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General discussion

Windows 10 BSOD, RedSOD and BlackSOD, oh my, I need help!

Jul 12, 2019 4:37PM PDT

So . . . over the last few weeks I've experienced the Blue Screen of Death multiple times; and the RedSoD; and the BlackSod. No warning, just an apologetic message about a "difficulty" and an "Unexpected Store Exception" or a "Kernel Data Inpage Error" (which as far as I am concerned might mean exactly the same thing; but then I only speak English) and "We need to restart", etc. And sometimes not even that. I am frequently instructed to run the Hard Disk Check - and, short or long, it passes the test every time.

Over the same period I have been given more Windows 10 64-bit updates for my HP Envy than you can shake a stick at - and when these started I was obscurely grateful, thinking that Microsoft had noticed and identified the problem - surely a software problem rather than my hardware? - and now the problem would stop. It didn't.

I can't be the only one to suffer, can I? Is there any word from on high? Or word of comfort from down below? Or do I just need a new rubber band? It can't be the fault of the hamster in the treadmill because he looks just fine... Any advice on where to start or how to troubleshoot these issues? Thank you!

--Submitted by Phil W. from UK

Post was last edited on July 12, 2019 4:38 PM PDT

Discussion is locked

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Random SOD's I Agree with RAM problem
Jul 20, 2019 4:32AM PDT

I have seen this problem several times over the years. Buy some replacement system RAM from a place that accepts returns. Replace the system memory. If that does not fix the problem return the RAM. I have used memory test programs in the past but with mixed results. Some results where memory tested OK but a module was still bad. Replacement is my preferred way to test RAM.

I get wanting to DIY and fix this issue but sometimes you have to find an honest/reasonable tech like myself (look for a 1 man shop) and get some help. Good luck.

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I too had the blank screen
Jul 13, 2019 2:37PM PDT

And it lasted way longer than i thought reasonable. Did hard shutdown, rebooted back to blank screen shutdown , rebooted, blank screen. Scratched my head and then the comp rebooted and installed the updates and life returned to bliss.

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That's What I Thought
Jul 14, 2019 12:00AM PDT

Personally, I've NEVER seen black screens for more than a second, a blink, until Win 10. As someone who programmed internal operating systems for mainframes/assembler, those black screens would be unacceptable to me. True, this a psychology thing. I came close to hard reset a couple of times, but I know enough to check the HDD light. But that is me. I can't expect that sort of thing from others. People just don't know.

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I do too
Jul 19, 2019 2:56PM PDT

and the HDD light was steady like the comp had froze.

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I've Seen That Too
Jul 20, 2019 1:27PM PDT

But I never really buy that the HDD light on constantly means that the computer froze. Last time, during a major update of a friend's computer, it looked like that. 15 minutes later, it just continued on. Sometimes I watch the Task Manager and sort by disk activity and I see disk activity at 100% and that light is on solid but only lasts a few minutes.

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No HDD light
Jul 19, 2019 6:55PM PDT

And what do you do if you have a cheap laptop (like many these days) that doesn't have an HDD light?  It really frosts me that a major manufacturer would cheap out these days and not include an HDD light.  The state of this light is often a major diagnostic tool.

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I Really Don't Know
Jul 19, 2019 9:19PM PDT

I've never come across one that is missing a "light" and, yes, I know how valuable it can be as a tool to know if things are moving right along. I used to just put my hand on the computer and be able to "feel" the vibrations from the HDD but that won't work for an SSD or anything "solid state". My suggestion: just give it time. We are talking about the semi-annual creator updates which is the equivalent to installing a whole new base level of Windows + attempting to keep files, installed programs and settings (but always check after the fact because some settings disappear or change meaning). In the case of these updates, many are reporting a black screen BUT most of us just "wait it out". Impatience is not your friend. Worst case, plan to install from a jump drive or off of the win10 download site. But I'd let it go at LEAST an hour or so and also move the mouse around and do a few double clicks. Just because you have your power options set to NOT blank the screen, the update isn't really running under YOUR Windows.

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12 Hour Update?
Jul 13, 2019 8:05PM PDT

My Win 10 Home laptop began notifying me each day that there was an update pending and the computer would be restarted when it was time ("outside active hours"). Restart sequence displayed the usual Windows -is-getting updates-ready-don't-shutdown-your-computer message. Upon restarting, the same message would appear but only for a second or two then it would boot to normal desktop screen. Then the "Failed update" message would appear. This repeated on for days during which i ran scandisk, dsk chk, disk cleanup, etc. all to no avail. Eventually, i found a link on a forum to a Microsoft page for resetting Windows. Clicked on and within 15 or 20 minutes i was looking at a fresh desktop .... but it was Win 10 version 1607 ! Hmm, a bit strange. Went to Settings/Update/Check for Updates, and it found 4 available updates, one of which was (i think) a "feature update". Anyway, i thought what the hey, let's do it. Clicked on Install. Downloading updates progress bar got to 95% and didn't progress over the next half hour. I left it running and went to bed. Got up next morning, wiggled the mouse, and - voila! Windows 10 version 1809 was there. So far, it works great. Made a System Image backup on an external hard drive, and set metered connection in Wi-fi/network settings to hold off further updates for awhile. So far i like this version 1809. And, by the way, the screen did go dark a few times along the way.

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I Did Things Shorter Than the Full Reset
Jul 14, 2019 12:24AM PDT

The ones I helped with were done using the selections that were shorter than the full reset and allowed me to keep files and settings so no re-installs were necessary. I think if you check out Settings --> Update & Security --> Recovery --> Reset This PC, it allows for keeping files and settings. If that doesn't work, I could always go to the full-on reset applying a clean copy of Windows (as described on the bottom of that screen). In your case, you did well, but others might not have the patience. My "friend" got a black screen so someone had her hold down the power key. Then she rebooted and the system was exceedingly slow as it was recovering. When you interrupt a large update, you get a half-in, half-out situation. The recovery slowed down the computer so she powered off a few more times but couldn't get it "instantly" back to normal so she just powered it off and left it. Called me a few weeks later so I just used update media/jump drive and saved all her programs and settings. The point being is that some people have more experience than other people so you get different reactions. Impatience is not anyone's friend. Really.

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Mine would not refresh
Jul 20, 2019 9:49AM PDT

Each time i tried the refresh-windows-and-keep-your-files-and-personal-settings it would take only a few seconds and then tell me it could not be done. No explanation, simply that it could not be completed. So, i reinstalled Windows as previously described.
Obviously, if you have a ton of programs and/or games installed, then it can be time consuming to reinstall all those apps; nevertheless, a fresh install with its quick and snappy performance is worth the effort.

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Depends on the message
Jul 19, 2019 7:12PM PDT

Sometimes it can be a hardware problem, the CPU can be too hot, the bios can be wrongfully configured, I had this problem, the PC was restarting and sometimes the blue screen would go on. I had to overclock a little the bios and now it is stable, somehow the default configuration does not work on my board. Also, keep all heat sink clean and the airflow free from obstructions. Good Luck.

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Possibly multiple sources of problems
Jul 19, 2019 7:46PM PDT

I don't have Hforman's long years in IT, but I worked with a major American corporation for twenty-five years and saw quite a bit of user difficulties, some of them their fault, more often the combination of a faulty upgrade and a user still trying to get the machine to work the way he/she remembered it working. What I learned from this is that complex problems, especially with booting, require more than one thing to go wrong at the same time.

You didn't give us the history of the machine, but the combination of Blue, Black and especially Red system failure screens suggests that at some time this computer had an entirely different OS on it -- perhaps Vista, perhaps XP, perhaps even a Linux distribution running on dual boot. If this configuration was not completely removed before Windows 10 was installed -- possibly as an update to the existing Windows boot OS -- this could cause some of the difficulties you have seen, and likely others. The Windows 10 OS could be attempting to load boot files from multiple but incompatible locations, resulting in the bizarre behavior you have seen.

If the data and, more importantly, the applications in use must be preserved, the indicated response would be to back out of every update in reverse order, right down to the de-installation of Windows 10 to restore what's left of the original boot sequence. I freely admit this may not be possible at this point; if your applications cannot be restored from installation disks or downloaded from the manufacturer, you may lose these apps and their data as well. But this process may reveal what has been hidden heretofore -- the prior boot order of the original setup. From there, you can determine what needs to be removed in order to leave a clean version of the prior installation of Windows to upgrade. This may require the deletion of partitions and their contents; you should be prepared to copy those contents to other media before proceeding, if these partitions do not contain the Windows operating files.

If you don't mind the loss of applications, and the data is backed up on another medium or not on the C: drive, you could simply reconfigure your BIOS to eliminate any prior modifications, including dual boot capability, and reinstall Windows 10 as if on a new machine. For this you will either need a working or at least readable partition with a licensed copy of Windows on it, or install as if on bare metal, erasing the C: drive in its entirety. This will clear your problems not unlike a D-12 bulldozer clears a field. You can then proceed with application reinstallation, if possible, and restoration of data.

What you will end up with is a machine with a single boot partition and no provision for dual boot to anything else. If this meets your operational need, you are done. But either way you go, you will spend considerable time and effort and risk considerable data loss. From the description you have provided, I suspect your machine has a complicated history and was not maintained or updated properly, which will certainly produce considerable difficulty in simply removing the layers of prior changes to reach something close to the original configuration.

It would be far simpler to put in a new C: drive and install Windows 10 to it, then transfer data from the old drive via an HDD docking system. This of course would not transfer the working applications, which would have to be reinstalled, if possible. This raises other questions of the machine's intended function and its desired compatibility with other machines in its network and/or its working group which I cannot address.

But I would proceed with your machine with the understanding that it may have multiple problems with its boot capability, as well as other software problems resulting from the original misconfiguration, and document carefully everything that was done to try and return it to an unconfused state -- if only relatively speaking.

Was this machine originally assembled and its software loaded outside Britain? This could also be an issue.

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Original configuration
Jul 23, 2019 10:50AM PDT

The machine was bought new with Windows 10 already installed - and no other system present.

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I spent nearly a week and just recovered.
Jul 19, 2019 8:02PM PDT

Since I don't type, that's not a good reply. So, if you'll send me your phone number by a private email, I'll call you when you say and maybe get you fixed.

Roland Hyatt

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Like Deja Vu All Over Again.
Jul 19, 2019 8:39PM PDT

For two weeks I had frequent BlueSOD with a reboot. I unplugged my third monitor in case it was overloading the graphics card. I updated all the drivers, via Windows and via the ASUS website. Then I updated the BIOS. The BlueSOD problem stopped. NOW, I get the BlackSOD with fans whirring and nothing happening. I have to hit the reset button to reboot. I fear it will happen before I can finish this post, as it is happening more frequently. Twice it happened while viewing a CNN article about an old guy released from prison who murdered again. (I offer that in case someone can deduce something from that). I monitored the voltage but when it shuts off the HWMonitor data is lost so I don't know whether the PSU is hiccuping. I have not seen the RedSOD. Lucky me.

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If You Completed the Update
Jul 19, 2019 9:34PM PDT

This is a GREAT time to go over all of your settings. MS "tries" to not change these but some of them change anyway because the meaning has changed, somewhat. Especially look at "power settings". All of them. If it happens while you are reading something, without keyboard or mouse movement, that would probably indicate either power or screensaver type settings. You may even want to check your BIOS settings (F2 on boot) especially since you updated the BIOS. (Startup screen before Win gets loaded). If you want to be "certain" that the update went OK, go to the Win 10 update download site (search for that because I don't remember a lot of stuff these days). and you can run the update again, just from there or create boot-able media. You should make sure, during the process, to tell it to keep your files and settings unless you really want to start over. Finally, if the update is done, now is a good time to make sure you have the latest drivers (again) from the manufacturer (Dell, ACER, HP,..). If you are getting the black screen, make sure you wait one hour to 1.5 hours before giving up because, if you reboot, in the middle, windows will try to undo the update and then reapply it and you system will be extremely slow and bogged down while it tries to fix things. A friend went through that before calling me.

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May have solved it.
Jul 19, 2019 10:21PM PDT

It has only been an 90 minutes but I uninstalled Google Chrome and switched to Netscape. No problems yet. My problem seemed to be when Chrome started to key up a video.

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RAM got your goat?
Jul 19, 2019 9:15PM PDT

"Unexpected Store Exception" or a "Kernel Data Inpage Error"

BOTH of those errors sound like corruption to me. My first suspect would be the RAM in your pc has failed. It's possible, but less likely, I think, that it's disk corruption. So first I'd run a disk check against all your hard drives. That's easy. You click on a drive, click on properties, click on tools, and click on Check.

There are plenty of free tools available that will do better job, as well.

To test your memory, here's a clip from CNET that explains the process. (I'm not going to reinvent the wheel).

Step 1: Open the Start Menu and type in mdsched.exe, then press enter.

Step 2. A pop-up will appear on your screen, asking how you'd like to go about checking the memory. The first option will restart your machine and check the memory right now, and the second option checks the next time you choose to reboot. Pick the option that best suits your needs.

Step 3: Your computer will load a screen that shows the progress of the check and number of passes it will run on the memory. Watch the memory diagnostic tool for errors. If there are no errors, then it's likely that your RAM is not causing any issues, and it's time to investigate other hardware or software issues.

Good luck!

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Good Points
Jul 19, 2019 9:44PM PDT

It is always a good idea to check all of that stuff, even if its just on an annual basis. One thing though. A long time ago, a bad program could crash the system (blue screen) but that user environment is protected now so unlikely to cause system errors. The program just blows up but not the OS. The OS as a cause is unlikely unless updates have been half-installed and crashed. The most likely cause is drivers. At work, we had a bad, mismatched printer driver (someone tried to use a Win XP driver on Win 7). Worked OK but when you went into the printer to tell it you had a duplexer: you got a blue screen. What I try to do is update my drivers from the OEM (Dell, HP,...) support website (firmware too) or from the hardware manufacturer (who made the device --> HP for a printer, Logitech for a mouse, etc.) and update BEFORE taking on the big updates plus rechecking (redo-ing) the driver updates after the Win 10 update. But that is just me. Yes, drivers are NOT user programs as they run as part of the OS and can blue screen the system. But, great idea checking hardware.

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Screens of Death
Jul 19, 2019 9:31PM PDT

Greetings, Phil: Appreciated your clever reference to the 'hamster on the treadmill'. Haven't heard that expression in a while. Best of luck with your windows 10 issues. Cheers!

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'kay
Jul 20, 2019 12:16AM PDT

I'm not a Microsoft representative, employee, or shareholder.
Win 10 has been running stable for me months on end for years! I have to reboot to get patches, or with new software installs, but it continues to run even more stably than my Linux machine. I am sorry you have had a bad experience. You need to provide more information to resolve your bad experience?

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Freeze
Jul 20, 2019 2:57AM PDT

Windows 10 with all the updates on an Asus PC. Everything freezes maybe once a week or so, have to reboot, been doing this for a few months now, nothing on Who Crashed neither. What to do?

i5-4460 @ 3.20GHz,
8go ram
64 bit

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Language weirdness.
Jul 20, 2019 3:29AM PDT

Just curious...
Why do so many people in the UK start a sentence with the completely unnecessary "so"?
Another odd thing is people have the habit of saying "pre" in front of everything - pre-prepared/pre-planned etc: why?
The Americans do it - but then they do a lot of weird things - but why do so many Britons adopt such a silliness?

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Silliness?
Jul 22, 2019 3:02PM PDT

The use of 'So' here is elliptical. To the implied question, "What is the problem?" the full answer might be, "Well, you asked, so here is the answer." So (meaning 'therefore'), I used the elliptical 'So' rather than write 'bigly', as POTUS might have said.

I confess to being curious why someone should be nit-picking grammar - correctly or not - in answer to a plea for help about a computer malfunction; but I guess that will remain just one of life's big questions . . .

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I still find it odd that
Jul 22, 2019 6:27PM PDT

Brits say "pip pip" or "toodle ewe" or "ta ta" instead of just "good bye".

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Goodbye?
Jul 23, 2019 11:05AM PDT

Or is that really 'God-be-with-you'? 'Pip-pip' recalls the sound at the end of the radio time signal (in the old days!). 'Toodle-oo' is quite likely a corruption of 'a toute a l'heure'. 'Be seein' ya'. 'See ya later, alligator'. There must be dozens of ways of saying 'goodbye' - or of leaving your lover, as Paul Simon sang. 'Au revoir' suggests an intention to meet again; 'goodbye' might suggest no such intention at all! A variety of expression offers nuances of meaning . . .

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Aha, thank you...
Jul 24, 2019 9:07AM PDT

...I forgot about British borrowing and corruptions of the French language, being so close to them.

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Is it our fault . . .
Jul 24, 2019 3:27PM PDT

. . . if we speak their language better than they do? Wink

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"if we speak their language better than they do?"
Jul 24, 2019 4:00PM PDT

A lot of what James said are regional sayings that have crept into everyday english. True, english is a mixture of french/german words etc, as a lot of languages are.
Now it's time for you to work on your english spelling.
(Welsh) Dafydd. Devil
Sorry guys, I just realised we're hijacking this thread. Why not start a new thread to continue this discussion.

Post was last edited on July 24, 2019 4:07 PM PDT

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regular BSOD
Jul 20, 2019 4:39AM PDT

I have had the same issue since the most recent update and guess what, a few minutes ago when I began reading these posts, I crashed again-BSOD!!!!!

What gives?? There seems to be noting posted yet on any windows sites---