Semi-random crashing for a few days, then whenever windows starts

FilthyGrunger · 07 Sep 2017

I've had this weird problem of my computer seemingly always crashing around midnight every day for about 4 days, and then tonight at the same time it crashed again. This time it would just straight up shut down shortly after reaching the login screen.

I originally thought it was the graphics card but I took that out and used the HDMI output on the motherboard and just got the same thing. I wanted to isolate whether it was a hardware or software issue so I put in a live disc of linux mint and have been using that for about an hour and a half now with no problem. I'm using the live disc to post right now.

So clearly it's a software issue but I don't know what it could be. I scanned twice in the past few days with malwarebytes and picked up nothing. I really don't want to have to reinstall windows again because I just did a clean installation a few months ago.

ICIT2LOL · 07 Sep 2017

Hello and welcome FG mate three things can you get into safe mode at all if so run these
SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker - Windows 7 Help Forums
Disk Check - Windows 7 Help Forums < if necessary include the /f switch and if this does not make any improvement then just run this switch instead /r in the command line as per Option2
Run these in safe mode and the sfc often best run for two to three runs – you can leave out the /r switch in ckdsk if you feel it not necessary

And secondly check out your power settings in the Control Panel

Thirdly why no AV??

mrjimphelps · 15 Sep 2017

In Windows, set your clock several hours forward or backward, and turn off the time synchronization. See if the error occurs at the bogus midnight or at the real midnight.

If it crashes at the real midnight, then there is something happening outside of the computer which is causing this, such as an update being pushed to the computer, or perhaps an email you receive every night at midnight, or perhaps everyone in the neighborhood being online at midnight, maybe an electrical issue at midnight, or something else external to the computer.

If it crashes at the bogus midnight, then it has to be something internal, likely something inside of Windows. Some process is starting at what Windows considers midnight, and it is crashing the computer.