'Blue screen' with no text/etc.

[Vicenarian]

So, I've got a puzzler here. Customer has a desktop PC (older AMD) that randomly 'freezes and goes to a blue screen' every so often (every day or so) requiring the PC to be restarted to fix the issue. I fired up bluescreenview, but it doesn't seem to show any evidence of this (there was one actual STOP error back at the beginning of the month, but that's it, so I'm not sure if that is related or maybe just a software bug)

Anyway, did a few tests:

- Windows is set to NOT auto restart on a stop error, and not to overwrite previous crash dumps, and to create kernel memory dumps.
- Memtest86+ for like 8 hours, no problems
- Manufacturer's extended drive diagnostic, no issues
- SFC, no issues
- CHKDSK /R, no issues
- Malware scan, didn't find anything
- Updated video driver to latest (AMD)
- Left the computer on with a bunch of stuff open (browsers, Prime 95, etc.) for a few hours, but can't reproduce the problem at all...
- A bunch of other stuff I tried, but can't remember it right now...


I'm wondering if anybody has come across this before...I'm thinking it might be his monitor/monitor cable that has issues, as I'm not able to reproduce the problem at my workshop at this point

 

[NYJimbo]

Ask them if its light blue or dark blue.

You might be chasing something else.

 

[Vicenarian]

Ask them if its light blue or dark blue.

You might be chasing something else.

Haha yeah, the customer actually did mention it was 'light blue'...or something like that. Not sure what else to check though at this point, so I'm thinking of handing the PC back to the customer, and if it happens again, get him to take a picture of the screen with his smartphone/etc. and send it to me, and also to maybe turn the monitor on/off, and/or reconnect the cables.

 

[katz]

I'm wondering if anybody has come across this before...I'm thinking it might be his monitor/monitor cable that has issues, as I'm not able to reproduce the problem at my workshop at this point

In cases like this I would bring everything back to the shop & eliminate the hardware one by one.

I might have suggested the updated video driver, but you already did that. I did have an AIO HP a year or more ago that would exhibit flashes on the screen when using the latest driver.

When I installed the original 2009? driver it worked like a charm. Not sure if that is your issue but it might be a starting point especially since bluescreenview shows nothing.

Aside from that, I would probably start with one stick of ram and work my way from there. I don't have much faith in the memtest pgms. They will flag very bad RAM, I've seen them let marginal memory pass on occasion.

 

[lcoughey]

Blown or leaking capacitors on the system board?

 

[NYJimbo]

....I'm thinking of handing the PC back to the customer, and if it happens again, get him to take a picture of the screen with his smartphone/etc. and send it to me.....

I have done that a few times. Great way to get rid of a problem customer.

 

[glennd]

i had a customer recently brought in a desktop complaining it would randomly switch off (as in lose power) and sometimes not be able to switch it on again. put it on the bench, ran all the hardware tests for days. could not fault it. gave it back. came back a couple of days later with the same complaint. ran more tests over days, could not fault it.

so here's the thing. fails at your house, works fine on my bench. when he picked it up i said if, when you get it home and plug it in, it fails to start, call me and i'll come over. he did, it did and he did. i got there and put a meter on his power outlet and noticed the mains power was low on voltage (down about 10%). i then noticed three power boards and maybe a dozen devices all deriving power from the one outlet with low voltage. when i plugged the computer directly into the mains outlet it started perfectly.

so the moral of the story is he had a computer that would not work properly when the mains dropped below a certain threshold voltage. the voltage was dropping when enough other devices were doing stuff causing the computer to lose power and malfunction.

now, different computers will react differently to this situation. the blue screen which is not a blue screen could well indicate the motherboard has had a 'power incident' and sent it into fairy land.

the other thing to take from that is maybe you should go on site and test it in it's normal environment.

 

[mr m]

I agree with glennd. It's time to go onsite.

I keep a spare UPS for these situations. Install it at the residence and monitor.
It would also pay to temporarily install the UPS software. It will monitor the line voltage and might show a pattern or be random but it will help you troubleshoot. When you are physically there you might see an AC unit kicking on or maybe someone is welding something in the garage. Or like glennd found, an overloaded circuit.

Check the error logs for "unexpected power fails" or something like that. I find intermittently bad PS's that way.

 

[Vicenarian]

Thanks for the tips everyone!

 

[nlinecomputers]

Sounds like a bad monitor to me. Could be that the monitor goes out and the end user mistakenly thinks Windows has crashed when it is still running.

 

[katz]

Sounds like a bad monitor to me. Could be that the monitor goes out and the end user mistakenly thinks Windows has crashed when it is still running.

That's a great call, never overlook the obvious.

 

[Krynn72]

Sometimes people's memories are weird and they remember things that aren't happening. Just today we had a customer complain of her computer getting stuck at a blue screen. While pulling the information to check it in for diagnostic I tried to get her to be more specific, asked if there was any text, loading bar, mouse cursor, etc. She insisted that, no it was just a solid blue screen.

Since I've not seen such a thing before, I boot it at the counter, and it boots to a black screen with just the mouse cursor and she goes "Yeah, it just gets stuck here!"



There was one time that some of my co-workers had to deal with a guy complaining that there was liquid in his screen. They tried for a long time to get him to describe it better somehow, and not being able to see it the two times he brought it in to show us they said there's nothing we can do until we see it. Third time he comes in, complains of liquid in his screen and wants us to "just drill a small hole in the bottom to let it out." Turns out he was getting high as a kite and hallucinating things. The first two times he seemed perfectly fine apparently, like any normal person. Third time, not so much.

So... you know, could be that too lol.

 

[cypress]

Sometimes people's memories are weird and they remember things that aren't happening. Just today we had a customer complain of her computer getting stuck at a blue screen. While pulling the information to check it in for diagnostic I tried to get her to be more specific, asked if there was any text, loading bar, mouse cursor, etc. She insisted that, no it was just a solid blue screen.

Since I've not seen such a thing before, I boot it at the counter, and it boots to a black screen with just the mouse cursor and she goes "Yeah, it just gets stuck here!"



There was one time that some of my co-workers had to deal with a guy complaining that there was liquid in his screen. They tried for a long time to get him to describe it better somehow, and not being able to see it the two times he brought it in to show us they said there's nothing we can do until we see it. Third time he comes in, complains of liquid in his screen and wants us to "just drill a small hole in the bottom to let it out." Turns out he was getting high as a kite and hallucinating things. The first two times he seemed perfectly fine apparently, like any normal person. Third time, not so much.

So... you know, could be that too lol.

lol!!! that was hilarious.

 

[Vicenarian]

Forgot to update this; anyway, in the process of troubleshooting the issue in my workshop, I turned on driver verifier, and it didn't seem to fix anything. But, when the customer got home with the machine and plugged it in, it BSOD on startup, and the driver was for a gaming keyboard. Uninstalled the software/driver, etc. and everything is working great