Windows 10: Black screen every Thursday, PC quit sleeping this past week.

Sorry I've been away for so long. I have a part time home based business and have been barely keeping up. But I was reminded by three blue screen crashes today, apparently caused by something that's making hatchy video blips on my screen, for several days now, and then the crash and usually it restarts the PC. Just now it didnt and I had to shut off the UPS.

So, Caledon, I'm looking back at your post that begins with "Yikes. Sorry to hear that you are having such a go of it..."

I'm using the Asus USB N-53, wireless USB adapter, which they said was "end of life" and not supported with any new Windows 10 drivers. So I should take your advice and get something new for that.

Secondly, I have the Radeon HD 5670 video on this PC and need to go looking for the original drivers, as apparently these updates are REALLY futzing things up now, and like you said; install the old drivers and prevent updating them. Seems like a good start.

 

So just to clarify, is your PC booting back up?

Assuming so I would first stop the auto restart after a blue screen so you can see the info it is providing.

Press Windows Key +R, type sysdm.cpl, enter, click Advance tab, click on “Setting” in Startup and Recovery section. Remove check mark from “Automatically restart”.

Usually there is an error code and it will also identify a "Sys" or "dll" that it sees as being the culprit. If you document file name and code that is a start.

There is a BSOD reporting section within the forum with a process for reporting. They can better access root causes. Some description about what you were doing when it happen could also help.


As to getting some new gear. Yes a new Wireless fob would help. They are very reasonably priced. As to your Radeon card, if you believe this was a recent update that killed you, you can go into device manager and "Rollback" driver.

AMD has this driver from 2015 available.

Previous

It may be wise to run a product like DDU to completely remove all traces before installing.

Download Display Driver Uninstaller - MajorGeeks

As we discussed the Radeon is EOL as well.

I would ensure I had a restore point created before proceeding and bootable media on hand in case it is needed. If you have a spare drive around I would also create an Image with Macrium and its corresponding boot disc. Safety first.

Can I ask did you install a new AMD video driver. It usually asks and needs your okay to proceed. I think you said the kids use this device. They should not be using an administrator id.

Now if device is not booting at all that is another path.


Ken

 

I just printed that, for the next time it happens. One other thing that I hadn't gotten through before, was that I just successfully ran the Intel Driver Tester and it says that there's a chipset update available from February 2016, but warns that it's generic and doesn't include any whoopee stuff that the manufacturer ( Asus ) may have included. I couldn't care less about that stuff, as I never mess with it. I just want my PC working again. So I may go ahead with that, when I get a little time.

 

Hi Ken,

I've been down for over a week with a nasty virus. ( slept for two days straight, coughing - a real mess ) . Plus I've been overwhelmed with work - can barely keep up anyway, so I havent had time to really devote to this.

What's happening is that it does a BSOD ( actually all kinds of colors, sometimes even stripes lately ) and then spontaneously reboots. This has been happening more frequently this past week! It WAS happening 1-2 times a day and has now gotten to be about once an HOUR! It's disrupting my small business work and stressing me out as I try to recover from this virus and catch up again.

I'm an intermediate user, not advanced or an expert, so some of the advice has perplexed me.

If I keep it from rebooting, there's no control over the PC then. It sits here with a blank screen and I cant do a thing. In fact some times it's done that too, and I finally had to shut off the power to restart it.

So it seems like what I need is a simple, understandable way to get it to log the crash when it happens ( unless it has already and I dont know where ) and then go ahead with its restart. That would be a start to this.

But honestly, I wish I had a time machine where I could go back and warn myself NOT to upgrade to Win 10 with this machine, because it could obsolete the whole thing and too much of it is end of life and they wont support it. There HAS BEEN NO TIME, since the upgrade, when it worked 100% right. It started with just not being able to sleep anymore, then these BSOD problems, and it's been nothing buy heartache since July 24th.

 

Sorry to hear and I know today we all depend on our technology. I know its not funny but there are all those cartoons out there that suggest our technology knows when we are stress and it just acts worse.

You will need some time to resolve however the steps I recommended I know you can do when you get the time.

Something you may wish to consider and you would have to check out how it fits into the software licensing agreement with MS, fall back to your original OS. You need to check before you do as you don't want to spend money only to find out it won't activate.

Falling back, if possible, won't be easy and you would have to re-install everything. I'd hand that job off to someone.

Failing that, you have to go forward with 10. There are lots of people to help on this forum.

Your memory dumps are in your windows directory.

To summarize though, throw away your wireless USB dongle and get a new one. One problem down. Run the software I mentioned above, DDU and then install the AMD driver. Two problems down.

I think you mentioned you had an 8.1 machine, can you migrate work function to it?

Post back with your progress. (when you have time.)

 

Did a new update come out this afternoon? Suddenly after I posted the above, I think it crashed one more time, and then stopped crashing every hour, and has been stable. ( fingers crossed )

 

Yeah, I have the original OS disks for this PC, so should be able to migrate everything to the newer refurbed 8.1 PC and then install 7 on this one? Just make absolutely sure that everything is migrated first. ( thinking of side by side and using an ethernet cable between them? ) So I cant imagine a problem if I reinstall the original 7 OS from disks that I own, and that came with this PC?

What are they called?

<SIGH>

 

Don't let your computer hear you, it will start acting up again.

They usually have an extension .dmp

It will be called memory.dmp or minidump.dmp

These are simple instructions to follow to stop BSOD's from auto restart and from over writing dumps.

Press Windows Key +R, type sysdm.cpl, enter, click Advance tab, click on “Setting” in Startup and Recovery section. Remove check mark from “Automatically restart”. Also remove the check mark to Overwrite.

Now you will not be able to do much with the dumps as you need tools. That said a tool us average folk can use is whocrashed and bluescreenview. Here is a link to bluescreenview. Some AV products get cranky with nirsoft. His stuff is good but you have to get from his site.

Blue screen of death (STOP error) information in dump files.

 

I saw a 800k DMP file but it's from yesterday, and I must have had 3-4 BSOD crashes earlier today. But like I said, if I prevent it from auto-restarting, then it will be off in BSOD land, and unresponsive, right?

 

Yes, well sort of.

If you prevent it from auto restarting you can take down information like .sys or .dll file involved and error code. This very well will assist in tracking down issue.

To restart, once info is recorded, you power down and then power on. Currently your system is set for 30 seconds, you could increase. The goal is to get info.

By unchecking overwrite, more files should appear. Are you running any kind of cleaner package that is maintaining system on some sort of schedule.


Ken

 

The problem is that when this happens, the PC has a plain white, or vertical striped screen, and is unresponsive. I cant see or do ANYTHING, until it reboots, not even see the cursor yet alone use it, use the Win menu, or anything. Zip. That's why I was wondering if there's a setting to save and preserve these dmp files and then just let it restart.

But it's extremely odd that it was crashing like crazy up until maybe 2 PM, and no instability since.

 

Not sure this is a crash. This sounds like a failing device and likely reason you are not seeing dumps.

As a first step power down monitor and PC. I would disconnect monitor cable and reseat. Then I would open PC, disconnect cable to monitor and I would reseat Video card. I would also reseat any power cables that maybe attached. Then reconnect monitor cable and test.

Now maybe AMD released a new driver but it has always engaged me before installing so I'm pretty sure yours would do the same.

When you come back up check the driver version for your card against AMD site.


Ken

 

Well there's a big DMP file ( 800k ) that was generated on March 1st. Then all the BSOD's and restarts yesterday, until early afternoon. THEN it's been wonderful ever since - not a one! WOW.

When those BSOD were happening, the screen would blink and flicker first, sometimes with video lines within it. Sometimes the cursor would go from small, to 3 times the size. Then the BSOD and eventual restart.

There's no reason for all that now, it's bee perfect since yesterday afternoon. This is insane.

 

Well I wish I knew what was going on, but this PC has been perfectly well behaved since the afternoon I mentioned above. No more BSOD. I can only think that they may have updated the OS so it quit doing this? It wasn't anything that I did.

The only problem remaining, at this time, is the fact that it still won't sleep, which was the original problem last July after the upgrade to 10.

 

Good news.

So I can't remember where we got to on not sleeping. So....

Go to advance power options and under "Sleep" heading, disable "Wake Timers"

If it does not sleep when you say sleep, in a command prompt(admin) type powercfg -requests

This should list cause.

If it sleeps and awakens next time it awakens note the exact system

In command prompt(admin) type powercfg -lastwake.

If that does not show anything go to event viewer (type in cortana to find app) and look at system logs. There should be an event 107, System resuming from sleep, and closely there after an event 1, wake source. You will need to copy and post both general tab and details tab for the event 1. Thanks to @Bree for sharing these event numbers.


Ken