Win 10 Taskbar, Help Needed

[LWDAdnane]

Hello all,

 

I've created an account just for this issue as Google searches have been useless. I installed a fresh Windows 10 on my PC  a couple of months back, with all new hardware (other than RAM), and have suffered endless BSODs (which have since seem to have sorted themselves out), missing/corrupt files. I don't understand why, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's somehow related to my new issue. I can open stuff on my taskbar, for example if I click the start button, the little menu comes up, if I click the search bar, same over there. If I go all the way to the right and click the sound icon, I get the window that lets me choose my sound source and adjust volume. However, the second I hover my mouse over these windows, I get the little loading icon by the mouse cursor, and the window closes. This is quite an issue as it means I can't even shut down my PC via the start menu, should I want to open a particular program, I'm not able to until I find the .exe via file explorer etc, you get my drift. Would really appreciate a solution or any type of help. Would also appreciate any insight into why my Windows install was so chalked. Thank you in advance!

 

P.S If a video is needed to show the issue, I can record it and post it

[BetteBalterZen]

I think I would try another clean install of Windows, and if that doesn't help, go into BIOS and reset everything, then download and run MemTest86 for half an hour, maybe 45 minutes, to see if any RAM errors get detected. If no errors get detected, go into BIOS, enable XMP/DOCP and try MemTest86 again, see if any errors get detected. 

If no RAM errors get detected, and Windows still freaks out and you still get BSOD, then I would investigate the BSODs you get. Maybe another piece of hardware is failing. I know failing SSD's can "produce" a lot of BSODs. 

[LWDAdnane]

Thank you. I considered reinstalling Windows, however I want to leave that as my absolute last option. I'll follow it with memory test when I take that course of action, following the reinstall. I bought the RAM from new about a year and a half ago, and had it installed in my previous PC (with no BSODs ever) and only running at 2133Mhz, whereby it can run at 3200Mhz, which it currently is. So I've barely worked it. Also I have Windows installed on a new M.2 NVMe drive.

[BetteBalterZen]

34 minutes ago, LWDAdnane said:

Thank you. I considered reinstalling Windows, however I want to leave that as my absolute last option. I'll follow it with memory test when I take that course of action, following the reinstall. I bought the RAM from new about a year and a half ago, and had it installed in my previous PC (with no BSODs ever) and only running at 2133Mhz, whereby it can run at 3200Mhz, which it currently is. So I've barely worked it. Also I have Windows installed on a new M.2 NVMe drive.

It's interesting that the single piece of hardware you kept from the old system was the RAM, which you didn't run at XMP/DOCP speeds. And now when you use it in a new system, with XMP/DOCP enabled, you get BSODs. If I were you, I'd do a MemTest86 ASAP with XMP/DOCP enabled - just to figure out if the RAM is faulty at the overclocked speeds. 

Also, if you get errors during MemTest86, it could also mean that the RAM itself is fine but your CPU can't handle the speeds - or more precisely, the IMC. If the IMC can't keep up, it will produce RAM errors, even though the RAM is fine. If this is the case, consider up'ing the IMC voltage or after you have enabled XMP/DOCP, pull down the MHz of the RAM to fx 3000MHz and test. 

Btw, please tell the full specs of your PC.  

[LWDAdnane]

15 minutes ago, BetteBalterZen said:

It's interesting that the single piece of hardware you kept from the old system was the RAM, which you didn't run at XMP/DOCP speeds. And now when you use it in a new system, with XMP/DOCP enabled, you get BSODs. If I were you, I'd do a MemTest86 ASAP with XMP/DOCP enabled - just to figure out if the RAM is faulty at the overclocked speeds. 

Also, if you get errors during MemTest86, it could also mean that the RAM itself is fine but your CPU can't handle the speeds - or more precisely, the IMC. If the IMC can't keep up, it will produce RAM errors, even though the RAM is fine. If this is the case, consider up'ing the IMC voltage or after you have enabled XMP/DOCP, pull down the MHz of the RAM to fx 3000MHz and test. 

Btw, please tell the full specs of your PC.  

CPU: Ryzen 5 3600X

MOBO: MSI MPG X570 GAMING EDGE WIFI

GPU: Sapphire RX580 8GB

RAM: Corsair Vengeance PRO RGB 2x8GB 3200Mhz

PSU: Cooler Master 750W MWE GOLD

 

So I've made some errors and feel a little silly; the GPU was also brought from my previous build, and the CPU I bought used from eBay. Apologies.

 

[BetteBalterZen]

41 minutes ago, LWDAdnane said:

So I've made some errors and feel a little silly; the GPU was also brought from my previous build, and the CPU I bought used from eBay. Apologies.

No worries

To be honest, I'm not sure if a faulty graphics card will produce BSODs... Atleast in most cases, I don't think think the graphics card will. You would instead see games crashing, screen going black, weird artifacts on screen, display driver recover it self. But sure, probably can produce BSODs in some situations 

Since your CPU is used / 2nd hand, there is the possibility that it was sold because it wasn't working as intended. 

I see that you have a 3600X - this CPU supports up to 3200MHz officially, so what I said about the IMC not being able to handle the DOCP, this should not be an issue since 3200MHz is the official RAM speed for the 3600X. Of course, the 3600X could be faulty as everything could be, and therefore not able to run 3200MHz RAM speeds. 

Again, if I were you, I would start out with doing a couple of MemTest86 runs.

 

First with all RAM sticks installed, with DOCP enabled. No errors? Good. Means your CPU and RAM is working. Got errors? Disable DOCP. Test again:

 

No errors? Means the RAM or CPU is faulty most likely - in terms of running high RAM speeds or timings / can't run with DOCP. Got errors? Remove all but 1 RAM stick; test again:

No errors? Good - means this RAM stick is able to run at JEDEC speeds. Enable DOCP (with only the 1 stick installed), test again:

No errors? Good, means the RAM stick and CPU is good, and can run at DOCP speeds. Got errors? Most likely means this RAM stick is faulty and cannot run at DOCP speeds. Now test the other stick(s) the same way.

Also, even though it takes a lot of time, do the above steps in all RAM slots - if you wanna test everything 100%. 

[LWDAdnane]

7 minutes ago, BetteBalterZen said:

No worries

To be honest, I'm not sure if a faulty graphics card will produce BSODs... Atleast in most cases, I don't think think the graphics card will. You would instead see games crashing, screen going black, weird artifacts on screen, display driver recover it self. But sure, probably can produce BSODs in some situations 

Since your CPU is used / 2nd hand, there is the possibility that it was sold because it wasn't working as intended. 

I see that you have a 3600X - this CPU supports up to 3200MHz officially, so what I said about the IMC not being able to handle the DOCP, this should not be an issue since 3200MHz is the official RAM speed for the 3600X. Of course, the 3600X could be faulty as everything could be, and therefore not able to run 3200MHz RAM speeds. 

Again, if I were you, I would start out with doing a couple of MemTest86 runs.

 

First with all RAM sticks installed, with DOCP enabled. No errors? Good. Got errors? Disable DOCP. Test again:

 

No errors? Means the RAM or CPU is faulty most likely - in terms of running high RAM speeds or timings / can't run with DOCP. Got errors? Remove all but 1 RAM stick; test again:

No errors? Good. Enable DOCP (with only the 1 stick installed), test again:

No errors? Good, means the RAM stick and CPU is good. Now test the other stick the same way:

Got errors? Most likely means this RAM stick is faulty - or something is wrong with this RAM slot or memory lane (motherboard or CPU)

I'm getting some error messages when trying to run the .exe after downloading MemTest86, I think I'll leave that side of things for now at least, as I haven't blue screened in a while so that isn't really my main concern. Any ideas at all for why the taskbar is acting up?

[BetteBalterZen]

6 minutes ago, LWDAdnane said:

I'm getting some error messages when trying to run the .exe after downloading MemTest86, I think I'll leave that side of things for now at least, as I haven't blue screened in a while so that isn't really my main concern. Any ideas at all for why the taskbar is acting up?

First of all, I have made a few edits to my post - just so you know. 

And MemTest86 should be made with Rufus as a bootable USB. So you leave Windows out of it totally. 

And no, don't know about the Taskbar sorry. This can be the needle in a haystack situation. I think I'd make sure that all Windows updates have been downloaded and installed. And if Windows is fully updated and still freaks out, I'd do a reinstall. 

[LWDAdnane]

After some more in depth searching I finally managed to resolve the situation, for anyone else that may stumble across this this thread with the same issue: 

 

• Open the Task manager. Here’s a tip: Press CTRL+Shift+ESC.
• Click File > Run New Task
• Make sure you have a check mark beside “Create this task with administrative privileges”
• Type Powershell
• Type the following 2 commands in the Powershell prompt:
  • $manifest = (Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.WindowsStore).InstallLocation + '\AppxManifest.xml' ; Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register $manifestand press Enter.
  • Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers |Where-Object {$_.InstallLocation -like "*SystemApps*"}and press Enter.
• Close the Powershell window.
• Reboot.

[BetteBalterZen]

42 minutes ago, LWDAdnane said:

After some more in depth searching I finally managed to resolve the situation, for anyone else that may stumble across this this thread with the same issue: 

 

• Open the Task manager. Here’s a tip: Press CTRL+Shift+ESC.
• Click File > Run New Task
• Make sure you have a check mark beside “Create this task with administrative privileges”
• Type Powershell
• Type the following 2 commands in the Powershell prompt:
  • $manifest = (Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.WindowsStore).InstallLocation + '\AppxManifest.xml' ; Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register $manifestand press Enter.
  • Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers |Where-Object {$_.InstallLocation -like "*SystemApps*"}and press Enter.
• Close the Powershell window.
• Reboot.

Good job! 

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