Massive System instability

[Coffeebean]

This all started about 2 months back, and I've been battling it since. It began with little things like Discord and Steam acting up, especially Arma 2: Dayz Mod, where I was having issues with the game re-installing properly, and Battleye not working properly. Discord was doing this odd thing where the client would start, but just be a grey box, and no amount of re-installing would fix it. I started using the Discord PTB, and that worked for a while, but then started going the same thing. Google Chrome has also been giving me problems: web pages will load, but then simply crash 2 seconds after loading fully. Pictures will have either horribly artifacting, or will not load at all, and videos will stream for maybe 10 seconds then simply cut off. I've been using Edge as a result, and that's been working fine other than being a little slower. On top of this, NVIDIA drivers won't update, simply saying "error", Windows Defender can't update its definitions, and there have been general strange things going on with multiple other programs, such as dialogue windows having crazy, multicolor texture glitches on them.

 

I have reformatted at least 5 times (not keeping files), and I have installed a totally clean install of Windows 10, then reformatted afterwards, and these problems still persist. I have done everything in the book. Restarting. Clearing the CMOS. Unplugging the damn thing. None of the 'conventional' fixes have done anything.

 

The even stranger thing is that, about 3 weeks back, when I did the clean Windows install, most things began working normally except for Chrome. Steam was installing games properly, and Discord wasn't wigging out. But, 2 nights ago, while playing Space Engineers, the game began having terrible stability issues like crashing and map files corrupting. So, tonight, I uninstalled the game, and tried re-installing it. A problem I've had before came back up where a steam game will begin downloading, download 10mb of stuff, then instantly stop. I click "resume", and this process repeats. I've done EVERYTHING the steam forums suggest, like changing Server Download locations, and doing firewall related things, and none of that has helped. So, I figured "I'll just re-install steam". That too backfired, as now steam will not re-install. The "Installing Updates" dialogue will come up, saying there's ~50,000kb of updates, and it will do one of two things: 1: the bar will get all the way to the end, then a box will come up saying "steam must be connected to the internet to install" (paraphrasing on that), 2: the bar will get up to around 30,000kb, then go back down to 2,000kb, then come back up, then down, then up, then that same dialogue with the error, "steam must be connected to the internet to install" (paraphrasing on that, again) will pop up. Once again: I've restarted my PC and Router, I've cleared the download and tried again, and I've tried using WiFi instead of Ethernet. Still; nothing.

 

So, to cut this down to a bit of a TL:DR, here's my issues that have been quite constant for the past month.

 

• Steam games being unstable
• Steam itself failing to download
• Steam failing to install games
• Discord not starting properly/not starting at all
• NVIDIA drivers not wanting to accept updates
• WIndows Defender not wanting to accept updates
• Google Chrome being unstable, pages crashing, ect.
• Graphical artifacts (the same style, but across many programs)

On the note of my graphic errors, it is not my card. I've unplugged the card and tried doing things, and the problems are still the same. Now, as for the artifacting, I don't know. There is no way to replicate it. It happens on a whim.

 

Please, for the love of all that is good, help me out. At this time, I have not reformatted, because that hasn't helped in the past, so I doubt it will help now. I've made sure all of my drivers are compatible, and I've made sure to download all the proper drivers from Asus' website (my MOBO manufacturer). The only thing I can think now is that it's something hardware related. I *think* that it might be a bad logic chip or gate on my MOBO, or maybe the CPU has a bad sector. I really don't have any idea. I ruled these problems out early on because I have a computer with a wonked out MOBO, and it simply doesn't work. This computer does work.

 

Now, since it's something essential, some of my specs: https://puu.sh/sXhAC/7e55f03e9b.png

My processor is an Intel i5 6600k, for some reason it won't say that here. And, yes, this is a built computer. My dad and I built it as a first build in May/June of this year.

 

Also, something fun that happened while making this topic: the screenshot in the link above wasn't able to upload due to error 200. Maybe it's related, maybe it's not.

 

So... yeah. That'll all the info I can think of currently. I've dug into my brain trying to find every bit of information I can remember, so I hope this is enough to try and diagnose my problem.

[Bananaman1]

It might be an error in your drive, maybe something got corrupted and it made everything unstable.  If I were you, I would try doing some diagnosing in safe mode, and if it comes to it, maybe even reinstall windows

[Coffeebean]

5 minutes ago, Mlupo19 said:

It might be an error in your drive, maybe something got corrupted and it made everything unstable.  If I were you, I would try doing some diagnosing in safe mode, and if it comes to it, maybe even reinstall windows

I have re-installed windows. I did that a fair 2-3 weeks ago, and it didn't fix the problem. I've checked my drive (I forgot to mention, it's a 500gb SSD, and is my only drive) for bad sectors, and nothing's come up.

[DrMacintosh]

Run a drive scan and to check for errors. If the drive is healthy reinstall Windows and start from scratch. Its the price PC users must pay unfortunately. 

[RS2007GOD]

Could be bad ram but wierd that its not bsod. Have you got any other ram sticks to test? 

 

When you unplugged the gpu did you use onboard graphics or another gpu? Possibly pcie problem for the artifacts.

 

could be a hdd problem but if youv cleaned the drive and reinstalled windows again its probly not that unless it is the problem if that makes sense? Try another drive.

 

all I can think of right now part from things like CPU/mobo is stuffed goodluck man

[Bananaman1]

That sucks because that means there probably is some sort of broken hardware.  If you had any extra parts I would try temporarily using them to see if it fixes the problem.  If it does, that mean something is definitely broken

[Coffeebean]

13 minutes ago, Mlupo19 said:

That sucks because that means there probably is some sort of broken hardware.  If you had any extra parts I would try temporarily using them to see if it fixes the problem.  If it does, that mean something is definitely broken

 

16 minutes ago, RS2007GOD said:

Could be bad ram but wierd that its not bsod. Have you got any other ram sticks to test? 

 

When you unplugged the gpu did you use onboard graphics or another gpu? Possibly pcie problem for the artifacts.

 

could be a hdd problem but if youv cleaned the drive and reinstalled windows again its probly not that unless it is the problem if that makes sense? Try another drive.

 

all I can think of right now part from things like CPU/mobo is stuffed goodluck man

When I unplugged the GPU, it was onboard graphics, and I don't have any cards lying around. As for RAM, I haven't done anything to test it, and the only RAM sticks I know of in the house is a single 4GB card from an old laptop, but it's toasted. It came from my dad's Sony laptop, he saved it for some reason...

 

As for trying another drive, I don't really have a way of putting Windows on it. I've got an old 64gb HDD sitting here and I have a SATA to USB... is there some way to put Windows on it by plugging it into my computer via USB?

 

Thanks for all your comments, by the way. Tonight I'm going to do a total reformat again, and I'll check back here tomorrow and report what damage was done.

[RS2007GOD]

Yea you can make a windows disk via download.  You can put it on a USB flashdrive or a disk. Check Microsoft website they have a guide for it there.

[Bananaman1]

You can boot a PC off of USB, and as for getting Windows on it, I would just test it with a Linux Distro like Ubuntu or Debian.  Its really easy, just google it and you'll find about a million guides.

[RS2007GOD]

12 minutes ago, Coffeebean said:

 

When I unplugged the GPU, it was onboard graphics, and I don't have any cards lying around. As for RAM, I haven't done anything to test it, and the only RAM sticks I know of in the house is a single 4GB card from an old laptop, but it's toasted. It came from my dad's Sony laptop, he saved it for some reason...

 

As for trying another drive, I don't really have a way of putting Windows on it. I've got an old 64gb HDD sitting here and I have a SATA to USB... is there some way to put Windows on it by plugging it into my computer via USB?

 

Thanks for all your comments, by the way. Tonight I'm going to do a total reformat again, and I'll check back here tomorrow and report what damage was done.

Sorry misread you can possible clone windows onto it with a program like partition manger but that may not work, the issues may transfer with it. 

[RS2007GOD]

Oh and if the 64gb hdd is sata why can't you just put it inside via sata cable? If its a external drive you can possible take it apart and inside will be a regular 64gb sata hdd and then you can

[Coffeebean]

1 hour ago, Mlupo19 said:

You can boot a PC off of USB, and as for getting Windows on it, I would just test it with a Linux Distro like Ubuntu or Debian.  Its really easy, just google it and you'll find about a million guides.

I... don't quite know what a Lunix Distro is.

[Coffeebean]

1 hour ago, RS2007GOD said:

Oh and if the 64gb hdd is sata why can't you just put it inside via sata cable? If its a external drive you can possible take it apart and inside will be a regular 64gb sata hdd and then you can

Ah, I see what you mean. I... could do that. I'm not good with computers, hence why I'm here.

[Bananaman1]

A Linux Distribution is any operating system (Windows, OS 10) based off Linux (Ubuntu, Debian).  You can use it to tell if it is a hardware problem or a software one