P770ZM slowly being destroyed by continuos crashes leading to manual reboots. Long post inside. HELP

(scroll to the bottom to find the download link to my logs and other data)

This is a super long post I suppose, I apologize in advance.

I actually waited to ask for help here because first I wanted to do all I could to investigate the problem myself and also collect a lot of evidence/data that can be used once I finally ask for help here.

I will update this first post so please check for updates.

MAY 21, 2016:
I made a post on this forum with pretty much the same problem that I have now, just much much less severe than now. I was given some advice, and I kept looking into it. In that particular situation, I had an external hard drive which was failing, soon after I replaced it with a newer one and the problem went away. The external hard drive was not the one containing the OS, it was just a storage drive.

PRESENT:
I am now experiencing the same problem once again, it has been creeping up on me for a couple of weeks I believe, and in the last few days it has been a constant crash, like I had 7 crashes just today. It's getting worse and worse, and just the last crash I had was on the log-in screen of Windows, as I was typing my pin.

OBSERVED BEHAVIOUR BEFORE THE CRASHES STARTED TO HAPPEN:
Even before the crashes started, let's say about a month or so ago, I started noticing sluggishness while operating my system, specifically in Firefox since it's the program I use the most. I normally used to have like 50-70 tabs open and it would work just fine with no major slow downs. Then it started feeling like the computer started getting slower and slower, clicking on things, scrolling, changing tabs, typing, even hovering the mouse cursor and see it chance from arrow to hand, started taking longer. Then when it got worse, Firefox started hanging completely, sometimes telling me that a script might be busy or have stopped responding, and giving me the option to continue the script or debug it or stop it. At this point I'd still be able to recover the program by stopping the script. Then it got even worse and I usually couldn't recover the program anymore, but by terminating it in Task Manager and restarting still worked, and the whole system was fine.

I have since then reduced the amount of tabs that I have open to 15 or so (it's not that many), as well as trying Chrome, but things didn't really get better.

CURRENT BEHAVIOUR:
At this point, it's not just a program that hangs up sometimes, it's just anything. It can be Firefox, Excel, a game, or even just with no programs open. Like I said the last crash that I had was in the log-in screen of Window as I tried to type my pin.

Surprisingly the system is fine most of the times, I can operate it normally for the most part, but once in a while I do notice this sluggishness, this not-in-real-time flow of things, like I move the mouse over something and I can tell that the cursor is not changing to the right shape or the element I'm hovering over or clicking on is not responding immediately as it should. When these moments happen, sometimes the system manages to catch up and do what you're trying to do, other times, the loss of functionality begins. Part of a program becomes unresponsive, but it's not a total crash or freeze yet. Then if you start moving the mouse or clicking around, more things become unresponsive. Eventually the whole system crashes. The mouse cursor might or might not still be able to be moved around, but it doesn't do anything anymore.
I normally have music playing in MusicBee, so in that case ~1 second of music will start looping forever.
At this point I have to manually reboot.

In a few cases, the system seems to have crashed soon after being left idle and returning to it, or in at least one case, while it was still idle.

Also, a few times I had sudden, complete freezes, not just a progressing hanging-up of programs leading to a crash.

AFTER THE CRASH:
Once I reboot, I don't have any error messages, and so far I've never seen any blue screen of death. However now the system detects that there have been many shut downs and doesn't let me sign in with fingerprint or pin anymore, and it tells me that I need to enter my full password or wait two hours (this is not a problem, I just type my password, but still).

Another interesting thing to notice is that sometimes I get multiple crashes in a short succession. For example, I reboot after a crash, I try to get my stuff up and running again, and it crashes again within minutes. Sometimes I have a few of these crashes in a row and maybe they're shorter and shorter every time, like the computer just wants some time off before starting to work again.

TESTING:
So before posting here, I tried to find the cause of the problem by myself, since this has happened before and the problem went away when I replaced the failing external drive.
Things I have tested:
- tried disconnecting all USB plugs (webcam, microphone, and the newer external drive I mentioned earlier), excluding the mouse (but I changed USB slot for the mouse to test if there was a specific USB slot that was causing the issue): still crashes
- tried completely closing the antivirus (Kaspersky Internet Security): still crashes
- tried staying offline: still crashes
- looked into Task Manager to see if I could spot and unusual program running, couldn't notice anything weird (then again, I'm not that expert)
- I ran Scan Disk, the main SSD and the secondary one (not the external one) appear to be optimized already.
- I'm looking now into Event Viewer but honestly I need some guidance through it as I'm not sure how to use this program to my benefit.
- ran Windows Diagnostic Tool, says no errors detected

COLLECTION OF DATA:
Since a few days ago, I started launching HWiNFO as soon as the computer was ready, and kept recording logs for the whole time. As of right now I have about 50 logs for the past week or so. Most of them end with a crash. Sometimes I reboot the computer myself or just turn it off while the computer still works, so not all logs end in a crash.

Additionally, I created an Excel spreadsheet where I'm keeping track of log numbers, starting times and ending times of the logs, if it crashed or not, what program it crashed on, how, what other programs were running, and adding any relevant notes to it.

As far as HWiNFO goes, my temperatures are totally good, and usually I do not have any values turning red in the sensor status summary.

The only thing that seems strange to me, it's the core #0-3 C7 residency, since it's usually high. I tried to google it and it seems to have something to do with idling states. Still I don't understand how it works and if it's supposed to be low or high for it to be alright.

I also tried to go through the logs by myself, with Generic Log Viewer, to see if there were any particular spikes in any value right before the crash. I mostly couldn't come up with any conclusions, however in one of the logs I did see some spikes in the C3 residency values, if I am not mistaken. I didn't check many logs but I'm gonna have another look at them.


I'm probably forgetting some details so I'll probably edit this post later to add any useful information that I can think of.

YOU CAN INSPECT MY LOGS AND COLLECTED DATA:
I put the excel spreadsheet with the overview of the crashes as well as all the logs in an archive and uploaded it, and I hope that you guys can help me look into it.

HERE: https://mega.nz/#!wsxRAYoA!JQ1eoNd-LAfjKKGs5b9jJZKsXY-Cgdw4JBGBseRLGkY

This problem is killing me, like, totally killing me, mentally, and also on a material level, since I use my computer to work (like everyone I guess), and it's actually stopping me from doing the things I have to get done. Also I'm getting really stressed that it's just gonna die completely and leave me in the sh!t. Overall it's a great computer, 2.5 years old but still powerful, I can play heavy games like Hitman or Deus Ex at epic/ultra settings and the framerate is smooth. So it's not time to replace it yet, I just want to find the problem and get rid of it.

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 1703 (build 15063.483)
NVIDIA Drivers: 382.05

 

Try to install older Nvidia drivers, like 36x.xx.

 

Hi there, thanks for you reply.
Yes I will try that and report back.

At the moment I was trying to boot Windows from my secondary hard drive, which should still have Windows 7 installed on it, since I never formatted it.

EDIT: So I managed to boot from that drive (after I removed the main one), although no wireless connections are detected, not sure why, so there's not much I can do while using that drive. I didn't have any problems but being loaded into that old Windows 7 with almost no programs and no internet it's almost like being in safe mode. So I can't really say that the problem must be the new SSD because the old SSD is fine.

I'll keep investigating. I'll try the old nvidia drivers and report back.

EDIT 2: I downloaded drivers 368.69. What's the proper way to install older drivers?

 

Have you tried running on a single stick of ram, see if you have the issue, if you do swapping the stick in use?

 

This sounds like you have a rootkit infection, not hardware problems.
Have you tried running malware bytes antimalware or malwarebytes "Adwcleaner"?

 

Hello guys, thanks for your replies.

When I tried to use the secondary SSD alone today, I removed the primary one. After putting it back, I haven't crashed yet nor experienced any particular sluggishness. However, I have been out for most of the day so I haven't had the chance to use the computers for many hours yet.

It would be too optimistic to think but maybe my main SSD was just loose in its connection and taking it off and putting it back fixed the problem, maybe. I'll use it for longer tomorrow and see if it dies on me again or not.

Ironically, I also did this around last year when I experienced the same problem, perhaps this is the problem and this is how I fixed it last year without knowing it.

@Meaker@Sager , I haven't tried yet, but I'll do that after the current test is complete if the problem returns. Thank you for your suggestion!

@Falkentyne , I tried that not too long ago but I guess I'll just re-do that now just to make sure. I'll report ASAP but it might be tomorrow since it's 2am here in Hong Kong right now and I can't stay up too late tonight. Thakns for your help!

UPDATE: No threats detected in Malwarebytes. I'll try Adwcleaner.

 

Ah, yes you're right. Bad SSD's can cause these errors too.
TBH I remember this happening to me on a GT72VR 7RE which was FULLY STABLE until I updated to windows 10 creator's edition. After the update, all sorts of DMI errors (shown in HD Tune Pro) started happening on the hard drive (NOT the SSD).

The hard drive was 100% fine...took it out and put it in a desktop and no problem whatsoever. It was windows creator's edition causing the problems.

 

Adwcleaner found those 3 files. I recognize at least 2 of them, but I guess I can just get rid of all of them. Picture attached.

However at this point I would rather wait until I crash again to do it, so if I never crash again I can tell for sure it was because of the dislodging of the SSD rather than not being sure if it was that or it was for these guys that adwcleaner found.

So if the crash comes back, next things on my test list are the old drivers that I downloaded but not installed yet (I've been looking up for the correct way to install older drivers, still not sure), and test one RAM stick at the time.

Will report back!

In the mean time, more suggestions are welcome, and thanks everyone for the help!

 

Guys, I'm so so so so happy to say that indeed having removed and reconnected the SSD has fixed the problem, as the crashes are gone! I can't believe I had to suffer for like a week before realizing it was this... but I'm just glad the nightmare is over!


HOWEVER I still would like to ask why do you guys think I still get some sluggishness while operating Firefox, like the program just can't take it.
Like I said in my first post, I used to have like 50-70 tabs open at once and everything worked perfectly, everything was responsive.

Now sometimes when I am at over 20 tabs or so, clicking on things, trying to type, scrolling, or even just hovering the mouse over things, it doesn't react smoothly, and the more I try to click things, the more the program hangs (this does not crash the computer anymore, nor affect other programs, that problem is fixed!). It happened once today when I opened a bunch of different tabs with youtube videos in them. I wonder why Firefox can't handle that much load anymore, it used to perform without problems. What could be causing this?

 

I had the same problem after updating from Firefox (32bit) to Firefox (64bit) running on a P870DM2 (Win10) and a old Dell 1747 (Win7). Tried removing all extensions/plugins, re-installed Firefox and still the same.

I just uninstalled Firefox (64bit) and installed Firefox (32bit) and everything back to normal again, no stutters, no "program not responding messages"

 

My Firefox is 32 bits though.

I read on the Java website that:

"Beginning with Firefox 52 (released March 2017), plug-in support is limited to Adobe Flash, and drops support for NPAPI, impacting plugins for Java, Silverlight, and other similar NPAPI based plugins."

I wonder if that's what caused it.

 

Firefox has slowly been getting more unstable for my wife on her desktop, it hangs and causes all sorts of issues. She switches to the same page on chrome and it's fine. This is after re-installing several times.

 

I'm glad to hear that at least it's not just my problem. Hope the fix it. I always preferred Firefox to Chrome. Anyways sorry for going off topic now.
Thanks again for the help on the issue, glad I could find a solution

 

Did you just go with chrome in the end?

 

No I'm still sticking with Firefox for now... I'm trying to have less tabs open... I don't like the lack of a proper bookmark sidebar in Chrome.. I just hope they restore Firefox to the great browser it was soon.

 

Even the die hards will switch eventually if it keeps going the way it is.

 

Just managed to fix my Firefox issues (on both machines). Google "Firefox refresh" and follow the instructions - worked for me

 

I've been a die-hard Chrome user for a super long time and I just recently switched to Opera. I used to hate Opera, but it's pretty awesome now. All of my chrome extensions work, everything (including about 5 years worth of saved passwords) imported to Opera. To my surprise, even the cookies had me logged into the NBR forum on the first visit. It's was a seamless and painless transition. Thanks to @j95 for suggesting it. This is not the crappy Opera browser I used to know and hate.

 

Even if the issue is gone, I would strongly recommend to use memtest and let it do at least 2 full cycles. Had similar symptoms and they reappeared again after a while until I spotted the RAM modules being the faulty ones.