Windows 10: Win 10 - Continuing Saga of Win 10 Unreliability

Win 10 - Continuing Saga of Win 10 Unreliability (Totally Bad OS Release!!!)

Ya know it's gonna be a another Win 10 Bad Day when, Ya return to a black screen and blinking cursor on your new Win 10 Pro machine AGAIN!!! And, of Course, it won't even boot either...
This is my fourth attempt to use Win 10 as a mission critical Development/ProdSupport workstation, and they all end up as a Non Bootable, Non Recoverable, DEAD Box!!!

This happens a Lot to me. Sometimes repair tells me "Disk is locked", or other errors, but I have learned when Win 10 dies - remove the sys disk, put it in another working machine, and run a chkdsk on it.
Here's the result of my last Win 10 Failure.... Click these images to Enlarge for Readability.




Now, after I ran a Chkdsk /F and the Intel SSD diagnostics on the sys disk, and replaced it in the new Win box - all fired up OK and the box will probably run about a week before failing again.
There isn't anything wrong with the Hardware here... Its Win 10!

This is a Brand New box, a New Clean Install, and it didnt even last a week!
For those who want the hardware, All Brand New: Asus H170M-Plus, I5-6600, 16G HyperX DDR4(2400), 250G Intel SSD & WD 1T HDD, all else integrated, default settings and fired up perfectly and cleanly installed the first time.
It is a full workstation install, Win 10 pro, IIS, Office 2016 pro+, SqlServer 2016Dev, VS2015ProU3 - All Pure Vanilla outa the Box Legal MS Software! Yep, takes about 2 days to get all installed and functioning cause its window's updating itself almost constantly on every Feature and Product installed. I can get a few Solution's to build and run, Just not for very long (plus Debug and Publish just doesnt have authority to do the job even when run as admin)

I'm sayin Win 10 is a Bum, Busted, Bad OS release...
Here Proof! Click Start Menu->, Click Settings(gear) icon -> click Update & Security,
At Update History --- You clearly See "No Updates have been installed yet."
Then Click the Blue "Uninstall updates" - and Behold...
You Now see the " Currently installed updates" - 100 updates Installed !!!! Oh Yea 100 updates...



Now Who Ya Gonna Believe? (or rather, which screen ya gonna believe?)
Win 10's Terminally ILL.

Y'all know the definition of Insanity: One who keeps doin that same thing expecting a different result...
It's clear, The Emperor has no clothes, Bill's Gone, Win 10's Busted!
(3[Viasta, 8 & 10] outa the last 4 have been BAD!)

But Please, Prove Me wrong here...
Anybody out there with a full fledged mission critical Business Win 10 machine Please step up and show me what I'm doin wrong...

:)

 

Settings Icon Appeared Then Disappeared on Desktop By Itself

Totally irrelevant! Do you even read the context of the post???

 

Settings Icon Appeared Then Disappeared on Desktop By Itself

Windows 10 Pro / A settings icon appeared on my desktop all by itself last night. When I clicked on it, it was a list like in previous versions of Windows. It even let me choose sized in upper right corner. This morning 8-16-2015 the settings icon on desktop
is gone all by itself.

 

All new hardware isn't a 100% guaranty that it is all 100% fully functional by the way. Have you tried a different hard drive?

 

Yes, Anything is possible, however unlikely for this SSD... Cause:
1. Passes Every Intel Toolbox test (Quick, Complete & Smart Diagnostics)
2. SiSoft Sandra Benchmark & Stress tests
3. It's been Proven Reliable - (from another machine, Securely erased, and Repartitioned (both Reserved & System) and formatted by Win 10 itself on installation!
Definitely Highly Unlikely this Intel SSD has Ever made a Mistake!

Ever Use SiSoft Sandra (lite), Here's a Snip... It's a great Freebe



As you can see above, my SSD benchmark (at 503.x) is just a hare above the Std bench for like devices( 500.x)
I use Sandra on all my boxes, not to get the best performance, but just to insure all is al least runnin as it should and well matched for the system as a whole. Good ole Sandra can identify Bad components Right Away...
This box checks out (Benches) almost perfectly average for is components, Not Super Fast, but definitely Swift & Smooth... Reliablity and No Problems is the Goal!

Plus, this is the 4th time I've taken a run at Win 10 - and its trashed its system drive 4 outa 4 times! (3 other drives!)
Now, What would you suspect?
Win 10 just aint passin Product Acceptance tests for my Mission critical $$$$'s and income.

 

Normally on a new system, you'd want to run burn-in test to check out everything. The problem with chkdsk is not neccessarily pointed to the SSD. If you have a bad RAM stick, bad data can be written to the SSD too.

On the updates screen, I did not see any cummulative updates except those for MS Office, SQL, Visual studio applications. Open Admin command and run "Winver" to see what build of Windows 10 you currently have. The latest version is: 1607 Build 14393.576

 

Like any new vehicle - if the driver does not have confidence in the machine, they will not feel comfortable driving it. And the machine is a complex system of engineered and serviced parts, as well as the human user, any of which is not performing adequately can make the whole machine less than 100% safe or reliable.
Trying to pull apart Windows that states it has not received any Windows updates yet, by showing all the updates that the (optional, user chosen) programs and features installed have received already is like trying to compare pomegranates to cumquats - they are different entities. It's only proof of a poor comparison.
The definition of insanity here is trying to work in the same environment as something you cannot get along with.

If you cannot change yourself, by your own reckoning, stick to the Windows 7 that you think is not "bad".

You still have 3 years and 4 days until Windows 7 is completely abandoned by MS.

Perhaps Windows 10 won't look so "bad" then.

But you'll have a hell of a lot of Windows 7 updates on top of your SP1 installation to complain about before you can even get to complaining about the updates for your development software.

A lot of folk here will tell you that if you have your system running in a VM, you can take regular snapshots of the VM and return to a snapshot at any time after your development work completely fubars the system. It's a different way of working, and may give you the peace of mind to stop worrying if your system's about to crash and burn, enabling you to work through the failures, rather than consider them barriers to progress, and blaming the OS as being your enemy, rather than a facilitator.

 

It still amazes me that people have issues on one box and then take the giant leap to say Windows 10 is awful....despite that fact that hundreds of millions of computers worldwide are running it perfectly fine.

Wouldn't common sense kick in at some point?

Anywho, it sounds like you have a hardware issue (potentially memory, if you haven't checked) or are continuing to load a bad driver that's causing issues. It could even be as simple as a bad SATA cable.

 

Suggest having a look at event viewer errors and warnings may give a clue as to what is actually going wrong.

 

Questions for OP.

I noticed in your open comments "when you return". Could I suggest you disable hibernation which in turn will disable Fast Startup. I won't enter fray on why it does or doesn't work but it would be worth a try.

Then could I ask, what BIOS version are you running on? There have been seven bios's released by Asus for "Improved system stability" on this board since February 2016 and being an Asus user myself I know they have a way of cranking these things out. I jumped off train once my system was stable. Last one was end of year for this board and they won't disclose what each "stabilizes". Obviously you built this device, so you know risk of BIOS updating.

I would still shut off Hibernation and see how things go.

I would also recommend a disk Imaging tool. Macrium Reflect is very robust and will have you back up in hours rather than days. Not sure about licensing, its free to home users but you sound like you are in a corporate environment. I know the arguments, no one should have too do this weekly, but this is what it is.

 

Just a thought. I've built two systems with a Gigabyte motherboard using Sandisk ExtremePro SSDs. The first was a new motherboard with a 480 GB drive. No issues. Second was an older motherboard with a 240 GB drive. System would power down everytime it booted with the SSD connected. The SSD works fine in other systems, current firmware, passed all Sandisk diagnostics No matter what I tried, just would not work properly. Finally brought up the system on a WD Velociraptor drive with no issues. Will consider a SSD later.
Nothing from Sandisk support.

It may just be that your SSD and motherboard just don't like each other. May want to try a different brand SSD.

Just some thoughts.

 

*Ditto To disabling Windows Fast Startup / hibernation etc. At least as a test. IMHO, if your running an SSD, Windows Fast Startup isn't needed and won't gain you much anyway.

 

Ditto! Most of my problems stem from Hibernation and Sleep so they are among the first of things to get disabled as well as disabling other power features that automatically turn things off such as USB ports.

I'm running Win10 RTM on a month-old computer along with 6-year-old and 7-year-old Gigabyte motherboards, no worse problems than on previous versions of Windows except I never had a new Vista machine but have worked on them for other folks, still think Windows ME on non-OEM computers was the worst after MS-DOS 4.

 

Yesterday was a Bad day, totally ruined my schedule, however once drive was removed, chkdsk /Fixed, and replaced, all was operating ok, it even completed it's scheduled tasks (datacollection) last nite. Plus that new box isn't my Primary workstation, and I've got higher priority work do...

Possible memory, cables, disable FastStart - all good suggestions, as time allows.
Gotta go, yesterday put me off schedule, duty calls, Later...

 

Oops... Win 10 DEAD! AGAIN! this morn.... the Win 10 machine was found this morn totally unresponsive with the little blu/greenie circle spinning and totally unresponsive to any input - frozen - no nothin except the disk light blinking about every 2 seconds or so...
I left it that way for bout a hr, then what ya gonna do? Power off/ on - No Bootie, dropped in the Win cd booted up to repair, no repair except repeated attempts to reboot which ended up bring up the BIOS settings --- Oops Just Totally Wacked!!!
Did the ole remove the drive and attached in another box which immediately comes up with Scan this disk?, OK, it got fixed, replaced in the win 10 box, the win 10 box starts to boot up and immediately goes to the DO Not Turn your computer Off - Updates in Progress screen - completes and boots up completely! Yea, at least it started..
But, there ya have it - Not Ready for Prime Time Win 10!!!! (just needs to be hand carried home after Update!!!)

I do appreciate responses/suggestions about hardware, cables, BIOS, SSD's, etc... they're valid considerations and I've checked em out with diagnostics and tests - however ya cant overlook the obvious - Windows 10!

Perhaps the best solution to test and prove the reliability/stability of my hardware - Put some other OS's on it! - See how the hardware works...
I've got Win 7, Ubuntu and SUSE Enterprise Desktop install cd's around, think I'll throw on SUSE (with a 60 day free trial with updates).
Ubuntu's Good! (will stress your hardware, lots a packages!) , but I like Suse for Biz/Enterprize (production mission critical[$$$} work)
(and Hey, If Win 10 cant handle major name SSD's - That's a Win 10 Problem! - I've got 3 of em ( 2 intel's 1 Samsung), they're the BEST Single Performance gain for computers in 20 yrs! and I've never had a problem with em at all (or worn one out yet) - If ya think SSD's boot fast, put a good sized database on one - Lighting Wowsa/Absolutely Unbelievable! )