Diagnosing Windows Blue Screen of Death issues, especially when crashes occur only under light usage.
Diagnosing Windows Blue Screen of Death issues, especially when crashes occur only under light usage.
Your PC has been experiencing frequent crashes only when not running games. When using Chrome, it freezes every 10 to 50 minutes. To cope, I’ve started running a game in the background while handling daily tasks. I’m now trying to diagnose the problem further but haven’t found a clear fix yet. The error codes I’ve seen are: Machine check exception (most frequent), IRQL not less or equal (occasionally), and WHEA uncorrectable error (rare). So far, I’ve updated all drivers, tested RAM one by one, replaced some memory sticks, and run Memtest86 for an hour with no errors. The specs are: MSI MPG z390 gaming pro carbon GPU GTX 1070 Ti, i7-9700K CPU, 2x 16GB 3200MHz RAM. I’m considering a CPU issue but want more ideas or a definitive test method.
Ensure Memtest86 operates throughout the night for verification. Also, execute the Intel Processor Diagnostics Tool (select 64-bit). BlueScreenView may assist in detecting driver issues if they stem from software. However, considering the varied BSOD patterns you're encountering, it suggests a hardware concern involving the CPU, memory, or RAM.
Thanks, I’ll try it the next day. The memtest completed after 5 hours with 4 passes of 12 tests and reported zero errors. It’s interesting how it only crashes when no games are running—high GPU/CPU usage seems to improve stability. I’ll share an update tomorrow evening.
Consider examining the dumps using WINDBG for deeper analysis. This tool provides more detailed information than just stop codes and logs. In my previous crash, the event logs lacked much detail. Running the dump through Windbg revealed a hidden Nvidia driver (pointing to an nvld*.sys file). Removing the software, deleting the card from Device Manager, and restarting didn’t remove the drivers.