Windows Explorer crashes, no message, then everything crashes randomly

Hey guys, I'm going on my 10th hour of trouble shooting here.

Started my PC this morning, went and opened Steam, then windows explorer crashed without a message (Task bar disappeared) and locked up my whole PC for about 5 seconds before the BSOD. Rebooted to install "WhoCrashed" to read the minidump. During this process, I went through about 6 other crashes of the same nature. It doesn't seem to be dependent on load, however, because it'll happen just sitting idle on the desktop too.

On the most recent crash, I noticed that around the same time explorer crashed, my Razer keyboard and mouse both died out, leaving me no control.

I just got a new graphics card (NVIDEA Geforce GTX 960 4GB) 2 weeks ago and it was all fine up until now, so I'm not sure if it's related. We put in a Coolermaster CPU cooler at the same time, new thermal paste, etc. and all temperatures are normal (about 90 degrees F, same as always). None of my temps are off from what they've been for the last 2 years, and I don't think I've ever had a BSOD on this custom PC.

Updated NVIDEA drivers from safe mode, started looking into Motherboard updates, but not applying any because I can't even tell what I have already. Everything is fine and dandy in safe mode.

So, please, for the love of all things holy, someone help me out here... I'm good with PC's but I'm at my witt's end here. Attached you should find the proper log and an image from Speccy. Had to take it with my phone because the PC was in the process of crashing by the time I got it loaded (Information also posted in my profile)

Hacb said:

the dump point to wininit.exe, the windows startup process, the crash was caused by the termination of a critical system thread or process which means that somehowwinint.exe was terminated and crashed your computer, all we have to do now is work out why and how the process was terminated, if it didn't happen untill you installed the graphics card it could be thaat it is doing something that is affecting wininit.exe

Thanks for checking my thread!

This one's got me concerned because this thing has NEVER BSOD'd before. What are some things the card could be doing? Maybe some settings or presets? It doesn't look like the processor though? Because we put in that CPU cooler too which required us to redo thermal paste, etc.

I had 2 "minor crashes" with the card before hand that I forgot to mention. I was playing Batman Arkham Origins both times when the "Nvidea display driver stopped working". Basically it just quit the game with an error and black screened for about 3 seconds. At this point, there was no blue screen. Now here we are, 2 weeks after that and this is happening. Is it possible it's just a bum driver update from Nvidea?

Thanks for all the help. I'm pretty good with computers but this is pretty much where my knowledge stops!

Hacb said:

"all we have to do now is work out why and how the process was terminated"

Is that information in the system event log?

I'll definitely look into that after work today. The only concern is even though I know the signs of windows explorer crashing, it never throws an actual error message about it before the blue screen.

Also I believe error reporting is turned on but I'll have to check. I'll take a look as soon as i can. Thanks!

Alright, a few updates...

I was working in Safe Mode, looking through some stuff and now I'm blue screening from safe mode too, which was not happening yesterday. Looking at the minidumps soon, just trying to figure out some of the stuff you guys said to try.

I looked in my driver manager and found this before I touched anything. Looks like I have some drivers missing. Not sure when that happened or if it even matters, it just jumped out at me. Don't mind the background, that's an ASUS zip folder for the USB 3.0 driver update (I just downloaded them all from ASUS just in case I need to try reinstalling or something.

This should help with the not booting problem,

Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Boot

All your recent string of BSOD's are F4's

Code:

BugCheck F4, {3, fffffa800e237b10, fffffa800e237df0, fffff800039cce20}

----- ETW minidump data unavailable-----
Probably caused by : wininit.exe

Followup: MachineOwner

I would check your cables and test your HDD's.

SeaTools for DOS and Windows - How to Use

WD Support / Downloads / Other Products / Data Lifeguard Diagnostic for Windows

You have a lot going on in your reports but I would start there.

Your chipset drivers should fix a couple things.

Try getting rid of GeForce Experience and AI Suite, both know to cause problems and are shown in your error reports.

Can't stand either one of those programs so I will try that. I was trying to use a windows disk to repair but the main HDD doesn't show up in every section, only a few for recovery tools BUT Windows 7 shows up in the boot manager at start up, so I know it's there... It's weird as hell. I'm gonna see if I can get it to boot today and try that. I'm at the end of my rope here.

The other thing is, I know I need to use F8 for advanced boot options, but that brings me to my BIOS and asus control screen rather than windows related things... Any way to changs that?

Thanks for all the help, guys, I really appreciate it so far