Random freeze on Win8.1 x64; boot from external esata ssd

malus

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OK. I have a very specific special little problem which will be very hard to solve imho. Every now and then; approximately once daily and usually randomly, my system freezes. Nothing happens. No BSOD. No restart. It just freezes like it is, with windows open, and stays like that until I reset the computer or turn it off.

I've stuck with it for few months, because I'm very limited in what I can do. It's a specific machine at my workplace as seen in Aida64 computer summary report:
View attachment Computer Summary.txt

As you can see, I'm running Win8.1 from my external SSD, connected via eSata. I cannot do anything about that. It has to be ran like that. I'm using a brand new portable HDD case for my SSD, with new eSata cable, and new USB power cable connected to the case.

Unfortunately, it gets more complicated. The system which is installed on the SSD is actually a clone of the system from my other PC which is only marginally similar and runs just flawlessly. I cloned it, and when I booted it for the first time on this problematic machine, windows pulled all the drivers needed and it boots fine. Actually everything works except for the random freezes.

According to Device Manager, no drivers are missing.
First I thought this could be GPU drivers. I did a clean reinstall. It didn't help. Then, I checked if the AHCI mode in BIOS is turned on, and it was.
I came to the idea to reinstall the chipset drivers or flash newer BIOS, but I couldn't do that since I don't have the install CD for my motherboard (XFX MB-N790-IUL9), and I couldn't find nothing on this MB online either. No info. No drivers.

The temps all seem to be fine, except for one core (#4), which seems to have higher temps, but I kinda doubt that this causes the problems. I guess the TIM is not applied right.
View attachment sensor.txt

There was no BSOD report, because there was no BSOD screen. There is always a critical event in my event viewer when this happens. It looks like this:
View attachment Event - critical.txt

I think this is either:
1. bad PSU
2. bad eSata cable/controller
3. bad drivers
4. hardly possible, but that one core that is hotter

The thing is; this is not my computer, and I have very limited time and space for maneuvering. Any ideas where to start?
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
Bump!?

PS It's not a bad esata cable. I tried a new one. Interestingly, I now get a "floppy disk fail (40)...press a key to continue" message on first boot screen. I do not have a floppy disk installed.

Also, once i got acpi bios error too, and the computer went into a bootloop until i turned it off. After that it booted fine.

I'm still getting occasional random freezes....
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
Hello,

In the meantime, I have changed everything. Completely new system (i7 6700k, Asus z170 mobo, new SSD, Windows 10). The system was working fine for few weeks until I installed the SSD in a completely new external 2.5" HDD case connected via eSata cable and USB power cable. One day after starting using the same SSD in external eSata mode I got the first random freeze just like before. Could it be that the external SSD system drive connected via eSata just generally sucks and doesn't really work in real life?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
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