Originally Posted by
piggybank
Asking for input on a problem I am hitting. Its a PC with SSD as C and WD 2TB HDD as E. 8GB of RAM (one recently failed) running Windows 10 Home 64 bit. Age of motherboard and Intel i7 processor and Ramos SSD now 2 years. All programs genuine. Avast antivirus installed and run. The problem exists also with the Western Digital Drive disconnected.
My problems stretch back 10 days. The computer was crashing about every two hours, message will report fault to Microsoft, etc. Event log was about 1200 errors in a five day period. Next day the PC was crashing often before I could log in. Anything important is not on the SSD so I made a clean install of Windows 10 home. Updates done, installed MS Office 32 bit Home and Business. Large amount of updates four hours on a good Internet. Yesterday, 16 December, all work on the PC was normal. I was sorting photos individually.
Today the computer crashed even before log on, about every 20 seconds. My log on PIN was not accepted but was reset via my Microsoft account. A pop up came up saying Windows could repair my SSD which I accepted. Computer now stays on and no crashes.
However Windows Defender has become the absolute master. I cannot open Task Manager, Avast is turned off continually by Defender. MS Office has been disappeared from the program list, does not open, and only scraps remain in Windows. Safe Mode is non functional. Downloads of my genuine programs on line blocked by Defender. The installer files it claims to be corrupted. Event Viewer will not open.
System Recovery has been set to zero by Defender. WiFi connection dropping out often.
I suspect a virus but Windows Defender will not allow me to connect to online virus scans nor use Avast.
If not a virus could the Motherboard be at fault, the SSD or Intel i7 Processor be faulty? My bets are on the virus.
The only option I see is to do another clean install of Windows. Nothing of importance is on C drive - the SSD.
Any input on this problem is appreciated.
Your initial symptoms sounded like a memory problem to me so I'd be suspicious of the remaining stick even though it seems ok now.
A failing power supply can also cause random failures.
Repairing an SSD generally involves marking corrupt areas as unusable and marking the files that were stored there as deleted. It's therefore likely that your disk is missing files which might cause surprise behaviour.
Your idea of reinstalling Windows is a sensible one,
Also, I wouldn't run two different virus scanners. They tend to fight each other. Once you get control back I'd disable one or other of them.