PC freezes and a BSOD appears

[xd771]

Problem: PC makes a clicking sound and freezes (I believe the click comes from the PSU or the hard drive).

The freeze seems to be random (never happened under heavy load, mostly while watching videos on Youtube or even while I was on desktop without any program active).

After the freeze a blue screen appears and the PC restarts.

After multiple restarts I am allowed to get to the advanced options (from startup repair). From the startup repair, the only option that lets me get back to Windows is to enable debugging mode.
This keeps happening randomly at least once a week.

Crash dump file (attached below) says the following:

IMAGE_NAME: msvcrt.dll

MODULE_NAME: msvcrt

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: 0xEF_services.exe_BUGCHECK_CRITICAL_PROCESS_4c9970 80_msvcrt.dll!__InternalCxxFrameHandler_IMAGE_msvc rt.dll

^(found nothing about this on the internet)

Reliability history from Windows Security and Maintenance says the following:

Problem:

Hardware error:

Description
A problem with your hardware caused Windows to stop working correctly.

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: LiveKernelEvent
Code: 144
Parameter 1: 3003
Parameter 2: fffff208092466b0
Parameter 3: 40010000
Parameter 4: 0
OS version: 10_0_19044
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 256_1
OS Version: 10.0.19044.2.0.0.256.48
Locale ID: 1033

^(again found almost nothing about this on the internet)

What I have tried so far:

Setting Screen to turn off after 3 minutes and sleep after 10 minutes.
Turned off fast startup.
Did all the updates displayed on Windows Update.

Device manager says that everything is working fine.

Updated graphics card drivers (installed the driver from the Nvidia website)
State Power Managements is turned off.
Checked disk health with CrystalDiskInfo and everything seems fine.
Changed browsers (the freeze happened mostly while using Youtube; so far I tried Google Chrome, Edge , Opera, Mozilla - the freeze happened on all on them).
Disabled unnecesary apps on start-up.

Disk Cleanup on C: and D: drives.

Power Options → Advanced settings → PCI Express → Link State Power Management → Off
Commands tried in command prompt:

• sfc /scannow :nothing bad detected.
• Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /CheckHealth.
• Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth.
• Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth :nothing bad detected.
• Windows Memory Diagnostic says everything is fine.

Clean reinstall of Windows 10.
Cleaned the PC of dust.
No antivirus is installed.

I haven’t tried to run any antiviruses because I can’t seem to find any trustworthy (mostly have bad reviews).

Computer Specs:

Operating System: Windows 10 Pro

Motherboard - Biostar group TB85.
Intel Core I7 4790 CPU.
Toshiba DT01ACA100 HDD.
GeForce RTX 2060 GPU.
Kingston FURY Beast 8GB DDR3 1600MHz CL10 KF316C10BR/8.
BenQ GL2460 Display.
njoy titan series 500w 80+ bronze PSU.
HK-925I Myria keyboard.
Trust GXT25 mouse.
HyperX Cloud II Red headset.

Everything has a temperature between 30-40 °C.

[veeg]

Hello

It is probably the psu…read some reviews that the njoy titan series 500w 80+ bronze PSU has fried some pc’s.. I would not start your pc until you can get a quality psu. Also at 7 years old that psu has seen it’s days..

[phillpower2]

Defo the PSU, labelled as 500W when even the information label on the unit says max power output 372W, I wouldn`t believe that figure either.

Reliability history from Windows Security and Maintenance says the following:

Problem:

Hardware error:

Description
A problem with your hardware caused Windows to stop working correctly.

Problem signature
[COLOR=rgb(226, 80, 65)]Problem Event Name: LiveKernelEvent
Code: 144
[/COLOR]

[COLOR=rgb(226, 80, 65)]
The above is telling you that the computer lost power and if you don`t do as advised by veeg and get an appropriate PSU you will end up with a PC that will not boot or the PSU will pop and take all your hardware with it.

The least expensive PSU that I could find that is appropriate for your PC here

Before making any purchase either get the PC checked by a local tech or see if you are able to borrow a good quality 500W or above Gold efficiency rated PSU to swap in for testing, the present PSU is so bad it may have already damaged your hardware and no new PSU will fix that.[/color]

[Bruce]

@xd771 - any news?

[phillpower2]

Same OP on at least one other forum that they have likewise abandoned without acknowledging any of the replies that they received.

Closed.