PC crashes randomly with 6 month history of freezing with PDFs and File Explorer

[vertigo220]

37 minutes ago, Bleda412 said:

@vertigo220 I think this should work: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/186-NkOcZ2tlvTWZv6MVwnQFUbUtZbFyG?usp=share_link

 

The new HDD comes is in a box inside the bubble mailer. From what I remember from my current drive, it is suspended and not just sitting loose.

 

I'm not sure what I'm looking for with programs. I guess I'm asking for your most used programs and programs that would be helpful to most anyone, like Everything, which you brought up earlier. I recently graduated from university with a degree in Classics, so I guess I'm a historian now. Unlike most of my peers and professors, I have an interest in archiving stuff, which must include digital media in this age, but I am not all that tech savvy. I'm working on backing up my important files on M-DISC, and I'd like to get into server hosting. Any suggestions for that? Also, for backups, do you recommend the Windows backup tool or something else?

GDrive won't work. Requires me to request access, which would also reveal my email.

 

Define "sitting loose."

 

Frequently (or semi-frequently) used (and perhaps not commonly known): Notepad++; XYplorer (actually, haven't used in a while because I took a ton of time setting it up and used it for a while then changed computers and haven't gotten back to it); FreeFileSync; Everything; PDF X-Change Editor; ImageGlass; PotPlayer (though I've recently found a few new ones I need to try because I want to move away from PP); Ketarin; Veeam; EarTrumpet; SoundSwitch; CapsLockIndicator; Ditto; Sandboxie Plus; f.lux; Basta ZMover; ShareX; PDF24 Creator; PDFill Tools; PDFSam Basic; qBittorrent; AnyDesk; 7+ Taskbar Tweaker; AIMP; VeraCrypt; KeePass; AnVir Task Manager Free; MemInfo; Process Explorer; Core Temp; MakeMKV; MKVToolNix; SpeedCrunch; Handbrake; XnViewMP; AutoHotkey; ReNamer; Advanced Renamer; Authy; Unchecky; AstroGrep, HxD; WinMerge; FastCopy; DesktopOK; dupeGuru; FastStone Image Viewer; IrfanView; PowerToys; fre:ac; grepWin; AstroGrep; Icaros; ImDisk Toolkit; IObit Unlocker; LockHunter; JPEG Autorotate; MediaInfo; MetaFox; NirCmd; OBS; OpenHashTab; Paint.NET; RBTray; SimpleDNSCrypt; Spek Acoustic Audio Spectrum Analyzer; Strawberry Perl; Subtitle Edit; chapterEditor; Tartube; Textify; TreeSize Free; tsMuxeR; VirusTotal Uploader; WizTree -- Note that many of these I also have one or more alternatives but these are the ones I've mainly settled on, at least for now. I still need to go through and try out the others, just like I need to try a bunch of other promising looking programs that, once I do, very well may make this list. Also keep in mind I do a lot more and spend a lot more time on my computer than most, so many of these very likely won't be useful to you or many others. And, of course, this is just what I use, after spending far too much time looking at the various options, testing them and alternatives, and periodically looking for new and better alternatives.

 

For backups, that depends on what type of backups. I use FreeFileSync to sync drives, so to make a backup of the actual drives, though I need to find something better, but I've tried the "best" options I've found so far and none have worked well. For backing up Windows, I use Veeam. For backing up my programs' configs, I wrote a script for each one, and a script that's executed every other week via Task Scheduler that goes through and executes each of the backup scripts. Then, that backed up data gets sync'd to other drives the next time I do that, which I do regularly. This could also be achieved by simply puling the configs from the Veeam backups as needed, since they contain the appdata and other necessary folders, but I like to have them separated out and stored with the installers. One day I may switch from Veeam to Macrium, but Veeam is free and mostly does what I need, and I'm not sure the cost of Macrium is worth it for the slight advantages. But I absolutely don't recommend the Windows backup tool. Maybe it works fine, but I wouldn't know because I've lost ALL faith in MS to make a good product that won't screw me. I tried Storage Spaces and that almost completely f***ed me. Their "products" are almost all half-a**ed, half-baked junk. And they have zero support. Actually, that's not fair, their "support" is worse than useless, as it's a total waste of time.

[Bleda412]

News: Unfortunately, I had some lag again, and it was fairly pronounced. The most recent change to my computer was that I plugged in my mic. I unplugged it, and it didn't help. Yesterday, I think, I installed Discord. I closed out of Discord, and the lag went away. I've been monitoring for the past 45 minutes, and I haven't noticed it again. It's a bummer that Discord might be the cause of my lag issue, but then, how did I have that graphics card crash? Bah humbug.

[vertigo220]

Just now, Bleda412 said:

News: Unfortunately, I had some lag again, and it was fairly pronounced. The most recent change to my computer was that I plugged in my mic. I unplugged it, and it didn't help. Yesterday, I think, I installed Discord. I closed out of Discord, and the lag went away. I've been monitoring for the past 45 minutes, and I haven't noticed it again. It's a bummer that Discord might be the cause of my lag issue, but then, how did I have that graphics card crash? Bah humbug.

You need to test it by doing it multiple times and see if it's consistent. Not sure why or how Discord would do this, but no point even wondering until it's actually confirmed to be the problem.

[Bleda412]

Here are the CDM results. I tried uploading something else here earlier, but there was a problem for Radium Angel. I hope this will work for you.

 

EDIT: Finished. And thanks for the earlier reply about the programs.

 

cdm 250 gb ssd

cdm 500 gb SSD

cdm hdd

cdm nvme + hdd

cdm nvme alone

cdm nvme

[vertigo220]

You have those mixed up, so I can't tell what's what. You have "nvme" followed by a test of your G drive which is clearly the HDD then "hdd" followed by a test of the C drive which is, I'm assuming, the NVMe, and those aren't the only inconsistencies. Regardless, everything looks normal and I see no difference between the two tests of the C drive, or either of the other two test pairs for that matter.

[Bleda412]

16 minutes ago, vertigo220 said:

You have those mixed up, so I can't tell what's what. You have "nvme" followed by a test of your G drive which is clearly the HDD then "hdd" followed by a test of the C drive which is, I'm assuming, the NVMe, and those aren't the only inconsistencies. Regardless, everything looks normal and I see no difference between the two tests of the C drive, or either of the other two test pairs for that matter.

I have everything corrected now. So you think the hard drive is perfectly fine? That's the G drive. I know hard drives are not good at random reads and writes, but those numbers look pretty low.

[Mark Kaine]

3 hours ago, Bleda412 said:

News: Unfortunately, I had some lag again, and it was fairly pronounced. The most recent change to my computer was that I plugged in my mic. I unplugged it, and it didn't help. Yesterday, I think, I installed Discord. I closed out of Discord, and the lag went away. I've been monitoring for the past 45 minutes, and I haven't noticed it again. It's a bummer that Discord might be the cause of my lag issue, but then, how did I have that graphics card crash? Bah humbug.

discord app is shit frankly... crashing lagging stuttering,  games not launching... absolute pita to remove fully too btw.

 

we *may* have found the culprit... honestly that's why I always say to install the least amount of 3rd party apps possible... they often make issues,  and why wouldn't they, most are done by amateur "programmers" and that goes for free and paid apps, although paid may fare a bit better on average (less amateur work i guess)

 

idk, but im pretty sure i mentioned this already  a few times,  to install as little programs as possible  - at least during troubleshooting...?

 

i mean, i don't blame you, it seemed to work well, why not install some 3rd party amateur hour apps, right? 

 

And ultimately that's a good thing, now you know discord makes issues,  the bad part is, its really incredible difficult to uninstall *fully*.

 

(and i don't even remember how i did it, but it actually took weeks... lol)

 

im honestly glad you noticed though,  but now I'm not sure how to proceed... maybe uninstalling it with revo uninstaller is all that it needs? 

 

 

edit: generally for installing apps... i would suggest think about A) if you really need it or if there are less problematic alternatives (such as discord can be accessed from any browser and doesn't need an app?)

and B) *check* before you install something,  opinions,  reviews,  reddit...? and upload the file or url to virustotal before you actually install something... 

 

just be a bit mindful of what you install i suppose?

 

 

and seriously get revo uninstaller that helped me so much already lol... 

 

 

Oh and for GOOGLE DRIVE im sure there's a way to let people download without signing in,  i do that *all the time* and im not signed into google whatsoever... idk its probably "share publicly" or something like that? 

 

 

 

see? not signed in... can download no problem (it only says problem because its too lazy to scan for viruses... ~)

 

 

ps: alternatively you can use mega.nz, its better than google drive (more features) and you get 15gb for free... and *dont* download their app lol... just use the website .

[vertigo220]

42 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

discord app is shit frankly... crashing lagging stuttering,  games not launching... absolute pita to remove fully too btw.

Eh. It has its issues, sure, but I've been using it for years, as has my friend, and neither of us have had any issues caused by it, only issues with it, and those have been rare and minor. And it's an extremely popular app, with tons of users, yet I've never seen any major complaints about it. I'm sure there are people with issues, as there are with every piece of software ever made, but those are the exception rather than the rule. And yeah, there's a lot of crap software out there, but "good" software will rarely cause issues, and software has to be really bad to affect the entire system. Also, IMO, Windows is the biggest POS software on most computers by a long-shot, so you're already screwed before you start installing anything else.

 

Keep in mind, too, that we don't know yet that Discord is causing issues. One time could be coincidence. It needs to be repeatable to be sure. And if it does turn out it's the culprit, it should be reported to them so they can fix it.

 

Bottom line is yeah, of course you should only install what you need, otherwise what's the point, and you should be mindful of what you install. But you shouldn't let concern over rare issues keep you from reaping the benefits of useful software, and if you're concerned about possible issues, you should be doing backups anyway (everyone does regular ones, right?) so if there are any issues you can just rollback, no uninstall needed. Or test them with Sandboxie. Ultimately it comes down to each individual: some people are minimalist, which is fine, and some, like me, like to have multiple things to make things easier and improve the computing experience. I certainly wouldn't recommend most people to use half the apps I do, but then, most people don't do half the stuff I do with their computers. Heck, most people would do just as well with a tablet and a gaming console or a PC that's strictly used for gaming. All about individual needs.

[vertigo220]

2 hours ago, Bleda412 said:

I have everything corrected now. So you think the hard drive is perfectly fine? That's the G drive. I know hard drives are not good at random reads and writes, but those numbers look pretty low.

Correct, they generally suck at that. Those numbers are a bit low, but not so much that it looks concerning, and it might be normal for that particular model. Some of your numbers are better than my drives, some are worse. Interestingly, my drives seem a bit slow, as I'm pretty sure they were >200 on the sustained reads before, but I think a lot of that is due to them being so full (my N drive is much faster and is also not as full) and part may be due to BitLocker, which has minimal overhead but still may have some effect. My Y drive is a lot faster, which is to be expected as it's newer, higher capacity, and much less full. I am very surprised at its random write performance, though. Anyways, based on your numbers, if the SMART data is good, you likely have nothing to worry about, but you can also run a thorough test with a drive testing utility to be sure. Just remember, a drive can test perfectly and die tomorrow or it can show issues on testing and last months. Backups, backups, backups.

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

23 minutes ago, vertigo220 said:

And it's an extremely popular app, with tons of users

that's true... and i can't explain why but it really made my whole pc lag... even just normally uninstalling didn't fully fix it,  and OP has pretty similar issues so its easy to see the similarities. 

 

25 minutes ago, vertigo220 said:

Keep in mind, too, that we don't know yet that Discord is causing issues.

no, but it seems likely as its the last thing that was installed?  and it'll be pretty hard to find out because uninstalling might not fully fix it, hence i would try with revo uninstaller right away and hope it does the trick...

 

And yeah, the fact windows is pretty terrible (under the hood mostly) is also because many apps are pretty terrible... you have to follow a lot of rules and stuff to not mess it up...

 

hence why i really like portable apps, those usually make the least issues. 

 

 

ps: yeah, your drives *are* slow, for some reason, should be more towards 200mb... but as long you don't have issues with responsiveness etc its maybe just one of those "windows things"... 

 

plus I'm not entirely convinced Crystaldisk is really accurate,  it seems a bit over the place sometimes,  but i guess there aren't many good free alternatives either... its just one of these apps that got extremely popular despite being rather average (but it has anime, so ) 

 

wanna see something funny? Kingston A400 "ssd" (after not even a year of use) 

 

 

... just a few moments later: 

 

 

... the thing absolutely slowed my pc down so much... few months later it only had like 3mb read/write anymore... lol...

 

long removed from my system of course,  but the funny thing is, it still works! (if i could find it, its gotta be here somewhere but no idea! )

[vertigo220]

1 minute ago, Mark Kaine said:

that's true... and i can't explain why but it really made my whole pc lag... even just normally uninstalling didn't fully fix it,  and OP has pretty similar issues so its easy to see the similarities. 

 

no, but it seems likely as its the last thing that was installed?  and it'll be pretty hard to find out because uninstalling might not fully fix it, hence i would try with revo uninstaller right away and hope it does the trick...

 

And yeah, the fact windows is pretty terrible (under the hood mostly) is also because many apps are pretty terrible... you have to follow a lot of rules and stuff to not mess it up...

 

hence why i really like portable apps, those usually make the least issues. 

 

 

ps: yeah, your drives *are* slow, for some reason, should be more towards 200mb... but as long you don't have issues with responsiveness etc its maybe just one of those "windows things"... 

 

plus I'm not entirely convinced Crystaldisk is really accurate,  it seems a bit over the place sometimes,  but i guess there aren't many good free alternatives either... its just one of these apps that got extremely popular despite being rather average (but it has anime, so ) 

 

wanna see something funny? Kingston A400 "ssd" (after not even a year of use) 

 

 

... just a few moments later: 

 

 

... the thing absolutely slowed my pc down so much... few months later it only had like 3mb read/write anymore... lol...

 

long removed from my system of course,  but the funny thing is, it still works! (if i could find it, its gotta be here somewhere but no idea! )

Oof, that's rough. Kingston used to be one of the top brands, not sure anymore. Of course, that could have been a fluke and you just got unlucky.

 

And I really think my drive speeds are mostly related to being so full, though that doesn't explain why Y is so "slow." Not like it really matters, and they're all still faster than the drives I replaced with them. I have my SSDs for when I need speed; the HDDs are just storage and work that doesn't need speed.

 

As for OP and Discord, they did just do a full reinstall, so may be worth doing so again but, this time, doing a backup before installing anything, then install Discord and see if the issue pops back up again. Then they can just restore the backup. I feel like I've said "backup" a lot in this thread, lol.

[Mark Kaine]

22 minutes ago, vertigo220 said:

Oof, that's rough. Kingston used to be one of the top brands, not sure anymore. Of course, that could have been a fluke and you just got unlucky.

the thing is at the time (2 or 3 years ago) a lot of people had these issues and pretty much exclusively to that (still super popular) drive model... the theory was that Kingston used a large batch of basically faulty storage controllers,  and thats the results of that... as i said, the drive isn't dead, its just extremely unreliable and the whole thing just messes windows up so much... plus, obviously its randomly really slow so gaming etc isn't even an option...

 

 

22 minutes ago, vertigo220 said:

As for OP and Discord, they did just do a full reinstall, so may be worth doing so again but, this time, doing a backup before installing anything, then install Discord and see if the issue pops back up again. Then they can just restore the backup. I feel like I've said "backup" a lot in this thread, lol.

yeah, true,  thats a good way to test this theory... i mean... it really seemed to be fixed... and what happened...? installed more or less random dodgy app... and discord is dodgy, even if you may not notice since these issues don't seem to appear on every system,  just some...

 

windows has a similar (i suppose)  standby memory bug btw, which only affects "certain configurations" luckily it can be fixed in most cases with a 3rd party app but yeah, ms just never fixed it (despite acknowledging that there's an issue,  iirc...)

[vertigo220]

1 minute ago, Mark Kaine said:

windows has a similar (i suppose)  stanby memory bug btw, a metric ****ton of issues, some of which only affects "certain configurations" ...ms just never fixed

There, that's better

[Bleda412]

@vertigo220 I'm not entirely certain that Discord is the cause of all my issues, but I think your suggestion of starting from a fresh install of Windows and creating a backup is a good idea. When I do that, should I do the quick reinstall or the longer one? By the way, I completely wiped that old NVMe (long, not quick, format), and I'm ready to send it to Samsung.

[vertigo220]

I don't know what the difference between the two is, but I don't think the full reinstall takes that much longer, so I'd just do that. For formatting there's no need for a long format unless you just want to do a semi-thorough test of the drive. But, more importantly, formatting IS NOT wiping. That does not remove the data. SSDs are harder, but not impossible, to recover, so sending it like that leaves the possibility your data can be recovered. It's very unlikely, but you need to decide how worried you are. Personally, I'd do a proper erasure or just encrypt it with BitLocker.

[Bleda412]

@vertigo220 Happy New Year. I did a clean install of Windows so that I can do a clean backup with Veeam. I haven't even installed the 3rd party graphics and mouse drivers. I made a bootable recovery media, getting both an ISO which I later used to burn a USB and then directly burned the USB. When I boot with that drive, the first picture is what comes up. I also followed the steps below that to create a recovery file, but I see that I can't run it when I'm using the drive. I'm rather lost, despite following tutorials. They don't have the issue with the console coming up. What I'm trying to do is get a very basic state of Windows to use as a backup. I also want (later) to back up a more developed state of Windows with some files and installed software. Then, I want to establish regular backups for files, which I would then back up to the cloud, the sort that automatically delete the old ones after a certain date. It sounds like you use FreeFileSync for the last goal.

[vertigo220]

IIRC the recovery drive is only needed for restoring if your OS is completely toast. It's important to have, but you don't need to worry about that right now. For now, just worry about making the backup in the GUI, which it looks like you've done based on your screenshots. Are you saying that didn't work? Did it not run after you clicked finish on the last step? I don't do cloud backups, so you'll have to figure out how you want to do that. I use FFS just to sync my drives, so any changes I make to one I sync over periodically to a couple others. Like I said, though, I need to figure something else out that doesn't require me to manually do that all the time, it's just a matter of finding something that actually works.

[Bleda412]

9 hours ago, vertigo220 said:

IIRC the recovery drive is only needed for restoring if your OS is completely toast. It's important to have, but you don't need to worry about that right now. For now, just worry about making the backup in the GUI, which it looks like you've done based on your screenshots. Are you saying that didn't work? Did it not run after you clicked finish on the last step? I don't do cloud backups, so you'll have to figure out how you want to do that. I use FFS just to sync my drives, so any changes I make to one I sync over periodically to a couple others. Like I said, though, I need to figure something else out that doesn't require me to manually do that all the time, it's just a matter of finding something that actually works.

The backup did work in terms of files. I can grab backed up files and restore them. I saw a guy on YouTube show how to recover the OS, and he had a nice menu in place of that terminal. I wanted to test a recovery because I wanted to make sure it worked. There's no sense in doing an OS backup if I can't use it to restore my bricked or severely hindered PC.

 

I tried using Macrium, the free version. I was able to create images of my NVMe and it's partitions, but I don't know how to restore them inside or outside the OS.

 

Edit: I don't know what I did, but I must've really messed something up. I booted up my computer and got a blue screen telling me that there was a problem with my Windows files. I saw some mention of system32. I assure you that I did not delete system32 and dump melted butter into my computer. I haven't been following those kinds of tutorials.

[Mark Kaine]

2 hours ago, Bleda412 said:

tried using Macrium, the free version. I was able to create images of my NVMe and it's partitions, but I don't know how to restore them inside or outside the OS.

you just open macrium and click restore then choose the drive where the backup is to restore... its quite simple although I prefer doing a "clone" that way you could just swap out the drives, but the normal restore function still works regardless...

 

2 hours ago, Bleda412 said:

Edit: I don't know what I did, but I must've really messed something up. I booted up my computer and got a blue screen telling me that there was a problem with my Windows files. I saw some mention of system32. I assure you that I did not delete system32 and dump melted butter into my computer. I haven't been following those kinds of tutorials.

well i can't help with that specifically but it really sounds more like something hardware related rather than you mess something up... i mean when its already complaining about system32 and you didn't touch that then it was probably one of those backup programs *or* simply a hardware issue (as i already said something seems dodgy about that motherboard/ maybe ram...)

 

the only thing i think you're probably doing wrong is to do too many things at once... troubleshooting is always best if you change one thing at a time only and then observe/ test if anything actually changed... i mean maybe im wrong but thats definitely my impression, and you already tried/installed 2 backup programs?  i mean if there's a hardware issue i can understand some confusion for sure, on the other hand im wondering... why lol.

 

you know that also makes it difficult to give advice,  i would normally say try restoring the macrium backup, but im not sure if you don't have another backup program running also and how that affects things...

 

i can just say macrium is one of the best backup programs and usually just works, although testing the restore is actually advisable.

[Mark Kaine]

On 12/29/2022 at 9:49 PM, Bleda412 said:

News: Unfortunately, I had some lag again, and it was fairly pronounced. The most recent change to my computer was that I plugged in my mic. I unplugged it, and it didn't help. Yesterday, I think, I installed Discord. I closed out of Discord, and the lag went away.

i mean, and you aren't sure discord is causing this? Must be something else, eh? I don't understand why you now start doing backups either... you should have just reinstalled windows and not install any unnecessary and problematic stuff like discord? or did you try that and it didn't work?  which would be super strange... but where do the backup programs fit in there then?

 

[Bleda412]

@Mark Kaine After realizing Discord was a possible problem, I uninstalled it using the tool you recommended. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you suggested I start from a fresh version of Windows and back up from there as a good practice. I thought that was a good idea, so I did that yesterday. I got confused by the backup stuff when things weren't going my way, so I stopped for the night.

 

I ran 4 full Memtests on the RAM, and they came back just fine. I have some old sticks of DDR3 nestled away, so I could try those out if it comes to it. I do think that the motherboard seems fishy. I will order a different one.

 

If you're wondering why I'm troubleshooting this in an odd way, it's because I'm way out of my depth.

[Bleda412]

Can I simply buy the same board, one that I know works (at least relatively well) with my configuration, or do I need to buy a different model?

[vertigo220]

Windows can be finicky, though it's unusual for it to break so easily. It's possible bad hardware corrupted it, but I'd find it surprising it happened so badly and so quickly this time compared to before. It seems more likely to me that something went wrong when messing with the backup programs, though I honestly don't know what. As for memtest, IIRC you used the Windows version instead of the one you boot into, and to my knowledge the Windows version is nowhere near as good. So it's possible it missed something.

 

I respectfully disagree that you shouldn't be taking this step to backup. First, it should be done regardless IMO. Second, it's better to figure it out now, when you can reinstall easily, than later when you can't. Third, it makes it significantly faster and easier to troubleshoot by adding and "removing" programs to see if they cause an issue. Just because a program caused an issue one time doesn't mean it's the problem. Otherwise you could say that Macrium and/or Veeam are the problem. But wait, I thought Discord was.... And Macrium and Veeam are both excellent programs. I do agree that, given the choice, Macrium is the better software, simply because it has more features. But both are solid and should work well and, in fact, the only one I've had problems getting to work as it should was Macrium. And there shouldn't be any issue using both together, in fact doing so could be ideal so in case one fails you the other might save you, but it shouldn't be necessary to do so. Macrium Free has limitations, obviously, so you need to make sure those won't keep you from using it how you need to.

 

As much as I hate to say it, just start over again. W10 installs very quickly, so not much loss there, just reinstall it and try again. If nothing else, this is a good learning opportunity. If you can't or don't want to figure it out, that's fine, as not everyone does when it comes to computers, but then you should find someone to help you or to do it for you. Or just skip the backups and deal with reinstalling every time there's an issue. But personally I'd do that before spending money on hardware that may or may not be bad. If you need more help with getting things working, maybe one of us can assist with remote desktop or at least over Discord or something. Would be a lot easier than a forum. Or at least you can try to set some time aside and communicate as quickly as you can here while you do things.

[Bleda412]

4 minutes ago, vertigo220 said:

It's possible bad hardware corrupted it, but I'd find it surprising it happened so badly and so quickly this time compared to before. It seems more likely to me that something went wrong when messing with the backup programs, though I honestly don't know what.

Agreed

4 minutes ago, vertigo220 said:

IIRC you used the Windows version instead of the one you boot into

No, I used the one you boot into.

 

6 minutes ago, vertigo220 said:

If you need more help with getting things working, maybe one of us can assist with remote desktop or at least over Discord or something. Would be a lot easier than a forum. Or at least you can try to set some time aside and communicate as quickly as you can here while you do things.

Working like this is challenging. I have a tech savvy friend, but he is hard to reach, and this might be difficult for him too. Any of the alternatives you suggest sound like a better alternative to how we've been operating so far.

[Mark Kaine]

1 hour ago, Bleda412 said:

Can I simply buy the same board, one that I know works (at least relatively well) with my configuration, or do I need to buy a different model?

i would definitely buy a different and newer board, if possible,  if you buy the same chances are you have the same issues again...

 

And yeah, i said to *completely* uninstall discord, but since thats actually difficult (from experience)  a  windows reinstall seemed to be the easier way, i don't recall if i suggested that though,  but i wasn't opposed to it since as i understood it, it was a fresh install anyways?

 

 

1 hour ago, Bleda412 said:

@Mark Kaine After realizing Discord was a possible problem, I uninstalled it using the tool you recommended. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you suggested I start from a fresh version of Windows and back up from there as a good practice. I thought that was a good idea, so I did that yesterday. I got confused by the backup stuff when things weren't going my way, so I stopped for the night.

 

I ran 4 full Memtests on the RAM, and they came back just fine. I have some old sticks of DDR3 nestled away, so I could try those out if it comes to it. I do think that the motherboard seems fishy. I will order a different one.

 

If you're wondering why I'm troubleshooting this in an odd way, it's because I'm way out of my depth.

Yeah, i get that, but its a bit frustrating because doing 1 step at a time would be easier for you - i think.

 

btw DDR3 is unlikely to be compatible so that isnt an option actually. 

 

 

So ok - outside of buying a new board, which i would recommend,  but regardless of that you should  (again)

 

Only have *one* hard-drive in your system. 

 

Do a fresh windows install,  preferably 10 since its more stable for sure, but 11 is ok if you really prefer that. 

during install delete all old partitions (all, thats important) 

and install windows normally 

 

and then simply dont do anything *except* testing if the mouse issue is gone, no additional hard drives, no software ... if thats ok, then you can slowly start adding programs (and possibly make a backup of the fresh install first) that you *know* you absolutely need and each time check if the issues came back (and for now simply don't install discord, since we're suspecting that to be the issue) 

 

 

And *if* after a clean install the issues persist you really don't need to do much else, except installing a new motherboard... which sucks, but thats how it is, you'll need a fresh install of windows,  bios and chipset drivers again ...

 

But again,  since you said it was fixed (?) a fresh install should really fix it again... hopefully!?