MSP 16 BSOD
Hey guys,
I purchased the fully loaded MSP 16 a couple of days ago, to go mobile with my work replacing my home office Cintiq 27QHD. First two days everything was great no real glaring issues other than some of the bugs that pretty much everyone has already experienced noted.
However, today I was browsing on google chrome where every tab had that kill page frozen. I closed it and then taskbar icons were unresponsive, windows key when I tried to restart and nothing was responsive. So I locked it and unlocked it with the power switch and restarted the tablet through the welcome/sign in screen. At restart i got a BSOD and the tablet went into a cycle of BSOD saying there's no remedy and that the pc has to be reset. I've attached a couple of pics, anyone experienced this, have any advice? I am now resetting the tablet, but it's been stuck at 1% for the past 30min. What the hell was wacom thinking releasing such faulty equipment and charge such a premium for it too.. Any help will be greatly appreciated, thanks!
EDIT: after being stuck at 1% trying to reset, I got an error saying that the pc is unable to reset, like wtff is this? I contacted Wacom via their contact form, but they'll probably take ages to reply. Can't understand if its hardware or software if it won't even reset itself..
Posted May 11, 2017, 1:06 AM UTC · edited
Ok so let me tell you where you're at. The operating system failed to start up several times in a row due to an error it keeps encountering. Windows 10 is smart about that and will suggest a repair if it sees you're having trouble starting up. It does this from a separate partition on your SSD for recovery that has a copy of windows installation files in it. Either it is unable to reinstall windows from that partition because it encounters a hardware problem, or because reinstalling won't fix the problem, or because there is a problem with the files or file system. It's impossible to tell from limited information.
The good news is BSOD is rarely a hardware problem. Without being able to see your crash dump I can't say what caused it and neither can you. I don't work for Wacom btw, I just know PC's.
So where does that leave you? You don't know if your system has a disk or memory problem, or if it's just windows flaking out. It could go either way honestly. The last time I was where you were at it actually was hardware, specifically it was a USB add in card that randomly ruined my weekends with BSOD on repeat before magically going away. Took me, a professional, 2 weeks of digging before I found the driver module responsible for the crash. Yanking the card and reinstalling fixed it.
What can you do while waiting for Wacom?
Attempt to boot into safe mode to see if it's really far gone, or just a driver problem. Getting windows 10 to do safe mode can be problematic due to secure boot but google it. Usually holding shift, or hitting F5 over and over on boot (you will need to plug a USB keyboard in for this)
Download a windows 10 recovery disk to load on any USB thumb drive and use it to reinstall windows 10. I've looked closely at my MSP and there is no proprietary software or really any software of any kind on it. It's a vanilla windows 10 install with the wacom driver preinstalled, that's it. So wiping and reinstalling isn't going to break anything or remove software you need. Just reinstall the wacom driver when you're done getting windows booted.
Immediately request a return. I don't know if you bought it from Amazon or from Wacom directly but whomever you will want to request an RMA authorization. Wacom you should find info on their website. Its usually not normal 'tech support' which can take weeks to be responded to. If you can't make headway online, pick up the phone and call them and they should be able to help. If it was Amazon contact them immediately and request a replacement making sure they understand it's a doa unit. If they give you crap about pc return policy, point out it's doa and push back. They can be hard headed but they have always come through for me, even if it means writing the office of the president of Amazon.
That windows recovery USB download also allows you to run a memory check, as do many other USB boot loaders for troubleshooting. If you want to rule out hardware as a cause then boot to a memory test and let it run over night. If no memory errors after a night of running, then it's not hardware, and reinstalling windows will fix it, but it could be a filesystem problem on the SSD in which case when you reinstall windows tell it to wipe and re-initialize the disk.
Good luck. PC's not working right is the bane of my existence so I feel your pain.
Thanks for taking the time mate, doing as you suggested. I contacted the store and wacom, going to try and give them a call as well to see if that speeds up the process rather than emails (though I like to log what is said). Much appreciated.