Windows 10: Windows 10 Home Crashes often for no apparent reason

I'll say up front that I'm a retired PC / Systems Consultant (over 40 years), so, I've done my fair share of troubleshooting. This issue has got me stumped!

I purchased a new HP Envy 700-406 desktop PC. I've had it for about 3 years. It came with a free upgrade to Windows 10 Home, so I upgraded it. Within a few months, the system began randomly crashing.


I went through all the troubleshooting steps I could think of or find online, including System Restore, verifying and updating all hardware drivers, hardware diagnostics, etc. The system would sometimes go for months without crashing. Other times (like the last several days), it would crash multiple times each day. There was no pattern, i.e. sometimes it would just be sitting with no apps open and when I'd come back to it, it was frozen. Other times, I'd be in Outlook or browsing the web and it would crash. I could be browsing in Chrome, Edge, even IE and might crash. Usually, the crash would result in the system freezing and had to be cold booted. Occasionally (rarely), the crash would result in a BSOD. When there was a BSOD, the error code was not always the same. This last time it was REFERENCE BY POINTER. Other times, it was PFN LIST CORRUPT as well as others.


I've also gone through 3 hard drives during this time. They would become corrupted and I'd replace them... usually keeping the corrupt drive as a data drive. Each time, I would either do a clean install of Windows 10 Home or I'd use the recovery USB that I'd created early on to restore the system to the factory default, then upgrade to Windows 10 again. Each time, within a few months, the crashing would begin again!


The only reason I haven't done a refresh is that I have so many applications installed that I dread having to reinstall and reconfigure them again. I've used Macrium Reflect to create backup images... but, I'm afraid to use them to restore the system for fear that they contain some corruption that will just start the problem over again.


Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated... GREATLY APPRECIATED!


Clem

:)

 

all games crash!

I suggest you run rthdribl > http://www.daionet.gr.jp/~masa/archives/rthdribl_1_2.zip
Increase the window size step by step and watch your vga temps permanently.
What happens?
If it crashes, run at stock speeds as suggested before and retry.

P.S.: When your system locks, does the display signal turn off after a time?
Stuttering sound or no sound at all when freezing?
What X1800XT model do you own exactly?

 

Windows 10 Tweaks

Pressing “Windows+Pause Break” (it’s up there next to scroll lock) opens the “System” Window.

Windows 10: In the new version of Windows, Explorer has a section called Quick Access. This includes your frequent folders and recent files. Explorer defaults to opening this page when you open a new window. If you’d rather open the usual This PC, with links to your drives and library folders, follow these steps:

• Open a new Explorer window.
• Click View in the ribbon.
• Click Options.
• Under General, next to “Open File Explorer to:” choose “This PC.”
• Click OK

credit to Lifehacker.

 

all games crash!

ive watch my temps and both the cpu and gpu are within normal ranges. when it freezes it simply freezes the image and stops the sound. i must reboot to get back to windows.