BSOD, randomly crashing, and other miscellaneous issues in Predator PH315-54

KTBMedia

Hi. I use 64-bit Windows 10 Home 21H2, on a Predator PH315-54 laptop with an 11th Gen Intel i7 processor and 16 GB of RAM. (Am I doing this right?)

This computer is still pretty young, as I got it back in February. Despite this, I've periodically had some weird (but ultimately minor) issues with it, such as the audio drivers occasionally not behaving properly (i.e. audio coming out of the laptop speakers sounding like a loud and obnoxious static-y screeching), and the whole computer exhibiting extreme slowdown after a few hours of use (which always fixes itself after a basic reboot). These issues began pretty much as soon as I got it, though they were always easy enough to deal with that I didn't think much of it at first (in hindsight, this was probably a mistake, since my previous laptop wasn't nearly as powerful and never had those concerns).

In the past few months, however, I've been growing more frustrated with it. Several times, now, the computer has just randomly shut off while I'm using it. And I don't always mean that the entire system shut off; a few times, the screen's gone dark and the audio stops, but I can tell from the lights on the keyboard that the hardware is still running. When this has happened, I'm tempted to do a reset, but turning the computer off proves difficult; The computer simply doesn't respond to the power button, even if I hold it down for ten seconds or more to do a "hard" reboot. I'm only able to get it to power down if I do something weird like unplug the charger, and only then does the computer finally respond to the power button and let me hear the whirring of the fans die down. This has only happened a few times, irregularly, and I've noticed that it happens less frequently as long as I keep the computer powered down as often as possible, and I've also noticed that having my second external monitor plugged in seems to make it slightly more likely for this to happen, though I'm not entirely sure. I haven't had this happen in a few weeks now, thankfully.

Recently, however, I turned the computer on, and not even five minutes later I got the blue screen of death. I wasn't even doing anything with it yet, I had just opened a PDF file. It just happened again a few minutes ago, after only around an hour of use (and again, not even using any RAM-intensive applications).

Other things:

- As far as I can remember, I didn't make any changes or installations prior to this happening. As I said before, the minor issues with it have been going on ever since I first got the PC, though the crashes started becoming more frequent around the time that this college semester began. The only thing I can think of installing around that time was Wolfram Mathematica, but that should be innocent enough (my college uses it, and it worked fine on my previous laptop).

- I've occasionally looked into what the causes might be, but I can't find other instances of people having these same issues, which is a little concerning. I've tried re-installing my audio drivers, since that was my first sign that something was funky, but every time I've tried to do so, Windows has just told me that all my drivers are already up to date.

So yeah. Any ideas as to what on earth is going on here? Thanks in advance.

[Edited the thread to add model name to the title]

JackE

1. An external monitor should be turned on first for a minute or so before turning the laptop on.
2. A second external monitor might cause some of the issues you described depending on how it's connected.
3. Is a dock being used?
4. Also search Windows start menu 'true harmony' --- is true harmony app installed?

KTBMedia

Thanks for the reply. In response to your individual points/questions:

Point 1: I'd like some more information on this, since you said "before turning the laptop on". Normally, the laptop and the monitor are both already on, and then I just plug the dock into the laptop. Are you suggesting that I should plug it in before I even turn either device on, then turn on the monitor, and then power on the laptop after waiting a minute or so?

Point 3: Yes, I use a dock. It plugs into the laptop through a USB port, and the dock itself has two additional USB ports, along with a VGA port (where the monitor plugs in). Is this not recommended? Is there a more recommended way to connect an external monitor?

Point 4: I just checked, and no. I've never heard of that app, nor have I ever uninstalled it. Is that something I should have installed?

It's worth noting that some of the problems I've described still happen (albeit more rarely, I think) even when the second monitor isn't plugged in. I'm a university student, so I carry it around everywhere. The "BSOD within minutes after bootup" incident happened when the monitor wasn't connected, for example.

Thanks for the response.

JackE

>>>Are you suggesting that I should plug it in before I even turn either device on, then turn on the monitor, and then power on the laptop after waiting a minute or so?>>>I use a dock. It plugs into the laptop through a USB port,>>>albeit more rarely>>>BSOD within minutes after bootup" incident happened when the monitor wasn't connected, for example.>>>

Laptop should be last to turn on. What's the dock brand/model number?

Occasional BSODs are a fact of life. Win11 and even Win10 are still works in progress judging from all the major updates that come fast and furious every 6mos or so. Neither seem to yet have quite the same stability & consistency as Microsoft's last halfway decent version Win7. I'm always anxious when a Win10 or 11 update gets installed fearing what grief it might cause next.

KTBMedia

The dock is a j5create. The model number is JUD380: https://en.j5create.com/products/jud380

It plugs into a USB port, and has two USB-A ports, one ethernet port, one HDMI port, and one VGA port.

And I agree with you about the Windows thing; I've been avoiding the "install Windows 11 now!" update for a while now because other people I know who've done so have been experiencing even more frustrating problems.

To be fair, I'm not too bothered by the thought of occasional BSODs, I'm only concerned about the possibility of it becoming a more common thing, or that it may be a symptom of a larger issue that may lead to the whole thing dying for good.

JackE

This seems to be a Win7 era dock that had display limitations on machines with advanced USB ports like on Macs. Accordingly, I suggest that you confirm with JSCreate that the dock is ThunderBolt4 certified or compatible to run more than one monitor since your machine's type-C port is an advanced TBT4. While TBT4 should be backward compatible with the dock, I have no way of confirming this. Sorry.

KTBMedia

I haven't contacted anyone from J5Create yet, but I did a bit more research on it and might have identified the issue? Or at least, an issue.

According to the webpage I linked in my previous post, these are some of the system requirements for my dock:

• For one 2K (2048 x 1152 @ 60 Hz) full-screen video playback
  • CPU: Intel® Core™ i5 Quad Core or AMD™ equivalent
  • GPU: Intel ® HD Graphics 5000 or AMD™ equivalent
• For two 2K (2048 x 1152 @ 60 Hz) full-screen video playback
  • CPU: Intel® Core™ i7 Quad Core or AMD™ equivalent
  • GPU: Intel ® HD Graphics 620 or AMD™ equivalent

My computer satisfies every other requirement listed on the site, but these ones specifically are interesting to me. I don't really know anything about CPUs or GPUs, so pardon me for my lack of understanding of this. According to the system settings, my laptop processor is listed as the following:

"11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-11800H @ 2.30GHz  2.30 GHz"

Which looks like it satisfies the CPU requirement, except it's missing the "Quad Core" part. Is this important? Does that mean anything?

Also, the GPU requirements. For some reason, Windows 10 makes it harder to find information about your GPU than any other system information, so I had to open Task Manager to find this out. But apparently, my laptop has two GPUs. GPU 0 is labelled "Intel(R) UHD Graphics", and GPU 1 is labelled "NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Laptop GPU". It looks like this actually doesn't satisfy the requirements?

So could this be my issue, then? My computer just has a bad GPU?

I also noticed on the shopping page for the dock that it apparently needs me to install a driver from the website? I've never noticed that before. I downloaded and installed the driver for the dock model that I have, so we'll see if that changes anything, I guess.

JackE

The i7-11800H is octa-core. Double the requirement. Both GPUs also exceed the requirements. Sorry I assumed you already installed its driver. My main concern is still with its advanced port TBT4 certification and compatibility if you have any more issues with more than one monitor.

KTBMedia

All right, I've sent an email to J5Create and asked about the TBT4 certification. In the meantime, I'll keep an eye out and see if things have changed now that the driver is installed.

Circling back to an earlier topic, I never got an explanation as to what you meant regarding the "True Harmony" app. Doing a quick search online, it looks like that's audio-related, but I'm still not sure whether or not that's something I'm supposed to have, or if that's something that could be causing other issues. Would you be able to provide some more information on that?

JackE

Yes, TrueHarmony is an Acer audio enhancement app installed as a package on some but not all machines. It created audio issues on some machines with intermittent crackling or distorted sounds. If you don't have it installed, then don't worry about.

KTBMedia

All right, I won't worry about that then. As for the TBT4 concern, I got into contact with J5Create support and they said that the USB ports on this computer should be backwards compatible with the dock as long as I have the relevant drivers installed. I haven't had a random shutdown or crash since I installed the driver, though that was only a few days ago, so I'll update if things keep being weird.

Also, new problem today: Just turning the machine off is a pain if I have the charger plugged in. Sometimes, I'll hit "shut down" and it will go right back to the login screen after a few minutes of showing me the "shutting down..." screen (and yes, I'm sure that I'm not just accidentally clicking "restart" - it will happen multiple times in a row even if I'm being super cautious and careful). Is this something I should be worried about, or does this just once again fall into the category of Windows being Windows? Either way, it's a hassle.

JackE

>>>I'm not just accidentally clicking "restart">>>

Believe it or not, Windows still has bugs. More than ever before. Try this. Hover over shutdown to highlight it. Instead of clicking it, hit the enter key. But just as you hit enter, watch very carefully what happens to the highlight just before the screen goes black.