I did originally post in the Windows Update topic
here but was asked to move it to this Topic.
First things first. I am Jared, I have 18+ years experience System Admin / Virtualization engineer.
I used to say, I have seen parts of Windows nobody was ever meant to see.
All that being said. I do not have a home lab, and have been doing architect/system and network design for the last 5 years. I do not have the resources and my knowledge is out of date.
I still thought I could solve this myself. I cannot. Please help.
I built the PC initially in 2019 and it ran great until last year (2023). I started having random network disconnects. I ruled out everything but the motherboard, so I took the opportunity to upgrade.
I replaced/upgraded everything except the Non-OS Storage and PSU (EVGA 850 Bronze)
Fought with Microsoft for a long time to get them to activate it, since to them it looked like a new PC, not an upgrade.
This version of the PC ran pretty great for about 4 months now. This week, I started getting random
BSOD as many as
10 per day, tons (
every 5 or so minutes) of "
aw snap" errors from Chrome, Random
App Crashes (10-20 per day), and the occasional
hard system crash with no errors (
Probably 2 or 3 times per day).
Started troubleshooting and found SFC / DISM both reporting corrupt system files. Through research I found this is most likely a driver conflict.
I have done the following and I am still getting BSOD, RPC Service crashes, and overall horrible instability.
- sfc /scannow :: Half the time this fails, when it does it says it found corrupt files but could not fix them.
- DISM /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth (both with and without the source pointing to a USB mounted fresh Official ISO) :: This either crashes corresponding with a crash of the RPC Service or completes and says source files could not be located. then proceeds to tell me how to specify a source.
- I have updated the firmware for my motherboard and SSDs. I installed the latest chipset drivers from ASUS.
- I even partitioned off the free space on my one of the drives and did a clean install of Windows 11. It BSOD before I even got to the login screen. I did not take that any further. I wiped that partition as soon as I saw it act the same way.
SIDE NOTE I HOPE IS NOT RELATED: The only thing that changed near the time all this started happening, was I bought an Asustor AS5404 created an iscsi target and connected it to the system using the Microsoft iscsi initiator. it was working fine. I have since disconnected and disable that service thinking it might be causing the issues.)
System Specs:
Home Build
Windows 11 Pro (I think about 4 months Since this install)
Version 10.0.22631 Build 22631
CPU
Intel Core i9 14900K
GPU
EVGA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti FTW3 ULTRA GAMING- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti
Motherboard
ASUS ROG Strix Z790-E Gaming WiFi 6EWithout
RAM - 64Gb
Slot A2: Corsair CMK64GX5M2B5600C40 DDR5
Slot B2: Corsair CMK64GX5M2B5600C40 DDR5
Storage
Samsung SSD 860 PRO 1TB
WDC WDS500G2B0A-00SM50
Samsung SSD 970 EVO 1TB
Samsung SSD 980 PRO 1TB
*Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 2TB* - OS DRIVE
Samsung PSSD T7 Shield SCSI Disk Device
Audio
Realtek USB Audio
A50 X Game
NVIDIA High Definition Audio
Realtek USB Audio
A50 X Voice
NVIDIA High Definition Audio
A50 X Mic Out
A50 X Stream Out
Logitech BRIO
Network
Built in Intel 2.5Gb Ethernet
PCIe TP-Link 2.5Gb (TX201)
Power
EVGA 850 Bronze
As I sat hear (last night) watching chrome crash multiple times, and rereading what I wrote. It occurred to me that my PSU very well could have caused this issue. I will look at upgrading it next. But in the mean time, as kind of a test, This morning I turned off the high performance power mode. and set the system to Balanced Power mode. It seems to be crashing WAY less. I wonder is weak or failing power supply could cause corruption and random failures? Also, If I upgrade my PSU, can my OS be fixed? All my HW Health checks come back as ok, so I do not think there is any damaged HW yet.