Is it really the hardware that makes it crash?

I've given up on saving my Optiplex 755 with win10, that I've been
posting about, But I wanted to ask a couple more questions.

I reinstalled windows10, keeping no other files, and the only software I
installed was Firefox. Sometimes it will run fine** for 24 hours, with
a lot of Firefox use, playing videos, listening to webradio, in addition
to text only pages. But it also continues to crash.

Somes it crashes before Windows has started,

Sometimes just before I'm supposed to put in the PIN. This alone
proves it's the hardware, right?? This alone proves it's the hardware,
right??

Windows sent an update, and it was installing it. It went to so many
percent before it restarted as normal and then it was continuing to
install the update, counting off the percent, when it crashed. This
alone proves it's the hardware, right??


OTOH, other times, Firefox is running, and has been running fine for
hours,, and when I go to certain places in Settings, it crashes. One
time, I was trying to create a new user, as T suggested. Another time,
I was trying to make Firefox the default browser. Each time it crashed
when I was about to do each of those things, and they didn't get done.
But if going to Settings causes it to crash, what does that have to do
with hardware? How would the two tasks I described be related to the
hardware?



**I run the laptop all the time and the win10 that crashes only for
extra stuff.

On 2020-08-17 15:35, micky wrote:
I've given up on saving my Optiplex 755 with win10, that I've been
posting about, But I wanted to ask a couple more questions.

I reinstalled windows10, keeping no other files, and the only software I
installed was Firefox. Sometimes it will run fine** for 24 hours, with
a lot of Firefox use, playing videos, listening to webradio, in addition
to text only pages. But it also continues to crash.

Somes it crashes before Windows has started,

Sometimes just before I'm supposed to put in the PIN. This alone
proves it's the hardware, right?? This alone proves it's the hardware,
right??

Windows sent an update, and it was installing it. It went to so many
percent before it restarted as normal and then it was continuing to
install the update, counting off the percent, when it crashed. This
alone proves it's the hardware, right??


OTOH, other times, Firefox is running, and has been running fine for
hours,, and when I go to certain places in Settings, it crashes. One
time, I was trying to create a new user, as T suggested. Another time,
I was trying to make Firefox the default browser. Each time it crashed
when I was about to do each of those things, and they didn't get done.
But if going to Settings causes it to crash, what does that have to do
with hardware? How would the two tasks I described be related to the
hardware?



**I run the laptop all the time and the win10 that crashes only for
extra stuff.



The way to tell is to run it with Linux Live USB
and torture it.

https://spins.fedoraproject.org/xfce/

micky wrote:
I've given up on saving my Optiplex 755 with win10, that I've been
posting about, But I wanted to ask a couple more questions.

I reinstalled windows10, keeping no other files, and the only software I
installed was Firefox. Sometimes it will run fine** for 24 hours, with
a lot of Firefox use, playing videos, listening to webradio, in addition
to text only pages. But it also continues to crash.

Somes it crashes before Windows has started,

Sometimes just before I'm supposed to put in the PIN. This alone
proves it's the hardware, right?? This alone proves it's the hardware,
right??

Windows sent an update, and it was installing it. It went to so many
percent before it restarted as normal and then it was continuing to
install the update, counting off the percent, when it crashed. This
alone proves it's the hardware, right??


OTOH, other times, Firefox is running, and has been running fine for
hours,, and when I go to certain places in Settings, it crashes. One
time, I was trying to create a new user, as T suggested. Another time,
I was trying to make Firefox the default browser. Each time it crashed
when I was about to do each of those things, and they didn't get done.
But if going to Settings causes it to crash, what does that have to do
with hardware? How would the two tasks I described be related to the
hardware?

They're not. The crashes are random or a combination of random + some user
event.

On 18/08/2020 01.37, T wrote:
On 2020-08-17 15:35, micky wrote:
I've given up on saving my Optiplex 755 with win10, that I've been
posting about,Â*Â* But I wanted to ask a couple more questions.

I reinstalled windows10, keeping no other files, and the only software I
installed was Firefox.Â* Sometimes it will run fine** for 24 hours, with
a lot of Firefox use, playing videos, listening to webradio, in addition
to text only pages.Â* But it also continues to crash.

Somes it crashes before Windows has started,

Sometimes just before I'm supposed to put in the PIN.Â*Â*Â* This alone
proves it's the hardware, right?? This alone proves it's the hardware,
right??

Windows sentÂ* an update, and it was installing it. It went to so many
percent before it restarted as normal and then it was continuing to
install the update, counting off the percent, when it crashed.Â* This
alone proves it's the hardware, right??


OTOH, other times, Firefox is running, and has been running fine for
hours,, and when I go to certain places in Settings, it crashes.Â* One
time, I was trying to create a new user, as T suggested.Â* Another time,
I was trying to make Firefox the default browser.Â*Â* Each time it crashed
when I was about to do each of those things, and they didn't get done.
But if going to Settings causes it to crash, what does that have to do
with hardware?Â*Â* How would the two tasks I described be related to the
hardware?



**I run the laptop all the time and the win10 that crashes only for
extra stuff.



The way to tell is to run it with Linux Live USB
and torture it.

https://spins.fedoraproject.org/xfce/

I would test the memory with memtest.


--
Cheers, Carlos.

micky wrote:
I've given up on saving my Optiplex 755 with win10, that I've been
posting about, But I wanted to ask a couple more questions.


Start by taking the side off and doing a visual inspection.

The machine (similar to my Optiplex 780) has maybe three or four
phases to power a Core2 Duo processor. Check the larger diameter
caps near the CPU socket for leakage. The design seems to have
little in the way of bulk capacitance on these things.
Leaking caps cause crashes.

Leaking caps inside a power supply can cause crashes too. But there
were other symptoms in that case, such as a puff of gray smoke
at startup, a couple weeks before the crashing started. It was
eventually crashing during BIOS POST, had "fallen and could not
get up". Replaced power supply, all fine. Power supply was an Antec
made by ChannelWell.

Hardware test with memtest. Test memory two sticks at a time.
Install memory in single channel mode. Swap sticks around,
so the role of each changes between being the "high memory" stick
and the "low memory" stick. This gives 100% testing of memory.
If you have additional pairs of sticks, test a pair at a time
in single channel mode. It means you'll be running memtest *twice*
per pair of sticks, with a power down, complete power removal,
then swap sticks around so "high" and "low" stick are swapped.

memtest.org

Run Prime95 for four hours in Torture Test mode. Do not
join GIMPS. This can be run from a Linux LiveDVD. Consult
distrowatch, right-hand sidebar, for names of popular distros.
Like Mint.

mersenne.org/Downloads or similar

Apparently UBCD has some of these test materials on it. Google
and find out.

HTH,
Paul

In alt.comp.os.windows-10, on Tue, 18 Aug 2020 15:28:53 +0200, "Carlos
E.R." wrote:

On 18/08/2020 01.37, T wrote:
On 2020-08-17 15:35, micky wrote:
I've given up on saving my Optiplex 755 with win10, that I've been
posting about,** But I wanted to ask a couple more questions.

I reinstalled windows10, keeping no other files, and the only software I
installed was Firefox.* Sometimes it will run fine** for 24 hours, with
a lot of Firefox use, playing videos, listening to webradio, in addition
to text only pages.* But it also continues to crash.

Somes it crashes before Windows has started,

Sometimes just before I'm supposed to put in the PIN.*** This alone
proves it's the hardware, right?? This alone proves it's the hardware,
right??

Windows sent* an update, and it was installing it. It went to so many
percent before it restarted as normal and then it was continuing to
install the update, counting off the percent, when it crashed.* This
alone proves it's the hardware, right??


OTOH, other times, Firefox is running, and has been running fine for
hours,, and when I go to certain places in Settings, it crashes.* One
time, I was trying to create a new user, as T suggested.* Another time,
I was trying to make Firefox the default browser.** Each time it crashed
when I was about to do each of those things, and they didn't get done.
But if going to Settings causes it to crash, what does that have to do
with hardware?** How would the two tasks I described be related to the
hardware?



**I run the laptop all the time and the win10 that crashes only for
extra stuff.



The way to tell is to run it with Linux Live USB
and torture it.

https://spins.fedoraproject.org/xfce/

I would test the memory with memtest.

As I said in an earlier thread, I did that. I ran memtest88 for I think
14 hours and it got no errors.

But only Chris addressed the two questions I asked in the OP. I've
given up trying to fix this. I only want to understand it.

(It's old anyhow. Made for Vista.)