I would just like to preface this by saying I'm not very tech-savvy, but I do follow instructions very well and will actively try to help you help me!
Just a bit of background info, I have a Gateway PC that I've had for about 5-6 years now. It uses Windows 7 64-bit as its OS. For the first ~3 years it ran without problems, and then it started acting up. When it first started having problems, I would get
BSODs often with varying reasons. It would also have weird random things happen like completely freezing with the screen being all glitched up, as well as any sound playing turning into this horrible noise before shutting off. I tried many different things
to fix these problems -- mem tests, cleaning up the registry, updating drivers, factory resets, etc. I ended up replacing some of the RAM/memory sticks in the PC and it was fine for about a year. Fast forward a year, same thing happened and I resolved it again
by replacing the other RAM/memory sticks.
However, for the past few months my computer has been having problems again and I would like to hopefully fix it without having to spend money on RAM or anything else if possible. Lately my computer has been freezing sporadically, sometimes recovering and
sometimes not, as well as getting BSODs. These sometimes happen when I'm gaming and sometimes when I'm just using the computer for other things.
Often times when gaming the computer will freeze, go black briefly, and then I'll get a message saying "AMD display driver has stopped responding and has recovered" Sometimes it doesn't unfreeze and I have to shut it down. Another issue that sometimes happens
is the internet will cut out and when I run troubleshooting, it is an error with the network adapter. Sometimes the troubleshooter can fix it immediately, sometimes I have to wait a few minutes for it to resolve, and other times the network adapter driver
seems to completely disappear and I have to shut down my computer and wait several hours for it to come back. This hasn't been too much of an issue lately but it has happened frequently within the past few months, so I feel it is worth mentioning.
The BSODs that have happened lately have been "The device driver is stuck in an infinite loop...." and/or "Attempt to reset display driver failed..." and perhaps 1 or 2 more that I can't remember. These usually happen after the computer freezes several times
and seems to recover each time, but eventually it often leads to a BSOD. I suppose it is also worth mentioning that my computer, when gaming or during these errors, seems to be a lot noisier than I remember it being (the fan/other computer noise?) These current
issues seem quite different than the ones I encountered 1-2 years ago so I am not sure what to do. Here is a list of things I have tried within the past month or so to no avail:
- Changed a value (I forget which) in the regedit to 8 (sorry this is vague...I read that it was a common fix to some BSOD problems)
- Updated all of my drivers
- Uninstall and reinstall the latest display and network adapter drivers
- Clean the registry
- Make sure that windows is fully updated
- Virus/malware scans
- Ran a mem test
I can't pinpoint exactly when this new batch of issues started, and it doesn't seem that it was triggered by anything. My computer, for the past couple of years now, has just gone through periods where it froze and had BSOD for varying reasons, would be fine
for a few months eventually, and then start acting up again. I would really like to get to the bottom of things as it has become such a hindrance in my ability to work and game productively, as I have to constantly live in fear of it crashing or freezing :(
Thanks so much for reading and for your help. Please don't hesitate to ask me to provide more info about anything as I would be happy to do so!