Problems with USB speed, random crashes, and power-on issues?
Problems with USB speed, random crashes, and power-on issues?
Hey everyone, I purchased a PC from the FB Marketplace for around $300. The seller looked friendly and trustworthy, but it was clearly used. In short, there were startup problems—like power cycling, random crashes with "dxgkrnl.sys," unstable USB Wi-Fi connections, and ports that would jump between speeds.
The machine had these specs: MSI Z97 PC Mate CPU (i7-4790k), GTX 970 GPU, SSD with 256GB WDBNCE2500PNC. After plugging it in, I noticed a weird fan cycle—spinning for three seconds then shutting off for three—repeating until I cut power. After removing the CMOS battery and toggling the PSU on/off, it finally booted normally.
Once I started gaming (Skyrim), it worked fine until about ten minutes in, then crashed to desktop. I checked my settings and lowered shadows, which helped a bit. But after a restart, it kept crashing with "dxgkrnl" errors for over three hours. I thought it was just too many settings, but another time I saw a general system error. It also froze during updates, crashed while browsing, and even when I tried to speed test, my Wi-Fi only managed 6mbps.
After moving the USB adapter to a different port and checking cables, it still only handled 6mbps. I tried restarting, updating drivers, and even swapping it out for a different drive, but the issues persisted. Eventually, after a few days, I updated BIOS, reinstalled drivers, and changed GPU settings. The USB problems seemed to improve, but when I turned it off and plugged in another drive, odd behavior returned.
So far, I’m pretty sure I was scammed. Any advice or ideas would be greatly appreciated.
You can follow these steps to investigate further:
Visit https://bluescreenview.en.softonic.com to access previous BSOD logs and identify the cause.
Check your disk health by looking for reallocated sectors on any HDDs showing wear signs—this isn’t just the count, but changes after a scan.
If a drive appears to be failing, open Event Viewer and filter Windows logs (application or system) for errors around the freezing times. This will reveal more details about what’s happening with your PC.
I plan to reconnect it and check it this weekend. It’s confusing figuring out why things are acting up—slow startup, unresponsive USB ports, sluggish PC, and crashes in dgxkrnl.sys. I considered the power supply since it seems outdated, but it wouldn’t explain the BSOD or performance issues. I also thought about the motherboard, though testing without a replacement feels risky and costly.