Yet another vexing Windows problem (Dell refurb)

[ObviouslyNotAGolfer]

New (refurb) Dell--three months old. A pretty nice machine and pretty good phone support. But maaaaybe, they didn't fix everything that was screwed on this machine.

FREEZES: White screen or black screen of death with speakers buzzing! Four of five times this happened, I was watching a video, but not the fifth and most recent time.

It responds to Nothing (ctrl-alt-del, has that EVER ****ONCE**** worked in the history of computing!?)

Hard reboot required. Seems to cause no problems (I know--C-drive errors and/or broken registry items that will FKCU me some day soon!!!)

What could cause this? The Dell tech I spoke to last time told me to update the BIOS and she was "sure" this would fix it.

The next tech told me that the video card driver needs updating, but that I could put it off. (Was busy as hell that day, and it did not happen for a couple of weeks after this call)

Also, we have lights that flicker once in a while--could a very brief power fluctuation cause this?

I do want to buy a good UPS--we have only the tower (450 watt power supply), monitor, external HD, speakers, and an ATT Gateway to plug in, but I want to leave extra outlets for additional stuff if need be.

I know from painful experience that hard reboots are the road to hell!

Guess I'll have to call Dell tomorrow and burn up another hour...

Any ideas or suggestions here would be appreciated.

[Sunder]

Unfortunately almost anything can cause those symptoms, at the hardware driver level or lower, including the hardware itself.

Power fluctuations are much less likely to cause issues with reliability on laptops, because the battery acts as a giant capacitor between the wall power and the computer. If you get flickering, brown outs, etc, the laptop simply ignores the wall power and runs off the battery.

Edit, just realised you never said it was a laptop. Just assumed so, as it's all I ever see of Dell!

I would suggest you stress test your PC to see if it reveals any weaknesses. I use Prime 95 for testing CPU and Memory, and Furmark video benchmark for stress testing video.

Once you've isolated the component that is causing failure, we can have a look at whether it is likely hardware, firmware or software causing the issue.

[ObviouslyNotAGolfer]

Thanks. Yes indeed it is a desktop (grandpa box).

[Daley]

Update the BIOS and video drivers both, get a UPS. If you have a Costco membership and warehouse nearby, they should have a beefy Cyberpower around 850VA for around the $100 mark.

Outside of addressing those issues first, which are important to do, boot into the onboard diagnostics and let it do a couple rounds. If it passes full onboard diagnostics, it's definitely a driver issue. Try the current OEM video drivers as opposed to the Dell video drivers (the default Dell drivers can sometimes be turkeys). I can't remember if you've got an Nvidia or AMD GPU in there, so have links to both their drivers:

https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx
https://www.amd.com/en/support

Be sure to download and install the right drivers as you have a workstation optimized graphics card, so RTX/Quadro or Radeon/Fire Pro. If you've already done this, but downloaded and installed their specialty "gamer" optimized drivers instead (Nvidia Studio or AMD Adrenalin), that might be the instability.

Also, goofy random thought! If it happens again? Check to see if it's your new monitor. Unplug and plug it back in before you mess with the computer. Remember what you told me about the shipping delays with the thing? Could've done some unseen/unexpected damage given the g-force loads in a situation like that.

[ObviouslyNotAGolfer]

Thanks, I am investigating all of these.

I am on the phone to Dell right now, and the service is TERRIBLE. I am talking to this young kid who has me waiting endlessly because he is trying to talk to an "engineer" to answer my questions. Apparently does not know anything. It is like talking to a receptionist in a doctor's office when you really need to talk to the doctor.

The other few times I called in I was connected to a tech right away, and every time they seemed less knowledgeable than the last one. Things seem to be going downhill very quickly with them!!

UPDATE: I called back and was able to talk to a seemingly very knowledgeable tech--Persistence! I try to be understanding and not fly off the handle in these trying times, but I'm not always good at it!

[nalor511]

They have chat, you do not need to call.

[dblaace]

Anything in the event logs?

[jim555]

Reinstall Windows clean.  Create a USB using the Microsoft Media Creation Tool.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/create-installation-media-for-windows-99a58364-8c02-206f-aa6f-40c3b507420d

Load another OS, to see if the problem is hardware or software.

[ChpBstrd]

Look at the top and bottom of the motherboard and all cards/ram. What you're looking for is a roach that got electrocuted, or a droplet of brown roach poop, and that is creating a short circuit. I've also seen this happen to the circuit board inside the PSU.

[ObviouslyNotAGolfer]

Anything in the event logs?

Lots and lots and lots and lots of stuff--flaming errors ALL THE TIME, especially "kernal power" and "Distributed POS".

I got the Cyberpower UPS--a very nice device. I am very happy with it.

I ran all kinds of tests through Dell Support assist, including lengthy tests of GPU/ graphics cards. It found nothing.

The PC continues to experience screen freezes, but very intermittently. Is this a true Poisson process(?)--I need statistical tests! It will freeze once or twice or three times in a given day, then it will be fine for a week or two. Seems to happen only on Saturdays and Mondays. I thought it might be Adobe CC updating possibly because this started shortly after CC installation (I dumped all Adobe, including LR and PS and I ONLY have it for the full version of Acrobat--provided by my work for free). Adobe users have reported problems with LR on Macs, but seem very skeptical of this on a PC.

I disabled quick startup, as there are reports of that causing problems.

Of course Dell now wants me to (can you guess?????):


DRUMROLL....










re-install Windows (FUN after spending endless time and energy downloading/installing/configuring LOTS and LOTS of specialized software that I cannot use at work due to the Pandemic!).

It seems to happen almost exclusively in a browser--Opera (does Opera suck???) and Firefox. But then again, I spend a lot of time in those apps.

Seems very likely a power issue. 

An occasional meltdown bothers me less than wondering what all of this is doing to my C drive (SSD), files, software, and maybe even my new 6TB external HDD, which is ALSO starting to act weird! How to compensate for this??

Sigh! (the hassles never end).

[Daley]

Dude, sorry to hear, but I have to ask... have you tried installing the OEM drivers for your video card yet like I suggested last month? The fact that it happens most commonly with browsers that have accelerated video support with Event ID 41 "Kernel-Power" could either be a coincidence or a smoking gun. Better OEM drivers means better power management on the video card end. Otherwise, the power supply could be overloaded, or a faulty connection somewhere. How many peripherals, etc.?

Here's a good physical troubleshooting write-up for troubleshooting Kernel-Power issues:
https://forums.tomshardware.com/faq/how-to-fix-windows-10-error-event-id-41-%E2%80%98kernel-power%E2%80%99.2752245/

This said, Opera's not been a great browser for a while. The people who used to develop Opera now develop Vivaldi. It's okay... a lot of bells and whistles. Firefox also keeps going in weird, bloaty, slightly insane directions these past few years. Honestly, I've come to really appreciate Microsoft's Edge (not the old Edge, but the new Edge with the blue and green icon) as a browser, and prefer its stock configuration over that of Chrome, despite Edge just being another rehashed Chromium/Blink-based browser fork like Vivaldi is. I honestly only keep using Firefox at this point out of inertia due to one javascript control plugin, and it's not because of the plugin specifically, but how Google's V8 javascript engine has historically handled enabling and disabling javascript as an all-or-nothing proposition during user sessions versus how Mozilla's Spidermonkey javascript engine operates... but that's not something most people have to worry about.

[jim555]

It sounds like hardware is the problem.  Try a different OS and see if the problem continues, then you know it is hardware if it does.

[dblaace]

Make sure the bios is up to date and disable anything in the bios power related.