PC Freeze Diagnostics

[Rockrz]

If a PC freezes, and nothing you do can bring it out of the freeze where all you can do is force it to shut down so you can re-start it... is there a log in Windows where you can go to see if there is an error code of some kind that can hopefully provide a clue as to why the system froze up?

 

[Parman]

If anything it would be in your event viewer, but I would guess you will not find anything but "unexpected shutdown"

What are you doing when the PC freezes?

 

[Rockrz]

I actually had Firefox open and I was blocking a cookie (I have it set to notify me, which I've been doing for years so I can block un-needed cookies), that and I had Windows Live Mail 2011 open and I think that was it. I wasn't doing any heavy applications or anything.

First time this has happened. I can roll it back to a previous time using Acronis so if it was a software or configuration issue hopefully that happened after the last hard drive image was taken





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[Rockrz]

Well, I looked in the Event Viewer and it show "Event ID 41" and "Source: Kernal-Power" and it's marked as Critical

Looks like I've had several of these and the first once was back in July which was when this computer was brand new.

Any idea what this means? It performs great otherwise, and I don't recall it actually freezing up to where I had to hard boot it to get it to shut down and re-boot.

 

[Parman]

Pretty much means shutdown unexpectedly the previous events could have been BSODs. I can get you a link for post information when I get to a pc.

 

[Rockrz]

Well, it's still under warranty till July of 2013, so hopefully if there is a major problem it'll surface before then.

 

[Rockrz]

Anybody have any experience using Hiren’s BootCD?
Download Hiren

Is it good for testing Ram and CPU?

 

[Parman]

I dont know about CPU but Memtest 86 is a great memory tester. I believe its 7 passes that are recommended. If you let it run all night and it doesnt find any errors your probably fine.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105647-ram-test-memtest86.html

links on how to configure dumps for bsods

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/174459-dump-files-configure-windows-create-bsod.html


Dump files are located in %SystemRoot%\Minidump you could check to see if you have any currently in there.

 

[Rockrz]

What does "Dump Files" show... specific error messages, that explain what happened?

 

[Parman]

They can show what causes the BSOD.

 

[Rockrz]

Dump files are located in %SystemRoot%\Minidump you could check to see if you have any currently in there.

So how do you get to "%SystemRoot%\Minidump" ?

Or, does this not yet exist on my computer and I have to create it?

 

[Rockrz]

C:\windows\minidump
The folder will only be present if your system is set to write small mini dump files during BSOD.
How do you know if it is?
Start->Run->"sysdm.cpl"->Advanced->Startup and Recovery

Found this on a tech board...

I went to C:\windows\minidump and it's not there, so I went to Start->Run->"sysdm.cpl"->Advanced->Startup and Recovery... and it shows %SystemRoot%\MEMORY.DMP

Am I supposed to change MEMORY.DMP to minidump ?

 

[Parman]

go to the link and make sure they're setup correctly.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/174459-dump-files-configure-windows-create-bsod.html