So, I'm not sure if i'm posting this in the correct thread so if i am please correct me and I'll gladly post it on another. Anyway sorry, my problem is really puzzling me to no end, I'm no idiot when it comes to computers, I'm actually fascinated by them and try to learn as much about them as i can, which is what lead me to go out and buy parts so that I can build my own. This is where the problem started though. After looking around a little on the internet for solutions to my problem I found a variety of people with a variety of solutions, but none that specifically targeted the problem(s) that I was having and so I decided to post a thread here that explains more specifically what the problem is because most of the useful solutions I saw came from this website. And so I will try to list out the issues I'm having as best as I can.
Device Manager and MOBO disk...
For starters, as mentioned in the title, I have multiple instances of what seems to be the same device in my device manager (which I'll provide a picture for). I read in a few places that this can be caused by failed driver installations? I think this may be the case in my situation because when I the computer for the first time, after installing windows. the first thing I went to do is make sure I have all of the latest windows updates and drivers (After of course going on Facebook
) which seemed easy enough because my MOBO came with a nifty little CD (which I found out later is apparently useless and no one ever uses it. Rookie mistake I guess) that looked like it had all of the drivers I needed already on it. So I went ahead and started to install these drivers onto my computer, when I heard a very unwelcome noise coming from the CD-Rom about 5 minutes into the install, and like any amateur would do, panicked and cancelled the installation and removed the CD. Surely enough the CD was scratched to all hell (Maybe the last minute shitty $30 CD-Rom wasn't the best idea), along with my sanity. I decided I'd install the components from a thumb drive by transferring the files from my laptop. Needless to say the disk probably wasn't reading right with the drivers that I'd already cancelled mid-install on my brand new desktop, so this is where I believe a few of the problems may have arisen.
Crashes. Lots of them.
This is obviously my biggest problem. My beautiful new, not just new - BRAND NEW, $2,000 computer, is running like a monster, for a few minutes at least, and then crashing like a Dell. Of course, this didn't happen immediately. At first the glory of it all and those sexy CPU temps I was getting with my beloved CPU water cooler, and the magnificent smoothness of absolutely any game I threw at it with ultimate presets inspired tears of joy. But then one fateful day (like 3 days ago...) I was in the middle of a fiery match of battlefield 4 with my friends on Skype, running at a solid 60 fps, no deviation, and suddenly my screen just... noped. My peripherals didn't work, or at least they had no effect on the display and the display itself was frozen, and I was forced to the the dreaded cold restart of shame as the voices of my friends faded away in my headphones. After a restart I thought the temperature of the computer had forced the graphics card to maybe shut off to avoid damage, but I remember checking the temps regularly throughout the day, especially when gaming and i can say with 99.99% certainty that this was not the issue. I believe the reason for the crashes are rooted in the drivers themselves or, god-forbid-please-don't-let-this-happen-to-me, faulty hardware. At first the gap between crashes was mildly concerning (I could get about 7 hours of straight gaming before the monitor went cold [Yes I checked temps regularly]) but they began to become more frequent to the point where now, the instant I try to start a game, the computer freezes.
AntiVirus and CCleaner
After looking around for some time I also found some things about Avast Antivirus being a memory hog (I don't see how this is an issue as i have 16gb of ram) and that often it can cause crashes. I don't have Avast any more and removing it didn't seem to remedy the problem (I now have Avira). As for CCleaner. one tip I found was to run the registry cleaner and fix all problems until it couldn't detect any. This also hasn't helped but what i do notice is that i clear up about 1.7 gb in memory dumps and windows temp files every time I run the computer. I'm still not sure how to get to these memory dumps to figure out the problem and even if I could I don't think i could find a problem. If one is needed I'll provide one (I just don't know how so i might need help)
Windows update and Windows
I had quite a few issues with windows updates which required me to turn to forums in search of answers on the "800b0100 error" which lead me to enter some fancy code into cmd and do a few restarts and voila. But I think the problem came before that when I went to check for updates and found out I have 84 Important updates and 10 optional..... um. I'd checked several times before that for updates and then out of the blue there's a shitstorm of them waiting to be installed. So at first I tried to tackle them all at once, which lead to windows update getting stuck on 0% for a very, very long time (I went paintballing, had dinner and came back and it was still like that) as well as a lot of cancelled updates. I decided I would take them on about 4 at a time (Yes, 4, that's like 22 restarts) and eventually had my computer up to date but surely in the process something went wrong? Again, I cancelled them a lot of times. I was also finally able to update to windows 8.1 afterwards. I've already contacted Windows support about ordering a windows 8.1 disk so that I can do a factory reset on my computer, as i don't see any other options, unless you guys have any ideas.
BIOS and Boot Order
It took me quite a while to figure out exactly how to go about installing windows in the first place because I was installing from a thumb drive I'd made bootable with windows due to my shitty CD-Rom which wouldn't read the disk in the first place, but after installing windows onto my SSD I noticed in my boot order that I had my SSD, and then I had my SSD UEFI Windows Boot Manager... I boot from this one, and when I boot from the SSD normally I get the "Please select a proper boot device and then press any key" message, Huh. But my SSD is a proper boot device...
I'm not sure if I provided enough information to for any one to offer help (I sure hope I did, I've been typing for a while ;_ But I'll be glad to answer any questions at all and to provide any extra information you need and even jump through the hoops if you need me to.
Greatly Appreciated
TL;DR
Crashing, Windows, Graphics card, lots of thingies on device manager, help...
Device Manager Screenshot:
http://imageshack.com/a/img537/6580/EuvGsz.png
Device Manager and MOBO disk...
For starters, as mentioned in the title, I have multiple instances of what seems to be the same device in my device manager (which I'll provide a picture for). I read in a few places that this can be caused by failed driver installations? I think this may be the case in my situation because when I the computer for the first time, after installing windows. the first thing I went to do is make sure I have all of the latest windows updates and drivers (After of course going on Facebook
) which seemed easy enough because my MOBO came with a nifty little CD (which I found out later is apparently useless and no one ever uses it. Rookie mistake I guess) that looked like it had all of the drivers I needed already on it. So I went ahead and started to install these drivers onto my computer, when I heard a very unwelcome noise coming from the CD-Rom about 5 minutes into the install, and like any amateur would do, panicked and cancelled the installation and removed the CD. Surely enough the CD was scratched to all hell (Maybe the last minute shitty $30 CD-Rom wasn't the best idea), along with my sanity. I decided I'd install the components from a thumb drive by transferring the files from my laptop. Needless to say the disk probably wasn't reading right with the drivers that I'd already cancelled mid-install on my brand new desktop, so this is where I believe a few of the problems may have arisen.Crashes. Lots of them.
This is obviously my biggest problem. My beautiful new, not just new - BRAND NEW, $2,000 computer, is running like a monster, for a few minutes at least, and then crashing like a Dell. Of course, this didn't happen immediately. At first the glory of it all and those sexy CPU temps I was getting with my beloved CPU water cooler, and the magnificent smoothness of absolutely any game I threw at it with ultimate presets inspired tears of joy. But then one fateful day (like 3 days ago...) I was in the middle of a fiery match of battlefield 4 with my friends on Skype, running at a solid 60 fps, no deviation, and suddenly my screen just... noped. My peripherals didn't work, or at least they had no effect on the display and the display itself was frozen, and I was forced to the the dreaded cold restart of shame as the voices of my friends faded away in my headphones. After a restart I thought the temperature of the computer had forced the graphics card to maybe shut off to avoid damage, but I remember checking the temps regularly throughout the day, especially when gaming and i can say with 99.99% certainty that this was not the issue. I believe the reason for the crashes are rooted in the drivers themselves or, god-forbid-please-don't-let-this-happen-to-me, faulty hardware. At first the gap between crashes was mildly concerning (I could get about 7 hours of straight gaming before the monitor went cold [Yes I checked temps regularly]) but they began to become more frequent to the point where now, the instant I try to start a game, the computer freezes.
AntiVirus and CCleaner
After looking around for some time I also found some things about Avast Antivirus being a memory hog (I don't see how this is an issue as i have 16gb of ram) and that often it can cause crashes. I don't have Avast any more and removing it didn't seem to remedy the problem (I now have Avira). As for CCleaner. one tip I found was to run the registry cleaner and fix all problems until it couldn't detect any. This also hasn't helped but what i do notice is that i clear up about 1.7 gb in memory dumps and windows temp files every time I run the computer. I'm still not sure how to get to these memory dumps to figure out the problem and even if I could I don't think i could find a problem. If one is needed I'll provide one (I just don't know how so i might need help)
Windows update and Windows
I had quite a few issues with windows updates which required me to turn to forums in search of answers on the "800b0100 error" which lead me to enter some fancy code into cmd and do a few restarts and voila. But I think the problem came before that when I went to check for updates and found out I have 84 Important updates and 10 optional..... um. I'd checked several times before that for updates and then out of the blue there's a shitstorm of them waiting to be installed. So at first I tried to tackle them all at once, which lead to windows update getting stuck on 0% for a very, very long time (I went paintballing, had dinner and came back and it was still like that) as well as a lot of cancelled updates. I decided I would take them on about 4 at a time (Yes, 4, that's like 22 restarts) and eventually had my computer up to date but surely in the process something went wrong? Again, I cancelled them a lot of times. I was also finally able to update to windows 8.1 afterwards. I've already contacted Windows support about ordering a windows 8.1 disk so that I can do a factory reset on my computer, as i don't see any other options, unless you guys have any ideas.
BIOS and Boot Order
It took me quite a while to figure out exactly how to go about installing windows in the first place because I was installing from a thumb drive I'd made bootable with windows due to my shitty CD-Rom which wouldn't read the disk in the first place, but after installing windows onto my SSD I noticed in my boot order that I had my SSD, and then I had my SSD UEFI Windows Boot Manager... I boot from this one, and when I boot from the SSD normally I get the "Please select a proper boot device and then press any key" message, Huh. But my SSD is a proper boot device...
I'm not sure if I provided enough information to for any one to offer help (I sure hope I did, I've been typing for a while ;_
But I'll be glad to answer any questions at all and to provide any extra information you need and even jump through the hoops if you need me to.Greatly Appreciated
TL;DR
Crashing, Windows, Graphics card, lots of thingies on device manager, help...
Device Manager Screenshot:
http://imageshack.com/a/img537/6580/EuvGsz.png
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