So this problem just began happening just recently - my PC would go through one of these 3 events at random (may happen once a day, may take a few days before it happens again):
1. Freezes for a minute or two, then the PC turns off (no restart).
2. Freezes for a bit, then a BSOD error appears.
3. Freezes for way too long, and I'm forced to forcefully shut down the PC.
Here are my specs:
CPU - i5-2400
Motherboard - ECS H61H2-MV
RAM - 8GB Kingston DD3-1600 (2x)
GPU - Sapphire RX 580 Nitro+ 4GB
SSD - Crucial BX500
I have a gut feeling that it happens more frequently when I leave it idle for a while, but I don't think it has an effect on anything and is probably just placebo.
I don't think any of my hardware changes have caused this issue since I've been using the same setup for some months before the problems started happening.
Here's a list of what I tried to do:
1. Replaced my secondary hard drive (which was getting too old anyways) with ones known to work (from another PC).
2. Checked my SSD (my main drive) health, nothing out of the ordinary according to CrystalDiskInfo, Hard Disk Sentinel, Speccy, and Crucial's own software.
3. Reinstalled Windows from a clean slate three times.
4. Reseated almost everything in my PC except for the processor.
5. Changed SATA cables for the SSD.
6. Used Intel's diagnostic tool.
7. Used GpuMemTest - no problems found.
8. Used Window's memory diagnostic tool and OCCT's memory test (granted, this one was the free 1 hour only version) - no problems found.
9. Tried the Windows Driver Verifier to determine if it's a driver causing it - that wasn't much help at all.
10. Uninstalled all Windows updates - no change.
11. Installed all Windows updates available - no change.
12. Did an OCCT stress test to check whether it was power-related.
I've also looked at the memory dump files for the BSODs - BlueScreenView says that all the BSODs (minus the ones caused by activating Driver Verifier) have the bug check DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION and the Crash Address is at ntoskrnl.exe. I also checked the dumps using WinDbg, and they all point to something called "ataport".
I've attached the related dump files for reference:
dumps.zip 818.13KB
58 downloads
I'm lost as to whether this is a software problem or a hardware problem. I am very confident that this isn't malware though, as I already tried it after doing a clean format to all drives in the PC. I'm also doubtful that it's a GPU problem nor a power problem, since I can play games on my PC just fine (though I've yet to try it under a high-intensive game, I'll try it with something like Doom Eternal)
I haven't tried out using Linux yet to see if it's a weird Windows thing as I don't really have the time to do that right now. Is there a way that I've missed to find out what the cause is? Thanks.