Windows 10: Random crashes/BSOD since May.

Specs.


Somewhere in May, I started having random crashes on my computer, in varying types.


Type 1 is your general bluescreen. It gives me about eight different messages, and is by far the most common.

Type 2 is less common, and a little more strange. Sometimes, activity will suddenly halt on the pc, the display will turn black, and the PC will make a loud, rhythmic whirring noise.

Type 3 is probably nothing. I've had the whole system lock up EXCEPT for whatever sound is playing in the background, but this happens specifically when playing Phantasy Star Online 2.

There is no rhyme or reason to when these crashes happen outside of the PSO2 one. I've had both the first and second types happen after hours of use, or right after startup. Whether I'm running a program of any sort, or when the PC is resting on the desktop, often when I'm not even there.

One strange thing I've noticed is that it's never crashed while I'm playing a Sonic game. Within the last month I've replayed Heroes, Forces and currently I'm emulating Unleashed, but the PC has never bluescreened or had the display crash while ingame. It has for other games, never Sonic the hedgehog. Probably a coincidence.

Looking each bluescreen message up, they seem to be mostly driver-related. This makes sense, as in April I updated my graphics driver to get ready for VR stuff with Half-Life: Alyx coming out. Since then, I've both re-updated, rolled back and spoken with an AMD support professional about ways to fix these crashes, to no avail. I'm worried but severely hoping it isn't an issue with some part of my hardware, since I'm not really hardware-literate in most cases. I had a friend help me both with which parts to buy and with putting the PC together last year. We managed to get two bad pieces in a row, first a bad processor then a bad motherboard though the bad motherboard may have been falsely reporting the processor as what was wrong, but up until May it had worked fine.

I made sure to leave my Odyssey unplugged, as I suspected it might have been part of the issue. I have had the windows mixed reality UI suddenly butt in when I'm doing something completely unrelated, and it's not like I keep my headset in some precarious place where motion might activate it, it sits right here on my desk. Crashes did not change.

If you're about to ask me why I waited five months to actually address the issue, this is where the weirdest part comes in. The crashes have never become overall more frequent. I'll usually have one to three crashes for a day or more, then, mysteriously, they just stop happening. I've had periods of almost a full week where I got no crashes of any sort. My activity on the PC is not exactly wildly varying, either. I usually have some browser running along with discord, I'll watch videos or play games, and I occasionally use clip studio for drawing stuff unrelated, but about two weeks ago, I finished a drawing within 2 minutes of the power being knocked out across my entire block. That doesn't change, the only real change has been that I didn't do as much VR stuff once I finished Alyx. But the crashes were never more or less common when I was playing a VR game.

I'm honestly posting here because the crashes are more annoying than legitimately damaging, and it's sometimes awkward to explain to the rest of a class why I just disappear for two minutes occasionally, and I'm hoping these aren't the early symptoms of a much worse problem.

Any help I can get is appreciated.

:)

 

Random BSOD while browsing internet


BitDefender is nothing special. mwac.sys causes BSODs anywhere.
A tiny documentation can be found here: Solved Random BSODs - Windows 10 Forums
In that very thread, the suggested action apparently worked.

The storage and network filters of any third party antivirus can cause BSODs. Neither MBAM nor BitDefender is any special. For a regular antivirus, it may be shifted to an alternative; but MBAM has no alternative. So a clean install of the said program is the most feasible first step.
As far as the first step is not failing, it is better to not think for the second step. Because the BSODs are not universal, failure at the first step is not universal; and success at the second step is also not universal.
That is why I posted that my suggestion may work, or may not. Let us see where it goes.

 

Random BSOD while browsing internet

Sorry, Bitdefender is a problem: BSOD BAD_POOL_HEADER - mwac.sys - Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Help - Malwarebytes Forums

 

Random BSODs "Bad_Pool_Caller"


This BSOD happens anywhere, irrespective of BitDefender. It takes place even when the antivirus is MSE in case of Windows 7. The most common cause is an expired trial or a cracked installation. Some examples:

• Norton: Windows 7 Random bsod caused by tcpip.sys - Windows 7 Help Forums
• MBAM only: Epic BSOD error appears just after few seconds from boot Solved - Windows 7 Help Forums
• McAfee: BSOD on Internet Related Programs (tcpip.sys) - Windows 7 Help Forums
• Avast: Bad Pool Header 0x00000019 at random times - Windows 7 Help Forums
• Avira: BSOD randomly Crashes my Laptop and freezes at Memory dump 100 - Windows 7 Help Forums
• Crack: BSOD every 6 minutes, also recent freezes - Windows 7 Help Forums

We are on our way of troubleshooting. If the uninstallation and reinstallation does not work, we will take the next step.

I, in general, know what I am doing and what I am suggesting. If I feel that I am unable to control the issue, I will definitely ask for help.