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Windows 11 crash; way to log processes in order to diagnose?

Anonymous
2023-12-21T16:26:56+00:00

The system immediately switches to a blue "BIOS"(?) screen with an 'unhappy' classic-emoji, with the options to either restart or to dive into some deep settings of the computer. I just choose "restart". It seems to be to do with media-playback. It happened twice today, it could've been when actively using Windows Media Player on both occasions: I know that it was on at least one occasion; and on the other I think W. Media Player was at least on in the background, and I might've been doing some editing with the CapCut app in the active window.

Is there any way to set-up some kind of log which could trace the processes of the computer so then I could diagnose what's causing it to crash?

Dell Latitude 7430 with 16GB RAM; all Windows and Dell Updates are up-to-date.

Will try reinstalling Windows Media Player.

Windows for home | Windows 11 | Performance and system failures

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-12-24T11:05:22+00:00

    For anyone who comes here in the future.

    It turns out I didn't need the "DDU" tool that the person below advised, which was lucky as it looked to be pretty complex and would have required quite a lot of work to understand it from a lay computer user like myself. They were right about my Graphics-Card Driver being the issue though; but the problem was that that Driver was very much out-of-date; this was because this particular Driver had slipped past, undetected, the Dell and Windows Driver-apps I mentioned in my comments of this thread, and so had not been getting updates along with the other Drivers on my PC.

    I installed the "Intel Driver & Support Assistant" app which was able to track my Graphics-Card Driver, my Graphics-Card having been made by Intel. This app was then able to update my Graphics-Card Driver which solved the problem. This Intel app also spotted a couple of other Drivers in my PC which had likewise been undetected by the Dell and Windows apps, the Bluetooth Driver and a Wi-Fi Driver.

    I know that people often search through old posts on here for help with problems, which is why I feel it important to make this note.

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  2. DaveM121 867.7K Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2023-12-21T16:57:53+00:00

    Hi, I am Dave, I will help you with this.

    Please check to see if your PC is producing any minidump files, I will check those to see if they provide any insight into a potential cause of the system crashes.

    Open Windows File Explorer.

    Navigate to C:\Windows\Minidump

    Copy any minidump files onto your Desktop, then zip those up.

    Upload the zip file to the Cloud (OneDrive, DropBox... etc.), then choose to share those and get a share link.

    Then post the link here to the zip file, so we can take a look for you.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-12-23T13:24:18+00:00

    Great. Thanks for that Dave. I wonder why neither the "Dell Command | Update" app nor the "Check for Updates" app in the System Settings were able to detect this about that driver.

    Also, for the future, could you recommend an app to enable me to read DMP files myself?

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  4. DaveM121 867.7K Reputation points Independent Advisor
    2023-12-22T18:42:35+00:00

    Sorry, I was offline.

    Your minidump files indicate that it is the device driver on your graphics card that is causing the system to crash

    You should completely remove the current graphics card device driver using the widely available free DDU utility, then restart your PC and go to the support page for your PC on the manufacturer's website to download and install their recommended version of the graphics card device driver.

    A slightly older version of that driver is more stable than the latest version.

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-12-22T12:31:27+00:00

    Thanks for helping me here Dave. Here's a github link to where I've uploaded a ZIP folder of the two ".dmp" files my computer created yesterday, at around the same time as the crashes occurred also it seems.

    I have a hunch that it's a corrupted GIF file that's causing the crashes... trying to figure out now how I would confirm that. I'll wait to hear from you about those minidump files though.

    Cheers,

    Galen.

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