New network printer causing computer crash?

[Phaius W.]

Howdy! I’ve got an interesting problem with my workplace computer.

 

Here’s the setup: we’ve got 3 computers and a printer. The printer is attached to the network via ethernet. We recently installed a new wireless network printer. Since then, my computer has started shutting down when any computer uses the old printer.

 

About a month ago, we started having this issue, and it crashed my computer so many times that eventually it would not even POST, and the RAM & CPU diagnostic lights illuminated on the motherboard. We RMA’d the CPU and RAM, and the new ones seemed to resolve the issue… until today, my computer crashed when printing to the old printer again.

 

All 3 computers have the same hardware (R5 8600G, ASRock B850M Pro-A, 32GB Patriot DDR5, NVMe SSD, plenty adequate PSU, Windows 11 Pro) and were upgraded to these parts in March. The only thing that changed between my computer working fine and crashing with the printer’s use was adding the new network printer. No updates were done to my computer right before the incidents to my knowledge.

 

The printers are both HP laser printers, old one is the P1606dn and new one is the 3301cdw.

 

I was told it could be a power issue? All the computers and printers are plugged into two 20A circuits, I’m not sure which ones are plugged into which of the two circuits or if that has any effect.

 

Any insight whatsoever would be thoroughly appreciated! My computer died after shutting down only 5 times last occurrence, and it’s shut down twice this time already, so I would like to fix this before having to RMA parts again.

 

UPDATE:

I’ve put the printers and computers on fully different circuits and even fully unplugged the printer that I thought was creating the issue, but my computer will still crash and restart randomly. No clue what the problem is at this point.

Edited August 13, 2025 by Phaius W.

[TechJ]

It might be worth starting with viewing your crash files on the PC. In windows one place to look would be 'C:\Windows\Minidump' you'll need a viewer to see why it crashed there's a view examples on here that show different tools that you can use https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/performance/read-small-memory-dump-file

 

I'd also check the windows event log around the time, but I imagine if the system is restarting then you'll loose a lot of the data. If you're getting power issues then you'd normally see some kind of kernal power error in the event logs.

[Phaius W.]

40 minutes ago, TechJ said:

It might be worth starting with viewing your crash files on the PC. In windows one place to look would be 'C:\Windows\Minidump' you'll need a viewer to see why it crashed there's a view examples on here that show different tools that you can use https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/performance/read-small-memory-dump-file

 

I'd also check the windows event log around the time, but I imagine if the system is restarting then you'll loose a lot of the data. If you're getting power issues then you'd normally see some kind of kernal power error in the event logs.

I’m looking now and it seems it’s a consistent error that “the system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first”. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the events logged around the shutdown besides “config read failed, config: 18”. I couldn’t find the Minidump folder, is there a reason that would be missing?