Windows 10: Unstable system

Slartybart thanks for the concern. I had a different battle going on today dealing with doctors and insurance companies. Took most of my day up. I'd like to add to my initial post. I had thought it might be an issue with IE11. So I've begun the transition to using Edge, although I have also installed Firefox as well. In between phone calls and such, I was "doing Facebook". Didn't cash once, although I could see that I would briefly get a "Facebook.com is not responding" error, but it was rather short lived.

A note about fast boot in the bios settings. Reading what it does and what it does and does not load, I'm not sure if I can set that to disabled right now. My keyboard doesn't work, using a usb keyboard and mouse to operate laptop. I'll discuss that more in the hardware forum.

Few other things I forgot to mention in my first post. A few times just prior to crashing I would get a "memory full" message. So I thought I was over loading my system and shut down any extra Windows/Apps I might have open at the time. And while I don't use the laptop as a gaming platform, I do have one game I play on Steam called "Hearts of Iron III". This isn't a FPS game that doesn't require a high frame rate or such. But I did have the Radeon video card crash and that shut my system down too.

I am already running ccleaner. I would like to run that Windows 10 program that monitors system stability if anyone can tell me how to reload that. It's getting late for me today, so I wish to go over the first few posts, so I can get that ISO downloaded and burnt off. I do have a question about that though. It's about the key. I know I've the digital code floating around here someplace in my notebook, but I'd still like to have the key for Win8.1. Will that also work on my Office 2013 though? I know that Office 2016 just came out, and I'm going to see if Vocational Rehab will pay for an upgrade and training for me. I REALLY wish to become MOS certified so it's VERY important that I get this computer stable and keep it that way! At least until I can afford to replace it! Until I have the ISO done and I haven't had a crash for a week, then I'll close this thread.

As you'd guess I'm not working right now due to an injury. Budget is...well there really isn't a budget with no money. What other free tools can I use to maintain and monitor my system?

 

jayv2251, battles with doctors and insurance - what a fun day.

Ok, a few things I need to know.

What is the machine's bit-depth (32-bit / x86 OR 64-bit / amd64),
what edition are you entitled to (Home or Pro), and
what firmware boots your machine (BIOS or UEFI)

All of that can be found when you launch System Information
WinKey+R [ msinfo32 ]

These are the items in System Information
[System Summary]
Item Value OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Pro System Type x64-based PC BIOS Mode Legacy
You can download the appropriate ISO for you system from Techbench
Scroll down to Windows 10 ISO Downloads
You only need the bit depth that matches your machine -ignore the sentence that says
Make sure to download both 32-bit and 64-bit images and the languages you'll need for your retail location



Edition: Windows 10 ??
- this is the most common in the States
[ Confirm ]

Language: English ??
- probably your language
[ Confirm ]

Press the correct bit depth to start the download
- this is what I can't guess
[ 32-bit Download ]
[ 64-bit Download ]

Burn the ISO to disc or copy the contents to an empty USB thumbdrive
Open Disk Manager, select the USB thumbdrive, right click and set active.

Read over this tutorial and ask any questions.
Windows 10 - Clean Install - Windows 10 Forums

A few pointers:

You want to install to a completely unallocated drive

You don't enter any key when prompted
- press skip or next
The next time you connect to the Internet, Windows checks for a Digital License that matches your machine and will activate Win10

Disconnect any external devices, you'll connect them after the install

Let Windows Update provide drivers
- you only have to hunt down a driver if Device Manager flags the device

The tutorial has more ...

 

Windows 10 home
x64 based pc
AMD A-5000 processor
Bios ver. 1.5 rel. 1/27/2014 (need to double check that, one thing I do like about this computer is Toshiba has a rather good utility to keep drivers and the bios up to date.)

Well, so far 24 hours no crashes, and I was having IE crash several times a day with perhaps 1 total computer crash/shutdown a day per the Reliability log (Yes I found that on my own)

 

BIOS Mode? Not the version

Create a System Image just in case.

Store the image on an external drive - a Clean install requires a clean drive (no partitions, only unallocated space)

Then when you're ready, refer to post# 15.
Thoroughly read the tutorial - everything to make your install successful is in it.

Techbench download

Edition: Windows 10
Language: English
Press the [ 64-bit Download ] button to start the download
One final note: Don't install any tweakers, boosters, fixers - 3rd party software that claims to help Windows.
Windows 10 is very good at self healing - those so-called fixer software packages often lead to trouble.

There are a few that can be trusted - cCleaner is one.

 

Okay, I had the bios mode written down, just forgot to post it. It's in UEFI mode. A bit more about my clean install. Taking advice from all those that have posted in this thread, I have made the switch from IE to Edge. Since I've done that my system has not locked up or crashed. There are only two warnings listed, "Windows Shell Experience Host" stopped working. I clicked on the "check for solution" and it couldn't find one.

Back to the clean install. So long as I'm not crashing, I'm not going to do it right away. I still want to create an ISO, for "just in case" situation. I don't have any thumb drives that are large enough to do an install. I do have plenty blank dvd's so I'm gonna read up on putting the ISO on that media. To do so I'll be using MS Edge to follow various links to do so. Since switching, I am pleased as I said before that I haven't crashed since the 26th. I don't know if it's just me getting use to a different web browser, or if it's a reliability issue or not. Just like IE11 occasionally still see a "Facebook not responding" error. At other times while either searching something via Bing or Google, and I'll get the same error. It doesn't last as long, but still is a concern of mine. Still other times when I click on a link while searching, checking email or reading Facebook. Nothing happens for a minute or so before the link appears.

 

For the Windows Shell Experience Host error, you might try running sfc /scannow from an administrative command prompt. You want the result: No integrity violations found. If it finds and fixes problems, or finds but couldn't fix problems, reboot and run it again, as many as 3 times. If you still get errors, we'll move on to next steps.

For browsers, you might want to try out Mozilla Firefox. It's very similar to the look and feel of Internet Explorer, but more customizable, and safer.

 

Have you run malwarebytes anti malware? That would pick up anything that might be causing issues as well. Also have you made recovery disks - Toshiba should have an option to make manufacturer recovery disks on there somewhere. Usually takes 3 or 4 dvd's. That way you could always reinstall W8 from those, to original factory settings at some point if you wanted to. And if you didn't want to upgrade to Windows 10. It sounds like you have a lot of fix programs on there - my experience with running lots of fix programs is they can often cause more issues. So it does sound like you could do with a clean install. Did you say you'd already upgraded to W10 once and rolled back? (ie W10 is activated now). If so I think it would definitely be worth doing a clean install of Windows 10 as the others have shown above. I just burned a dvd of the ISO from the Microsoft website - the install is quick, there aren't that many updates to do either. But before you do, you need to have everything backed up - personal files backed up onto sd card or portable hard drive, manufacturer recovery disks made, and a system image and W8 repair disk made. So you can always get back to where you were (or better ).

With a clean install you will have a stable system. And a lot less hassle and programs that work well and no need for extra utilities.

 

Thanks for the firmware update : UEFI

No problem putting the ISO on a DVD.
But I suggest you only need one tutorial to build it. Sometimes trying to follow the various methods on a few sites gets confusing.

See: Windows 10 ISO Download - Windows 10 Forums
Read through the tutorial paying attention to the colored boxes
If you have any questions ask before proceeding - it can saves steps in the long run.

Follow OPTION ONE in the tutorial:
Directly Download a Windows 10 ISO from Microsoft Tech Bench

Edition: Windows 10
Language: English
[ 64-bit Download ]

When the download completes,
open the folder
right click the downloaded ISO
Select Burn disc image

Follow the burn dialog
- basically make sure there's a R/W DVD in the drive
- make sure the correct drive is selected, and
press the [ Burn ] button

 

Been a few days since I was on to check this thread. I still haven't crashed as I use to since switching to MS Edge vs using IE11. There was one issue though a few days back that I would like to mention before saying my system is "stable". I noticed various things weren't running a smoothly, or loading as quickly. So like the saying goes, "When in doubt...Reboot!" The reboot went as normal until right after the Windows splash screen that requires my password. After entering the password my lap top just hung there for easily 10 minutes before coming to desktop. Now I've rebooted a few times since then. Mainly because we'd thunderstorms in the area and I was busy elsewhere so system was shut down. Didn't repeat this 10 minute hang-up, but it is concerning.

Other issues... It was mentioned that I should run sfc/scannow up to 3 times until I see no errors. (I re-read post to follow instructions correctly). I will do so after I complete my downloading Windows 10 and burning off the ISO, which I'm in the process now while I've ribs on the grill (low and slow...best ribs ever!) So I have time on my hands to get this done before I forget.

Malware and virus issues. Yes, I've used Malware bytes before. I haven't installed since the last crash in May. Currently I'm running Avast virus protection. Not quite sure I trust Microsoft's virus utility yet. Avast trial expires soon and I'm flat broke being on sick leave and all. What's the best protection I can get for free? As a side note, system had come with Norton, but that license has expired as well. Used the Norton removal tool to rid system of that product, but I still have that annoying Norton program that wants to track where my laptop is incase it's stolen. I haven't installed it, I don't want it, yet I can't get rid of it. What do I do about that thing???

 

Mmmm....just finished up my ribs on the BBQ! Yes, try the System File Checker (sfc /scannow) 3x with reboots in-between; if still problems, run the command to create sfcdetails.txt (in the tut), and post that here for us to see. Also turn off Fast Startup if you haven't already.

Avast! have a free version and it's quite good. Just install the 3 shields and that's all you need from them (and the software updater, which will be a manual process, but I find it comes in handy for checking).






Re: The Norton Anti-Theft software: I think you'd have to install it first, in order to be able to uninstall it. Not sure about that one. I know it's being discontinued (if it hasn't been already).

Found this on one site:
How to Uninstall Anti-Theft with a Toshiba Laptop | Norton Community

 

Okay, running into issues burning off Windows 10 iso. The download is in my "Download" folder. After completing the download, it prompted to burn, which of course I clicked yes, figuring it would just pop out the finished disk. Then I noticed that the icon for this whole process was gone, I went to file manager and checked the disk, and it was blank. It did ask how I wanted to use the disk and I tried several times to get it to burn off the file I downloaded, but it wouldn't. What did I do wrong? If there's a good free program that burns ISO's I'd like to hear some suggestions.

 

When burning a disk, you want to select "one time use only" and not re-writable. Also the disk itself can not be a re-writable disk. See if you can right-click the ISO and send to CD/DVD drive.

 

Another option is to use RUFUS to create a bootable flash drive.

 

Darn it! All I have is r/w dvd's. Only usb's I have are 2gig in size. Awkward situation as I don't have the cash to run out and buy even the cheapest 4Gig usb or different dvds. Well, at least I do have the iso downloaded before the deadline, so I won't have to worry about that right this moment.

Running the first sfc/scannow utility. Had the same hang up again where after entering my password the system hung for several minutes. Other then that, I haven't experienced any of the crashes while using IE since switching to Edge.

 

You really should get an 8GB flash drive. The ISO will be updating as time goes on, and you can keep the flash drive updated as well. *Smile