BSOD Randomly, can i find out the cause?

[shepard]

Hi, about 1 month ago i took a tumble down the stairs with laptop in hand, besides a very sore rear i also got a damaged laptop.

The laptop luckily landed on its corner while closed otherwise it could have been really bad, it has some minor surface damage but aside from that it seems great… apart from since that day randomly i get BSOD.

The BSOD will appear a minimum once a day, on average 1-2 times and at worse 4 times a day. I think it is a safe assumption that some piece of hardware got damaged in the fall and although i opened it up to see if theres any obvious damage it all passes a visual inspection, which means im clueless.

Is there an error log that we can look at to discover if a specific component in the pc is causing this or even if it is completely unrelated and is a software issue?

Here’s some of my laptops specs:
HP ENVY - Model: ae051na

Operating System: Windows 10 home 64bit
CPU: i7 7500U @ 2.70GHz
RAM: 8GB DDR4 2133 SDRAM
Graphics: 2047MB NVIDIA GeForce 940MX

If you need any further information to help let me know and ill respond asap i.e. error logs

[phillpower2]

Hello shepard,

Could be that the RAM got disturbed but lets look to see if there are any crash dmps first.

1. Copy any dmp files from C:\Windows\Minidump onto the desktop.
2. Select all of them, right-click on one, and click on Send To> New Compressed (zipped) Folder.
3. Upload the zip folder using the Attach button, bottom left of the dialogue input box

[shepard]

Hi Phill,

So i tried to find a Minidump folder and couldnt see it so i did a full search of the c drive for ‘minidump’ and it showed no results.
I then tried to search for the file type ‘dmp file’ in the entire c drive and got no results.

I am a little concerned they may have been wiped by Ccleaner, i dont know what kind of files it wipes when it cleans and it might have removed it. The folder exists on my desktop just not on my laptop the one in question.

It might be worth mentioning my laptop used to be windows 7 and it got the free upgrade to 10 when that was out, i dont know if that changes anything.

[shepard]

Also i checked event viewer and all the ‘critical’ level events are the same and occur about as frequent as my BSOD from the looks of it.
They all say “Source: Kernel-Power, Event ID: 41, Task Category: (63)”

Now i did send my laptop off to be fixed for this issue BSOD as it happened before i dropped the laptop and it came back and worked fine… until i dropped it and it started back up again. They ended up replacing my battery and power supply, they stated the issue was caused by a faulty power and corrupted operating system. and they reinstalled the operating system as well as updated it and the BIOS.

Guess they didn’t fix it?

[shepard]

Literally just crashed at 2:20AM, i have like 30 new events in the viewer leading up to and including the BSOD, i dont know if it helps but i saved them and put them in a zip like you mentioned, these all happened within 2 hours roughly leading up to the moment it happened around 2:14AM, hope it helps.

[phillpower2]

“Source: Kernel-Power, Event ID: 41, Task Category: (63)” means that the computer shutdown unexpectedly and while Windows was still running, you will always get this error message if Windows is not closed properly before the computer powers down, this normally suggests a hardware issue which includes overheating as a possible cause.

Noticed a few McAfee errors in the log, you dont need it when running Windows 10 so would suggest you get rid it at some point.

We need to see if we should be getting crash dmps.

How to Enable Minidump logs in Windows 10

[shepard]

My laptop is usually quite cool, sometimes it gets a little warm when im using it a lot but even then its still not that warm.

I have mcafee on my laptop/desktop/dads desktop’s and his macbook for safety, why would i want to remove it, did windows come out with its own anti-virus? I’ve used mcafee since windows vista/7.

It was set to automatically dump, i changed it according to the guide, next time i get BSOD ill check for dmps

[phillpower2]

Below are two canned explanations regarding Windows 10 own AV protection and the difference between software crashing and when a computer suffers a hard shutdown, the latter which may explain why you could not find any crash dmps.

Windows 8, 8.1 and 10 come with an improved Windows Defender, it offers the same real-time anti-virus/anti-malware protection as Microsoft Security Essentials. Windows Defender also shares the same malware signature definitions as Microsoft Security Essentials, and Forefront Endpoint Protection. Technically, Microsoft Security Essentials has not been renamed Windows Defender, or combined with it in Windows 8, 8.1 and 10.

Software such as Windows can crash and when it does crash you get a BSOD and when enabled a crash dmp is generated.

Hardware failure such as a weak power supply and/or overheating are not software related and when a computer for example suddenly turns off the behaviour should be described as the “computer shut down unexpectedly” and not as having crashed as the latter implies a software issue as opposed to an obvious hardware issue when described properly.

Having the correct info means that helpers will not be looking for a software issue when the problem is clearly hardware related.

[phillpower2]

Any update for us shepard?

[shepard]

Sorry there hasn’t been any more BSOD’s since tuesday, this happens sometimes it will work for a while and then it will happen twice a day for a week.

[shepard]

So i just crashed, no minidump folder was created, and for good measure i searched the c drive for “dmp” and out of the results none had a modified date for this month let alone a few minutes ago. (not actual dmp files just had dmp in the name).

I followed the guide you posted but it still didnt create it so i dont know what went wrong there.

[phillpower2]

Was it a blue screen with a face.

Download MiniToolBox and save the file to the Desktop.

Close the browser and run the tool, check the following options;

List last 10 Event Viewer Errors
List Installed Programs
List Devices (Only Problems)
List Users, Partitions and Memory size

Click on Go.

Post the resulting log in your next reply for us.

[shepard]

It did have the face i believe, back in the day the screen used to stay for like 5 minutes on the rare occasion it appeared, but it lasts for a few seconds now and auto-restarts, but i believe it did have the sad face.

I have attached the file.

[phillpower2]

Bonjour and McAfee are both implicated in your issue/s, start by uninstalling them both then we can look at Windows itself which also has problems, not being able to generate crash dmps being one of them.

So as to avoid the chance of any orphaned files being left behind that will still cause you problems use the McAfee product removal tool (MCPR) here

[shepard]

I did ‘Add and remove programs’ for Bongour, and followed MCPR to get rid of mcafee.

Whats next?