Unexpected shutdowns on new desktop - Please help me!

[Anshad Edavana]

.I don't know if a driver can cause a problem when the device is not plugged in

Installed drivers will be loaded in to the memory even if the device is not present so there is still a possibility.

Can they draw power and crash the new PC and not the old PC which has also a smaller PSU? It doesn't seem logical to me

Neither i believe it is logical but sometimes something we overestimated could be the problem.


Have you asked the PC tech ?. What he suspects ?.

 

[ipred]

Thanks for the answer about the drivers.As for the technician, he suspects the peripherals but he cannot be more specific.

 

[Anshad Edavana]

he suspects the peripherals but he cannot be more specific.

We can't blame him as the issue is sophisticated. Let us hope the isolation test will help you finding the offending peripheral.

 

[ipred]

I have news.After spending 3 days with only external hard disks attached the PC worked fine.
Yesterday night, i decided to do the 1st test. I installed the Wacom newest driver ( Win8 ) without the Wacom device attached and as soon as the installation of the driver finished normally, the PC froze for about 30 seconds and then closed! So we may have the responsible for the crashes peripheral !Then i installed the driver that came with the installation CD of Wacom ( the PC didn't crash immediately as it did with the new driver ) and i told my sister to attach today the Wacom device and see if the computer crash.My guess is that the PC will crash again and my sister will have to buy a new Stylus Pen from other company.

In a previous test before one month, my sister had also worked without the Wacom device attached and the PC had crashed so i thought that the Wacom was not responsible for the crashes as it wasn't attached during the crash.That was a wrong thought as i probably hadn't removed the driver completely and it was running in the system even without the device attached.

I will inform you tomorrow about the test that we ll do today ( Wacom with old XP driver). It is crazy that a company release a win8 driver ( Drivers | Wacom ) that do this damage to a PC!

 

[Anshad Edavana]

Hi

Thanks for providing feedback mate. Keep us updated .

 

[ipred]

So after 7 days with only :

5 external hard disks attached + standard keyboard + standard mouse

we have no crashes but while working heavily in photoshop we have a few freezes.

I suspect one of the external hard disks which is old and 3.5'' because :
-its fan makes noise
-when we have it attached during booting and and go the event viewer, a critical error appears ( i have mentioned it before, it's the kernel 41, task 63 "windows shut down unexpectedly" error ). When it's not connected, no error 41. Somehow when it is attached it probably does not allow windows to shut down properly even if we don't see any message during the normal shutdown.That's what i understand.Correct me if i am wrong.

Anyway i ran the Speccy ( finally ! ) and here it is :

 

[ipred]

Until you answer me if you found anything with the use of Speccy, i want to also inform you that today when i inserted a DVD with photos in the DVDRW , the DVDRW disappeared again both from my computer and the device manager.The same thing happened when i inserted the DVD into the 2nd DVDRW.It made also the 2nd DVDRW vanish from my computer and the device manager.I restarted the PC, the DVDRW reappeared normally , put the DVD into one of them and this time the DVDRW saw the DVD without vanishing.

This has happened before several times from the day 1 i bought the PC.It doesn't happen always.

 

[Anshad Edavana]

when i inserted a DVD with photos in the DVDRW , the DVDRW disappeared again both from my computer and the device manager

I suspect one of the external hard disks which is old and 3.5'' because :
-its fan makes noise
-when we have it attached during booting and and go the event viewer, a critical error appears

Both 3.5" HDD and DVD drives came with powerful stepper motors which draws power only when they started to spin. My suspicion is a faulty power supply which is struggling to provide enough power under full load. Do you have any chance to get a PSU for testing purpose ? (perhaps from a store which accepts returns).

 

[ipred]

Hi, Anshad, i don't think that any store ( not either the store from which i bought the PC ) will give me a PSU for testing purpose.I will have to buy it. :/

Your thought seems logical to me concerning the external hard drives as the problem of freeze appears when my sister is doing hard work in Photoshop. ( batch action of multiple images ). On the other hand it doesn't seem logical to me when we do nothing on the PC and just insert only a DVD to the DVD drive.The PC doesn't freeze when we insert a DVD.It vanishes the DVDRW from the computer and the device manager.

I searched google about the dvdrw problem and found almost the same problem from other users:

windows 7 - DVD drive disappears if I insert a disc, but will read the same disc if it was there at boot - Super User

CD/DVD Drive suddenly disappears - and reappears on ejecting the cd

 

[Anshad Edavana]

Hi

Part of me suspect PSU as the culprit and at the same time other part think it is illogical, like you. Since the system worked fine when all the peripherals are disconnected, i can't think about any other possible reasons behind this weird behavior.

Usually PC techs will keep a spare PSU (and other parts) for testing purpose. Is there home PC service available in your place ?.

 

[ipred]

Hi, concerning the DVD drive i found that another user with the same dvd drives of Samsung had the same issue and solved it by installing the new firmware that Samsung released for this dvd drive.I ll install it tommorow and see what happens.As for the external hard drives if the problem will persist, i will ask the technician of the store if he can replace the PSU by giving him some money.He hasn't seen the problem when it occurs, he thinks everything is ok and therefore he cannot replace it for free.

The next days i will start connecting the other peripherals one by one except from the wacom mouse.I ll give you feedback and if i have no BSOD with them i will mark this thread as solved and will try by myself to figure out the problem with the freezes when using external hard drives.

 

[ipred]

So i have bad news. The 2 problems continue. The PC freezes after heavy use in Adobe Bridge and also the 2 dvd drives are disappearing and reappearing.

I ask a friend of mine that has knowledge over PC problems and told me that probably the PCU Watt are not enough for the machine i have and i probably need a 850 Watt PSU instead of 650.He told me that my graphic card absorbs a lot of Watts and this along with the processor may need a bigger PSU.

I ll ask the store if i can give them back the PSU and buy with some more money a bigger one.I hope they will accept it and i hope that the new PSU will resolve the problem.My hopes are low as i personally think that 650 Watt are enough and i also thing the the problem is the motherboard.

 

[Anshad Edavana]

Sorry to hear that mate. Due to the nature of the issue you are facing, it is impossible to figure out the culprit without swapping components. Although 650 watt is enough for your configuration, a higher watt PSU won't do any harm. Also there is a chance that the current PSU might be faulty (ie, failing under full load). If the store agree to replace the PSU, that is the first step to do. Otherwise i would go with RMAing the MoBo.

I really hope you will be able to sort out the issue real soon.

 

[ipred]

The following days the problem will probable be solved.The tech department of the store that sold us the PC, agreed to replace both the mb and the cpu. I expect that the problem will be the MB as i run 2 tests that proves it. Firstly , when the dvd drives disappeared i disconnected the power supply from them and reconnected.The dvd drives reappeared. The power supply comes from the MB. Secondly when the PC froze and closes unexpectedly several times with one external hard drive connected, i unplugged the external hard drive from the usb port of the motherboard and plugged it in the front usb port of the case.The PC didn't froze,didn't shutdown.

I will inform you the following days if the replacement of the MB solves the issue so as to as to mark this thread as solved.

 

[Anshad Edavana]

Thanks for the updates. It will be helpful for anyone suffering from the same symptoms .

 

[ipred]

Problem solved! We changed only the PSU and no shutdowns any more. It was faulty.Thank you for all your help.:thumb:

 

[topgundcp]

Very glad it worked out. Apparently that was the very first step that I suggested in post #3.
Thanks to Anshad to stick with your problem, rep was given to you.
Cheers !!!

 

[ipred]

Τhe problem came back again. Let me help you remember the problem and all the steps i have done :

Problem No1 : PC suddenly freezes at random for 1 minute and then PC shuts down without BSOD.

1st solution i tried : Format and reinstall Windows and update all the drivers.
Result : Problem not solved.

2nd solution i tried: I removed all the external usb components except the mouse and the keyboard in case they caused a conflict.
Result : Problem not solved.

3rd solution i tried : Replaced the mouse and the keyboard in case they were defective.
Result : Problem not solved.

4th solution i tried : Ran a program that tests all the hardware ( i don't remember the name of that problem but it was one that was suggested here). No problem found by the program. I also ran windows memory diagnostics ( not memtest).
Result : Problem not solved.

5th solution i tried : Replaced the PSU.
Result : Problem solved for almost 3 weeks. Then it came back again.

6th solution i tried : Replaced the MB.
Result : Problem solved for almost 1 month.

And then something happened that got me again frustrated. The problem No1 was solved but another problem appeared that also brought back the problem No1.

Problem No2 : Even if the boot order was 1) My internal hard disk, 2) CDRom , 3) usb disk, the PC couldn't boot Windows when an external hard drive was connected to the PC before boot. If an external hard drive was connected then the BIOS was forgetting the boot order i had set and was putting by its own the external hard drive as the 1st boot device.

1st solution i tried : I went into BIOS and in boot order i disabled all except my internal hard disk.
Result A: Problem No 2 solved!
Result B : After the fix of problem No 2 , problem No 1 came back!!!

After all these, i tried to understand what the hell is happening with this PC. So many solutions, so many changes, so many replacements for 1 year, so many hours spent and all for nothing!

So today, i thought of something that had never crossed my mind. I thought : Why BIOS forgets the boot order? Is it maybe because it looses sometimes my internal hard disk , so it goes to the next boot device ? Why for 1 month everything works great and then the problem of sudden freezes and shutdowns happens again? Is it because after the 5th and 6th solution i had my hard disk formatted with new clean install of Windows 8.1, Programs and drivers?

In conclusion : Is my internal hard disk the one that is failing when it is loaded with many data and causes all the problems? After all the internal hard drive is one of the 3 hardware components that i haven't replaced since the problem occured. The other two are the RAM and the VGA.