P770ZM loss of functionality in Windows, forced to manually reboot

For the past few days now (maybe almost a week), I experienced at least a couple hang-ups a day in Windows while using my computer normally, not doing anything special.

Doesn't seem to be tied to any special program, doesn't seem to be overheating. Just, at any random point (once it did it even while being left idle), programs would become partially or totally unresponsive. Music in Windows Media Player would stop, although sometimes it would appear to still be in "play", with the timer running and the progression bar moving. Some functionality in some parts of Windows would be retained, but clicking around more in an attempt to see what still works only brings the whole system to a full loss of functionality. It doesn't seem to be a 100% crash though, some very minor things still seem to work sometimes, for example the mouse cursor would still work or pressing the Window key would sometimes still raise the normally auto-hidden taskbar, or things like that.

At that point the only thing I can do is to press the power button for a few seconds to reboot the system. When I go back in, there's no error message of any kind.

These hang-ups don't appear to be connected to how long the computer has been on, how hot it is, or which programs are running.

I'm quite worried, I usually experience this kind of behaviour near the end of the lifetime of a laptop, but this one is not even 1.5 years old yet.

What kind of diagnostic tools can I run to see what's going on?

My specs:
Chassis: Clevo P771ZM
Motherboard: Intel Z97 Chipset
GPU: GeForce GTX 980M 8192MB (8GB) GDDR5
CPU: i7-4790K | Quad Core | 8 Threads | 4,0 GHz
RAM: 16GB (2x8192) SO-DIMM DDR3 RAM 1600MHz Crucial
SSD: 512GB SSD Samsung m.2 XP941
SSD2: 256GB Crucial C300
OS: Windows 10 64 bit version 1511 (build 10586.318)

PS: it did it again just as I was about to submit my thread, thank god I didn't lose all the text I wrote before being forced to reboot.

 

You could check in to the WIndows Event Viewer and see what kinds of error messages might be listed there. You could use a free software like Who Crashed, and see if that would help show what might be causing the issue as well. Maybe something like Scan Disk in Windows or possibly Memory Diagnostic could help see if there is any issues?

 

My first suspect would be the system memory as a place to start.

 

Hi guys, thanks for the replies.

I did the disc scan (on the drive C:, I did properties>tools>error checking, that's the one right?) and no errors found.

In the Event Viewer, I can see some errors. I mean I can see a bunch of them, a lot even, under various tabs, I don't know if I am meant to have that many or just some or none at all. Here's a screenshot of some of them, but those are just some:


What I'll do next time is inspect the Event Viewer right after one of those crashes, see if I can find anything more specific...

For memory diagnostic, should I run memtest?

UPDATE: okay here's some errors that I found that happened just before the system became unresponsive yesterday and I was forced to manually reboot:



I can post more details about them if you guys think it's work checking them out.

 

I also just noticed this:

 

What do you have plugged into the machine USB wise?

 

Could be a driver issue which is probably creating some huge DPM latency (will often freeze audio). Try using LatencyMon and see what it come up with.

Those bad block errors are also worrying. Run CrystalDiskInfo and see if there's any SMART errors.

 

I agree with @Stooj. A failing hard drive or SSD will cause the kind of errors you are experiencing. In fact, that random freezing is a classic symptom of a failing drive and those errors may be an important clue.

I would back up any data you do not want to lose and clone the OS to the other SSD, then test with only that drive installed and see if the problems go away. If it continues to happen, remove that SSD and put the original OS SSD back in by itself as the only drive and see if it is still freezing. It is unlikely that both are failing simultaneously.

 

Hey guys, thanks for the answers and sorry for my late reply.

@Meaker@Sager , that's interesting that you ask that, because actually I do have an external HDD connected, it's a 2TB Western Digital 1021. Since I use it quite often along the main SSD, it is constantly connected to the power and the computer. For a long time now, like maybe a year or more, it has been getting randomly disconnected, like if the USB cable would be removed. It would usually get detected back again after a few seconds as if it was plugged back in.
Even more annoyingly, through time this behaviour has evolved into a mini-freeze/slowdown every time the file explorer or other application would have to open a file or look into a folder stored on the external HDD. The system seems to act like it's connecting to the HDD for the first time before letting you work with it, and it takes a few seconds (5 or more sometimes), as if it was unplugged, and it does this if I do not access the HDD for a few minutes.

The other thing connected to the USB is an almost 10 years old Razer Lachesis mouse.

@Stooj , thanks I'll get those programs and see what they tell me.

And @Mr. Fox , that sounds scary AF, I mean I do not have at the moment another place where to store all my stuff, if it's the SDD failing after not even 1.5 years of operation, that's dramatic to say the least. And it was a very expensive one (it was the fastest SDD back in December 2014), if it's already dying now that would be very terrible and disappointing.

 

Well, I agree 100% that it would be disappointing. But, it is not unusual by any means. It is more common today than ever before. Unfortunately, being expensive doesn't exempt a product from the possibility of being defective or failing prematurely. As an example, there are tons of super expensive GTX 970M and 980M GPUs that are junk. Some are fantastic and others are poor samples that never work as well as they should. QC is a problem almost everywhere.

If you have a bunch of USB stuff plugged in, eliminate all of it for testing. Don't use anything USB and see if the problems go away. If it acts the same with all USB devices disconnected, hook everything up again and look for another cause. If the machine functions as expected that way for a couple of days, start adding them back in one at a time, run a couple of days, add the next. Then you can identify which peripheral is causing the problem. Check your USB hubs in Device Manager. Open properties on each one, go to Power Management and confirm the option to let Windows turn off the device to save power has an empty/unchecked box.

 

It may be the drive is exceeding the usb spec for power delivery and the delay is causing a scheduling issue in windows.