I've recently upgraded the hardware on one of my desktops (Motherboard, CPU & Ram) which required me to re install Windows Ultimate 7 (64 bit). The new install went flawless. All required drivers are installed, nothing in System settings indicates I have an issue with any device, etc. However, quite randomly the system crashes. Now, I'm not talking about a blue screen, freeze or lock-up. It's like the power was cut and she suddenly dies.. followed by a re-boot . I started looking at any and all hardware connections inside the box: CPU, faultly power connection somewhere, incorrectly attached CPU fan, etc.. I went back in, and everything seems okay. I re-installed again, this time formatted all drives, ensured the MBR was fine, went with only 1 hard drive.. bare minimums.. same issue.. sooner or later, I get the same crash. At least once per day. In an attempt to isolate the issue, I wanted to see if it was a hardware or OS/Software problem. I installed Linux Ubuntu. I had it running constantly for the better part of 5 days.. no crashes. At this point, I'm requesting outside help (this forum). any ideas?
📎 AI Summary:
The user reports experiencing random system crashes on a Windows 7 system following a hardware upgrade, characterized by sudden power-offs rather than blue screens. Troubleshooting steps suggested include adjusting system settings to capture dump files and analyzing hardware and software factors, but no dump files were generated, indicating these may not be typical BSODs. The overall sentiment points to a hardware-related issue, with the user providing detailed observations and confirming the absence of crash logs, seeking further assistance to isolate the problem.
The user reports experiencing random system crashes on a Windows 7 system following a hardware upgrade, characterized by sudden power-offs rather than blue screens. Troubleshooting steps suggested include adjusting system settings to capture dump files and analyzing hardware and software factors, but no dump files were generated, indicating these may not be typical BSODs. The overall sentiment points to a hardware-related issue, with the user providing detailed observations and confirming the absence of crash logs, seeking further assistance to isolate the problem.
Solution
Trouble
Noob Whisperer
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- Nov 30, 2009
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Hello and welcome to the forum.
What you are experiencing sounds to be like a Blue Screen crash and it may be happening to fast for you to notice since a system restart is happening and that is the default setting for a BSOD you may want to try this.
Go to Start and type in sysdm.cpl and press Enter
Click on the Advanced tab
Click on the Startup and Recovery Settings button
Ensure that Automatically restart is unchecked
Under the Write Debugging Information header select Small memory dump (256 kB) in the dropdown box
Ensure that the Small Dump Directory is listed as %systemroot%\Minidump << where your .dmp files can be
found later.
Click OK twice to exit the dialogs, then reboot for the changes to take effect.
If it is in fact a BSOD then you may want to
Read the first post in this sticky thread here Link Removed
Do your best to accumulate the data required.
Run the SF Diagnostic tool (download and right click the executable and choose run as administrator)
Download and run CPUz. Use the Windows snipping tool to gather images from all tabs including all slots populated with memory under the SPD tab.Likewise RAMMon. Export the html report, put everything into a desktop folder that you've created for this purpose, zip it up and attach it to your next post (right click it and choose send to, compressed (zipped) folder.
Keep us posted.
What you are experiencing sounds to be like a Blue Screen crash and it may be happening to fast for you to notice since a system restart is happening and that is the default setting for a BSOD you may want to try this.
Go to Start and type in sysdm.cpl and press Enter
Click on the Advanced tab
Click on the Startup and Recovery Settings button
Ensure that Automatically restart is unchecked
Under the Write Debugging Information header select Small memory dump (256 kB) in the dropdown box
Ensure that the Small Dump Directory is listed as %systemroot%\Minidump << where your .dmp files can be
found later.
Click OK twice to exit the dialogs, then reboot for the changes to take effect.
If it is in fact a BSOD then you may want to
Read the first post in this sticky thread here Link Removed
Do your best to accumulate the data required.
Run the SF Diagnostic tool (download and right click the executable and choose run as administrator)
Download and run CPUz. Use the Windows snipping tool to gather images from all tabs including all slots populated with memory under the SPD tab.Likewise RAMMon. Export the html report, put everything into a desktop folder that you've created for this purpose, zip it up and attach it to your next post (right click it and choose send to, compressed (zipped) folder.
Keep us posted.
Hello Trouble. Thank you for taking the time in trying to assist with my issue. Regarding the
dump file: actually, prior to placing this post, I did just what you suggested. I actually
picked up a MS diagnostic application called "Debugging Diagnostic Tool" but realized that it
needs a .dmp files (which, I did not have at the time). Now, the system did crash again, but no
.dmp file was created from what I can see. The Windows 7 Forums Diagnostic tool did not find a dump file either.. I do not think we are dealing with a BSOD here. If I look at the "Event Viewer" , I see under "Critical" events, entries that coincide with the crashes. In any even, I have attached the requested screen captures.
dump file: actually, prior to placing this post, I did just what you suggested. I actually
picked up a MS diagnostic application called "Debugging Diagnostic Tool" but realized that it
needs a .dmp files (which, I did not have at the time). Now, the system did crash again, but no
.dmp file was created from what I can see. The Windows 7 Forums Diagnostic tool did not find a dump file either.. I do not think we are dealing with a BSOD here. If I look at the "Event Viewer" , I see under "Critical" events, entries that coincide with the crashes. In any even, I have attached the requested screen captures.
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