Hey all,
I've found a huge number of varied threads and websites that discuss similar issues to the one I'm seeing, but none of them match my symptoms exactly and none of the fixes I *have* tried have fixed a thing. Sorry for the excessively long write-up below, but I'm QA by trade and I'm trying to include as much useful information as I can for the serious troubleshooters.
I'll write a short description of what's happening, followed by some weird details I've noticed that I hope will help provide some clues.
The issue occurs like this:
For roughly an hour or so of use my machine seems to have no problems at all. At some seemingly random point that has no obvious trigger, my Chrome browser tabs will stop loading pages and refreshing will also just loop. Windows generally just stops working properly a this point. If I mess around with Windows to open Task Manager or anything else, I will eventually receive a small window that's titled "Microsoft Windows" and reads "This program is not responding", and then it gives me the option to either wait for the program to respond or close it. If I choose to wait, I will eventually get a super-fast BSOD and the system will reboot itself. When it comes back up it will give me a generic "Reboot and select proper boot device" message. I will have to hard shutdown the machine, boot it back up, and select "Run Windows Normally" in order to get Windows up and running again.
Now for the hopefully-informative details:
Thank you very much in advance for any help. This issue is horribly annoying and inconvenient, and I'm very worried about all these hard shutdowns taking their toll.
P.S.
-- Funny story: the BSOD occurred while I was writing the very end of this post, wiping out my efforts and requiring me to write this entire thing again from scratch. No wonder I want it fixed, eh?
I've found a huge number of varied threads and websites that discuss similar issues to the one I'm seeing, but none of them match my symptoms exactly and none of the fixes I *have* tried have fixed a thing. Sorry for the excessively long write-up below, but I'm QA by trade and I'm trying to include as much useful information as I can for the serious troubleshooters.
I'll write a short description of what's happening, followed by some weird details I've noticed that I hope will help provide some clues.
The issue occurs like this:
For roughly an hour or so of use my machine seems to have no problems at all. At some seemingly random point that has no obvious trigger, my Chrome browser tabs will stop loading pages and refreshing will also just loop. Windows generally just stops working properly a this point. If I mess around with Windows to open Task Manager or anything else, I will eventually receive a small window that's titled "Microsoft Windows" and reads "This program is not responding", and then it gives me the option to either wait for the program to respond or close it. If I choose to wait, I will eventually get a super-fast BSOD and the system will reboot itself. When it comes back up it will give me a generic "Reboot and select proper boot device" message. I will have to hard shutdown the machine, boot it back up, and select "Run Windows Normally" in order to get Windows up and running again.
Now for the hopefully-informative details:
- I do not always get the program-not-responding message, and this appears to be tied to how much of Windows I try to use once the Chrome tabs have started screwing up. But regardless of whether I try to get some info out of Windows or just sit there patiently, I still get the same rapid BSOD. So whatever's causing the BSOD is affecting Windows' ability to function, it would seem, since I can click too much and cause Windows to stop responding.
- I've only chosen "close it" to the program-not-responding message once, and I don't exactly recall the outcome. I think what happened, if my memory serves, is that Explorer disappeared along with my entire desktop. I still had to hard shutdown.
- The hardware reboot button on my mobo does nothing except continually return me to the "Reboot and select proper boot device" state. Once I'm there I am literally *required* to hard shutdown in order to get Windows up and running again.
- Something really bizarre happened when the issue occurred while playing CIV4. I opened the saved-game GUI to obviously load a saved game, and the entire directory tree was totally bizarre. Instead of a list of all the folders where there might be save games, there was a Windows-level directory tree that showed all my hard drives, almost as if it no longer knew where my saved games were located. But on closer inspection it also looked like my C drive was missing from the list, so that made it seem almost like the game couldn't find the C drive anymore. I'm not 100% on that, since it only happened one time, but I could definitely attempt to repro it.
- The last detail seems like its importance is a bit of a stretch, but I'll include it anyway just in case. This whole problem started when I returned from a vacation and the machine had been powered down for a week-and-a-half. When I first turned the machine on after returning, the display wouldn't come up, even though I could hear Windows boot up from my USB speakers. I swapped out some HDMI cables to see if any of them went bad, but ultimately I got the display back up by using a DVI/VGA cable and ignoring the HDMI. Again, I think this is a totally separate issue, but I'm including just in case it does provide any clues.
Thank you very much in advance for any help. This issue is horribly annoying and inconvenient, and I'm very worried about all these hard shutdowns taking their toll.
P.S.
-- Funny story: the BSOD occurred while I was writing the very end of this post, wiping out my efforts and requiring me to write this entire thing again from scratch. No wonder I want it fixed, eh?