these and followed a variety of guides on how to fix it. These are the items that I have tried:
- I have run multiple SFC scans during multiple attempts at fixing it.
- I have run the windows memory diagnostic and it came up as everything was working
- I have run multiple CHKDSK (check disk) scans
- I have gone through everything in my system and done the windows automatic scan for drivers.
From my research, Most people say the issue is probably something related to drivers, but I didn't install anything on that date. Now, on 6/9 I did delete my graphics card drivers and reinstalled them. I have an RX 580 and the Radeon driver software wasn't showing me some features and the fix was to reinstall it. This happened after 5/30 though so I do not know why it would cause stuff to happen differently. Maybe I had another reason for bluescreening and this just causes it now or something?
There are a few things left I can do/try.
- I have read that I can do a clean boot which would only use minimal drivers, but this seems like it wouldn't help much. The crashes randomly happen so if I were to boot, I would just have to wait for a long time and then guess that either it fixed it or the crash just hasn't happened yet. Also, again I do not know if the issue is drivers because I don't remember anything changing since then.
- I read a post that said someone downloaded Bluescreen viewer and he said he found the drivers that are causing the issues. I would have to look up how to do that, but I could probably do that.
- I could try doing a fresh install of windows. This is what I am trying to avoid, but if I have to I will. If it does come to this I will probably upgrade my main drive while I am at it so it is not like it's a really big inconvenience. Also, I could use the drive cleanup and I don't really have anything important on here. I play games on my pc and do my school-type work from Microsoft cloud stuff like OneDrive and Word.
I like to say I know a little bit about computers. I did build the computer myself (roughly 2.5 years ago). I have helped some friends troubleshoot their computers and I have built some for friends too. I will try to understand and read any replies. Thank you all in advance, if there is any more information you need that I could give, please let me know!