intermittent win 10 crashes without dump file generation

[quicky008]

For the last couple of days my pc running windows 10 has been crashing unexpectedly and restarting by itself.
I disabled automatic restart during crash but that only caused the pc to lock up and become unresponsive when the crash occurred again,thereby forcing me to restart it manually.

I thought it could be occurring due to some software related glitch and so I reinstalled windows ,but the problem still persists.

When I tried to view the crash dumps using a tool called whocrashed,it could not detect any dump files(Even though dump file creation is enabled).

I checked my HDDs for issues,and also ran windows memory diagnostic tool to check my system's RAM but they all appear to be fine.

So what could be the cause of this issue?Is it possible that some other component,like the cpu,mobo,gpu etc may be malfunctioning and causing the random restarts?how can I isolate the device that's causing this error?

My system's config is: I5 3570s,Gigabyte b75 motherboard,Zotac 1050ti,WD 1tb+2tb hdds,4*3=12gb ram,Corsair TXm 550 psu.

OS: win 10 v 1803

 

[cute.bandar]

How are the temperatures of various components ? Try Hwmonitor to check, if you haven't already. Could also be a hardware issue.
Try running PC with only necessary components. Removing non-critical components like GPU , extra HDD and see how it runs then.

 

[quicky008]

The temps seem fine, i have checked using hwinfo.

 

[whitestar_999]

Try win 7 install in another partition for testing purpose to see if issue remains,if yes then most likely it is hardware related.

 

[quicky008]

I observed that the frequency of crashes increased greatly when i was connected to the internet - also a wifi adapter that i had been using these past few years was exhibiting connectivity issues - even when my internet was ok the adapter failed to recognize it and displayed a no internet error.

So i replaced the adapter a few days back and since then the no of crashes has greatly reduced - i've faced just one crash since then, although i have no idea why it occurred.

Can it be concluded then that the crashes were being caused by a faulty wifi adapter? Its hard to imagine that such a small piece of equipment can potentially cause so much system instability.

 

[whitestar_999]

Even a keyboard/mouse can cause crash depending upon its latest driver updates clashing with latest windows update.

 

[quicky008]

yeah windows 10 seems to be getting worse with each new cumulative update-so i reverted to an older version(1803) and disabled the update service completely.

 

[whitestar_999]

yeah windows 10 seems to be getting worse with each new cumulative update-so i reverted to an older version(1803) and disabled the update service completely.

Use win 10 ltsb 2016(win 10 v1607 based) & no need to worry about any "cumulative/feature updates" till 2026 as it only receives security updates.

 

[quicky008]

that's good to know-can these security updates cause any kind of system instability/crashes or are they caused only by cumulative updates?

 

[whitestar_999]

As far as I know most of the issues are caused by these "monthly feature updates/6 months version upgrades". Security updates will also be cumulative sometimes but just like security updates on win 7/8.1 they only deal with security & not OS features so much less chances of causing issues. Downside is that you will not get any feature update which you may like(e.g.LTSB 2016 version will never get dark/night mode windows explorer). LTSC 2019 has it because it is based on latest RS5 version of win 10 but then MS also added some more junk(like xbox settings etc) to it but still it has far fewer junk than pro version.

 

[quicky008]

after almost 2 weeks of no freezes,they have started again in full force.

This is proving to be a very frustrating issue and its becoming really difficult to pinpoint the actual cause of the problem.One strange thing is that these system freezes(with stuttering sound playing in background as though its on a loop) tend to occur mostly when i'm browsing the internet,which forces me to hard-reset my pc.And upon doing that when the system boots into windows again it simply doesn't detect my wifi adapter even though its still plugged in.

Its not until i either remove it and reconnect it again or completely shut down and then turn the pc back on that the wifi adapter starts working.I thought that my previous wifi adapter was faulty and so i replaced it with a new one from tplink(wn725n) but the problem apparently still hasn't been resolved.

I haven't installed any windows updates or other software that could potentially cause such stability issues,and so i am really perplexed.Also another weird thing is that no dump files are being generated for these crashes.

Can these problems be caused by a faulty psu or motherboard?None of the components are very old-both the mobo and the psu were bought at the end of 2017.

Is microsoft's built in wifi driver causing these instabilities?Will i try installing updated drivers for my wifi adapter from tplink's website?

 

[whitestar_999]

Try different browsers & if there is any "hardware acceleration setting" in browser then turn it off(search on google for specific browser for this setting).

 

[patkim]

When the system freezes and audio stutters, Windows might also get a chance to log this failure in the Event Viewer. Look in the event viewer for any possible error system/application level after you restart. It might give you a clue if there's any process/DLL/App that's causing this.

To isolate HW error you might need to test it with another OS. I think suggestion to try Win7 is already given above. You might need to patch Win7 with relevant USB 3 drivers specially if your mobo is recent one (last 2 - 3 years) as most newer boards may not have older USB 2 eHCI controllers anymore.

 

[quicky008]

yes,i will do that.

recently i ran my system with a live cd of ubuntu 17 for over an hour and during that period i did some browsing,music playback etc-however i encountered no crashes or freezes whatsoever .

to confirm whats causing the issue i may have to test it out with win 7 like you've suggested-i will also check the entries in event viewer for any possible clues to this problem.

 

[quicky008]

Today I tried to update the drivers for my nvidia 1050ti gpu-so I uninstalled the existing driver and ran my system with the default drivers included with windows for a while-as long as I used the default driver I experienced no crashes-but as soon as I installed the latest driver from nivida the crashes commenced again and I got two crashes in a row.

Does it indicate that the gpu might be failing and causing the system freezes and crashes?this is strange as the gpu apparently seems to be ok and I don't see any telltale signs of gpu malfunction like weird display artefacts,overheating etc.

Then I removed the gpu and started my system with the onboard intel igpu-when I booted into windows I experienced some red lines all over the display but as soon as I installed the drivers for the intel igpu they disappeared and haven't reappeared as of yet.But there have been no freezes or crashes till now.

If the crashes don't occur again,can I conclude that the gpu was faulty?Is it possible that the pcie slot on the mobo has gone bad and thus its causing the gpu to act up?Is there any way to test this?

PS: I checked the entries in the event manager but couldn't find any obvious indications as to what could be the culprit-there are no entries for the exact time when the crashes occurred-the entries only start when I rebooted into windows and mentions things like "dump file couldn't be created due to error during dump file creation" and "the system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first" etc which are rather vague and don't give any indication as to the actual causes of this error.

 

[whitestar_999]

If you are using 1050Ti then try driver v385.28. GeForce 385.28 WHQL driver download

You can also try v398.11. Download: GeForce 398.11 WHQL driver

 

[quicky008]

ok I will try them-but whats wrong with the latest drivers?Are they buggy?

 

[whitestar_999]

ok I will try them-but whats wrong with the latest drivers?Are they buggy?

As far as graphics drivers are concerned rule of thumb is: if it ain't broke don't fix it. On win 10 there are many cases of graphics drivers having some issues on some systems,the above mentioned drivers are more or less considered to be the most stable versions as per some sites hence gave the links to try.

 

[quicky008]

have installed v 385.28-now it remains to be seen how things will turn out.

 

[quicky008]

i used it with v 385.28 last night and all morning today and so far its been a crash free experience.

now in order to experiment i have installed a slightly more updated nvidia driver-v 411.70.I read somewhere that this too was regarded as a stable release.

i wonder how this newer driver will play along with the gpu-i'll be relieved when there are no more crashes or freezes.