My PC had a power outage recently, and it showed a blue screen the following morning. I started it in Safe Mode and ran Windows Memory Diagnostics, which reported no problems. Device Manager and dxdiag also show no obvious GPU or driver errors. However, the computer now freezes intermittently, and the display sometimes has sudden contrast or brightness changes. A PassMark check suggests the storage drive may be performing poorly. The system has an RTX 5070, an AMD Ryzen 7 eight-core processor, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB KLEVV CRAS C715 drive. What should I test or repair next, and could the outage have damaged the storage drive or another component?
2 Answers
Start by checking the crash logs rather than guessing. Look in C:WindowsMinidump for recent blue-screen dump files and keep copies of them. Those files can help identify whether the crashes are caused by a driver, storage issue, graphics problem, or something else. Also check the drive’s health and SMART data, back up important files immediately, and consider reinstalling or updating the graphics and chipset drivers if the logs point that way.
A UPS would be a good preventative measure, especially if your power is unreliable. For the current symptoms, describe exactly when the freezes and contrast changes happen—during games, at idle, or under load—and test the display cable, monitor, and another graphics output if possible. If the storage drive is reporting poor health or errors, stop relying on it and replace it after securing a backup.
I’ll check the Minidump folder and drive health first, then test the monitor and cable separately. I’ll also make sure my important files are backed up before running more stress tests.