Laptop stability issues

Rhonos

Estimable
Dec 28, 2015
2
0
4,510
Hey guys,

For the last two or so weeks my computer's stability has been quite a big issue for me, so I'm seeking some help about it. For starters here's some information on my pc:

Lenovo Ideapad Y400

■i7-3630QM at 2.6GHz, quad core
■8GB DDR3 at 783MHz
■Nvidia GT750M 2GB GDDR5
■1TB Seagate HDD at 5400 RPM. Partitioned as: 139GB Windows partition, 340GB Installations partition, 449GB Personal storage partition.
■Windows 10 64-bit v1511, 10586.36
■Used to be set to BIOS and MBR, just switched to UEFI and GPT.


Temperatures so far: (Checked and logged with HWMonitor)

■GPU stays around 43ºC when idling, and around 70ºC or so, iirc, when under load.
■CPU stays around 53ºC when using it lightly, probably closer to 50 or less while completely idle, max I've seen it is 87ºC under load, though during gameplay and such averages around 83ºC.

If I left out anything, please let me know, I'll be more than happy to add it.

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Now, for the problem:

About two or three weeks I noticed my Google Chrome installation just messing up and thought it was about time to reinstall Windows. All went fine, I downloaded the media creation tool from Microsoft, then put it into a flash drive, booted, formatted C: and installed Windows unto it. All fine so far.

Then a day or so after reinstalling Windows I was playing and the computer randomly shut down (Now BSOD, no warning, nothing, just stopped altogether). I thought it was weird but didn't really want to look into it, it hadn't really happened before anyways so meh. Then it started happening more, probably around a tune of twice per day, usually after a long time of playing World of Warcraft. I thought it would be temperature issues, since WoW really heats up my laptop, so I cleaned up my laptop's fan. Instant temperature and performance improvement, dropped from 65ºC idle on cpu to 55-57ºC.

Next day, same thing happened. I decided it would probably turn out to be the Windows installation, so I reinstalled it, didn't help. I thought it could be a driver issue, so I reinstalled and tried not to let it update anything, still no help, though I thought something could've gone over me and downloaded something undesired so I decided to try again, had been about a week or so of the problem so far.

So I downloaded the pro version of Windows, put it into my flash and restarted the PC. Booted from USB, started Windows installation as always, then I *really* messed up and didn't notice it saying it couldn't install Windows on my HDD, so I formatted C:. When I realized it, it said it had to be formatted to GPT and I had MBR. So I borrowed my sister's PC to download Hiren's boot and put it into my flash.

Restarted PC on Hiren's boot, mini XP wouldn't load for whatever reason, so I booted from Linux. Wanted to transfer my files into an external HDD so I could finally go through with switching to UEFI and GPT. Checked the drive from Linux and it showed only 931GBs of unallocated space, no partitions, no data. At night my brother returned so I used his HDD enclosure to mount my HDD and check it out on another PC, nothing. So by this point I lost all my data but decided to move on anyways. I mean, it *must* be driver issues by this point, right?

So I remade my bootable flash with W10, switched to UEFI, cleaned the HDD on Windows installation, switched to GPT and installed. This time I made extra sure no Windows downloads. Installed with no Wi-Fi, then set defer updates on, set it to download no drivers, and then connected to Wi-Fi, which I also made into a metered connection so no updates at all. After all that, I used the Windows tool to make it ignore updates. Made sure I only downloaded Windows updates -- nothing else. No virus definition updates, no drivers, nothing. Only Windows updates.

Installed network adapter drivers, GPU drivers, audio drivers and touchpad. After that I installed Spotify, Chrome, Battle.net (and re-downloaded all of WoW), Rocksmith and Euro Truck Simulator 2. Nothing else that I remember, to make sure I wasn't running too many things that could mess it up. Hadn't played WoW because it was still downloading. So far since the beginning I had only been playing WoW and Rocksmith. All the crashes came on WoW, none on Rocksmith or any other application for that matter.

Last (and current) installation I did I'd been playing Rocksmith and ETS, no crashes. Then two nights ago I got a crash on ETS, the first I got outside of WoW. Still haven't had any on Rocksmith, and haven't had anymore on ETS. My WoW download finished so I ran it and started configuring it for a bit, no crashes, then stopped. Today, I had been installing Visual Studio for the last five or so hours (taking too long, HDD failure maybe?) whilst doing other stuff online. Then I started World of Warcraft and had it open for around 10 minutes, followed by a crash.

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More info on the crashes:

So far, all but one have been while having WoW open, even if not as my main window. One even happened when it was still logging me in at the main log in screen. Only other crash was after a long session of Euro Truck Simulator 2.

A couple of times I've noticed the game (Both in WoW and the time it happened in Euro Truck Sim) stutter a lot for 1-2 seconds, probably something like 3-5fps, and then crash. I run both games at their recommended settings.

Haven't had crashes while playing Rocksmith or while just using my PC for non-gaming tasks.

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Tests and things I've tried:

Ran 8hrs of Prime95 small FFTs tests, didn't shut down.
Ran MemTest86, no RAM problems.
Used HWMonitor logging, max temp 87ºC and avg around 82ºC while playing WoW (until a crash).
Ran chkdsk on read only on my three partitions, no errors.

Still pending on running FurMark or another GPU stress test, though I'm not entirely sure that's the problem, since it probably would've crashed more times on Euro Truck Simulator than on World of Warcraft (since it's more cpu intensive, and I don't run it on the highest settings my pc could do before).

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Other things:

So, by this point all I can really think of is probably HDD problems, even if chkdsk didn't find anything wrong with it. Else… maybe battery and charger problems having milliseconds where voltage just drops off and pc shuts down. Maybe motherboard problems? I'm not too good at this, so don't know how to check it out.

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TL;DR

Doesn't seem to be Temp, CPU, GPU or RAM problems. Lots of (to me) signs of HDD failure, yet nothing on CHKDSK.

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I think that's about it, just left to say by this point I'm getting really desperate about it. While it'd be painful to not be able to play games and all that stuff, I'm mainly afraid it could start happening whilst trying to work or do university stuff. All help appreciated, and again, please let me know if there's more information I can supply.
 

Rhonos

Estimable
Dec 28, 2015
2
0
4,510
As a bit of an update:

I ran FurMark for 15 minutes and, while the temps got really high, no crashes and little throttling. Then ran ViVard's Surface check and found no errors after scanning completely (took about 4 hours). Just updated BIOS to see if that helps.