bsod, should I upgrade to Windows 10?

sudzs

I've had my laptop (Windows 7) for around 6 months now and thinking about upgrading to Windows 10. However, in the last 3 months I've been getting the odd bsod at completely random times. So I'm wondering if I should sort out the bsod before I upgrade to Windows 10 or should I just go ahead and upgrade and hope that sorts out the bsod.

Any advice appreciated!

bonzodog2

Its prob a driver/RAM/HDD issue, I'd check these before upgrading, else it would prob affect Win10

Capt'n Midnight

sudzs wrote: »

should I just go ahead and upgrade and hope that sorts out the bsod.

no.

it could be hardware, it could be virus, it could an inheritable config problem

you don't want to try an upgrade on an unstable system.


If you think it's a corrupt file then run SFC / SCANNOW

sudzs

Thanks for the replies, I thought as much, best not to upgrade until I can sort out the problem.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

no.

it could be hardware, it could be virus, it could an inheritable config problem

you don't want to try an upgrade on an unstable system.


If you think it's a corrupt file then run SFC / SCANNOW

With my limited knowledge but with the help of google I've been trying my best to figure out what the problem is.

I've done sfc/scannow and all was ok.

I did a memory check (that one that runs on start up) and that was ok.

I checked all drivers for updates, 1 or 2 updated but still got a bsod after that. Also there were 2 for a WAN miniport that came with a warning that the publisher was not verified and not to download the software so I didn't. 6 others all said Windows encountered a problem and the software couldn't be installed, "the system cannot find the file specified"

The other odd thing is that when I did some troubleshooting, in programme compatibility, I got...

"Incompatible Application
Fix application Epson printer software uninstall - Failed

Epson printer software unistall is incompatible,

Issue found
Incompatible Application - Detected
Fix application Epson Printer Software Uninstall - failed"

Malwarebytes and AVG say I'm ok.

I downloaded blue screen view and getting different results.... bad pool caller, IRQL not less or equal, driver IRQL not less or equal, memory management, page fault in non paged area.

My mind is boggled by it all! Also it's a refurb so only got a 3 month warranty which is up.

Any advice?!

ED E

Run "Speccy", keep an eye on the CPU and motherboard temps.

Also run Prime95 for an hour to test CPU stability.

sudzs

ED E wrote: »

Run "Speccy", keep an eye on the CPU and motherboard temps.

Also run Prime95 for an hour to test CPU stability.

Thanks, I've done that. CPU temp was going from 68 - 73 degrees. It was making me very anxious so stopped it after about 25 minutes. :rolleyes: Should I do it again for a full hour? is is safe?!

Motherboard is 16 degrees and SSD is 28 - 31 degrees.

ED E

sudzs wrote: »

Thanks, I've done that. CPU temp was going from 68 - 73 degrees. It was making me very anxious so stopped it after about 25 minutes. :rolleyes: Should I do it again for a full hour? is is safe?!

Motherboard is 16 degrees and SSD is 28 - 31 degrees.

Temps wise you're good if its only getting that high. CPU is likely stable.

Hardware wise you're probably safe, the BSODs are most likely software so personally Id fire ahead with W10. It'll refresh everything as it goes anyways which may solve it.

sudzs

ED E wrote: »

Temps wise you're good if its only getting that high. CPU is likely stable.

Hardware wise you're probably safe, the BSODs are most likely software so personally Id fire ahead with W10. It'll refresh everything as it goes anyways which may solve it.

Thanks a mill for the advice, and reassurance that it's probably not a hardware problem. I was a bit worried about that seeing as it's refurbished.

Thanks again!

sudzs

Ok, I haven't taken the plunge with Windows 10 yet as I'm still having a problem with bsod. But I did discover that there was an issue with Mcafee. It came on the laptop but I uninsalled it and use AVG instead. However it turns out some remnants were still there in the registry. Is it possible that could be the culprit? With a bit of help from Mcafee it's all been removed now so will wait and see if I get any more crashes but would love to hear if anyone thinks that could have been the problem all along?

Irish Steve

MCafee may have been an issue, if you have cleaned out with their help it should be OK in that area now.

Before upgrading to W10, check on the hardware manufacturers site to make sure that the BIOS for the machine is up to date, there have been quite a few changes with some suppliers to enable W10, and the age of the machine is no guide, I had a 3 week old Dell recently that showed it needed an update before installing W10.

Also check to make sure that there are drivers for your Epson Device for W10, given that there seem to be issues in that area, the notes you've posted suggest that there is indeed a driver issue of some sort going on.

The Windows driver not certified issue is regular with some manufacturers, as long as the source of the driver was the manufacturers site rather than a "driver download" site, you should be OK to install it. Be careful where you get drivers from, some of the sites that offer driver upgrades can be an issue, as they will want to install their own bloatware software that may also have advertising and other undesirable options within it.

sudzs

Irish Steve wrote: »

MCafee may have been an issue, if you have cleaned out with their help it should be OK in that area now.

Before upgrading to W10, check on the hardware manufacturers site to make sure that the BIOS for the machine is up to date, there have been quite a few changes with some suppliers to enable W10, and the age of the machine is no guide, I had a 3 week old Dell recently that showed it needed an update before installing W10.

Also check to make sure that there are drivers for your Epson Device for W10, given that there seem to be issues in that area, the notes you've posted suggest that there is indeed a driver issue of some sort going on.

The Windows driver not certified issue is regular with some manufacturers, as long as the source of the driver was the manufacturers site rather than a "driver download" site, you should be OK to install it. Be careful where you get drivers from, some of the sites that offer driver upgrades can be an issue, as they will want to install their own bloatware software that may also have advertising and other undesirable options within it.

Thanks Irish Steve, appreciate the helpful reply. Will check the bios and also the printer drivers. Say it was the printer causing the problem, if I just uninstalled it would that solve the problem? Then reinstall it after I upgrade

Haven't had any issues since the remnants of Mcafee were removed but that was just a week ago and it could go weeks and weeks before I'd get a bsod.

Thanks again!

Irish Steve

If you remove the printer drivers, that should resolve the upgrade concerns, but don't plug the printer in to the computer again until you've finished the upgrade, as that may confuse things.

It will be worth checking that the Epson is supported under W10, and if the Epson site says that you need to download drivers from their site, it could be worth doing that and saving to a USB stick or similar before the upgrade.

Last but not least, find a way to back up everything that's important on the machine before you start the upgrade, especially if there's any irreplaceable data (like pictures) on the machine, it should work, but if it doesn't, that's not the time to discover that you don't have a backup. Also, Don't start the upgrade if you have any time pressures, it WILL take longer than you expect, and if you are under pressure, that's when you run the risk of pressing the wrong button at the right moment.

I have 10 working here, and it's been stable for a good while, there's a few niggles but no show stoppers so far

Good luck with it.

sudzs

I might do that with the printer all right. There is a driver available on their site for 10, also all the software, I suppose I should download that rather than use the original cd that came with the printer. I doubt that's ready for Windows 10! Just one question! Why is it better (if it is) to save the software to a usb rather than just go to the website and download it?

And luckily have most stuff backed up already, just a few photos and docs to add.

Thanks again Irish Steve, though I am a little resistant to change so might take me a few more weeks before I take the plunge with Windows 10! mr sudzs updated his tablet to Lollipop yesterday and even that freaked me out a little!! :rolleyes:

Irish Steve

Using a USB stick gives you the ability to remove the data from the computer while doing other things.

Ideally, you don't want to have to do something drastic like format the disk, but if for some reason you do end up having to, the drivers for the printer will be on an external device that's not going to be affected by the changes being made.

That's worst case scenario, but it can happen if something goes wrong at just the wrong stage of the process, which could be something as simple as a power cut at just the wrong moment, if the disk is writing to a critical system file at the moment the power fails, the write may not complete correctly, so when it goes to read that section of the disk later, it gets bad data, which can (and does) cause all manner of unexpected things to happen, and in the worst case scenario, it won't reboot, so becomes inaccessible.

If it won't boot, and can't recover, that can mean a complete format (wipe) of the disk, and then a reload from backups, which is why I made my comments about critical files being backed up before starting the upgrade, 99% of the time, the machine doesn't go near system files to write them, so if a failure occurs, any data corruption is most likely in a user file rather than a system file. A corrupt picture or word processing document is not a complete disaster, but a corrupt system file can be a nightmare to recover from, due to the difficulty of actually getting access to the machine again.

The chances of this level of hassle is minuscule in the scale of things, but I'm a great believer in not taking chances where computer data is concerned, and that caution (some would call it paranoia) has stood me in good stead from things as small as a Commodore 64 (very old gaming machine) up-to a Concurrent Computer 3280 series (Big Mini with several Gigabytes of database back when Gigabyte databases were HUGE) with over 200 users, the entire national network of a European Insurance company.

Your reluctance to move is valid, Microsoft's track record on new software is not great, the only redeeming factor is that they knew before 10 came out that they had to do some things very differently this time round, and it seems that so far, 10 is the cleanest new release that we've seen in a very long time.

janeparker

No doubt, Window 10 update may bring some issues like Add-in incompatibility, PST access denied, Send-Receive Error and Office 365 re-activation. But, these problems can be solved at user's end manually.

Windows 7 users have chance to grab free Windows 10 migration so you shouldn't ignore this one lucrative offer. Experts are also recommending Windows 10 which is collaboration of features inherited from Windows 7 & Windows 8.

sudzs

At the risk of appearing extremely needy I just wanted to ask one more thing!

I decided to uninstall the printer from the laptop in case its drivers are the problem, so I've used the removal tool and it's all gone. But I did a search in the registry for Epson and found an Epson folder of stuff!


Is it ok to just delete all this?? And can I just right click on the folder in the column on the left and hit delete? Or is it more complex than that? I don't want to fup up anything so would appreciate if anyone could give me an ok to delete!

Thanks again to all for your kind help and patience!!

CatInABox

sudzs wrote: »

At the risk of appearing extremely needy I just wanted to ask one more thing!

I decided to uninstall the printer from the laptop in case its drivers are the problem, so I've used the removal tool and it's all gone. But I did a search in the registry for Epson and found an Epson folder of stuff!


Is it ok to just delete all this?? And can I just right click on the folder in the column on the left and hit delete? Or is it more complex than that? I don't want to fup up anything so would appreciate if anyone could give me an ok to delete!

Thanks again to all for your kind help and patience!!

It's generally not recommended to go deleting stuff in the registry, it's almost impossible to know why the Epson stuff is in there, i.e. was it put there as part of the Epson printer install, or is it part of the Windows install, etc.

sudzs

CatInABox wrote: »

It's generally not recommended to go deleting stuff in the registry, it's almost impossible to know why the Epson stuff is in there, i.e. was it put there as part of the Epson printer install, or is it part of the Windows install, etc.

Well I am being very cautious, paranoid even, before changing anything in the registry which is why I'm asking here! I can't see why there would have been any Epsom stuff as part of the original Windows 7 install. Surely it could only have come from my installation of the Epsom software ?? But I am open to correction and will await further advice.

FSL

You could export the key before deleting it and if it causes problems you then import it back.

sudzs

FSL wrote: »

You could export the key before deleting it and if it causes problems you then import it back.

Thanks, I backed up everything and also the bits I wanted to delete. I'll give it a few weeks and if I don't get any more bsod episodes I'll go for the upgrade.

Thanks all for the great advice!