Twice today this happened. Both times I was playing a game, one a jigsaw puzzle game and one a needle work paint game. All of a sudden my screen went fuzzy (like static) and then my computer shut down and restarted itself. I lost my game progress but my Firefox tabs were still open.

Any idea?

Could be the power supply is having issues. Maybe overheating.

I'm also guessing power supply issues. However, the fuzzy/static screen also makes me think a possibly failing video card. You can check your interior temps with something like Speccy, which is free software. I use it and it's really easy to use. It's from the same folks who make CCleaner.

https://www.ccleaner.com/speccy

Thank you both.

I have the free version of Speccy but I always forget about it. I'll check it out and keep an eye on the temps.

oldbroad, if the inside of your computer looks like mine, it probably has a lot of dust and cat hair. Check your intake and outflow vents too. I don't "think" temps are your problem, but it's always good to check.

I know without doubt that it is dusty inside.

I'm sure mine is worse!!

Alright.....open up those computers and take a leaf blower to them 100%. Works like a champ! or a can of air. If one would use a leaf blower keep some distance from the computer. It does a very good job and gets those vents/filters like brand new - Clean that computer

What would you suggest Drac?

Yeah, NO to the leaf blower! Spin those fans too fast and you could have a problem. Plus, it won't get into all the hidey holes. This is what I use... my son did an internship in a computer repair shop and said they used the same one.

Data Vac

That is a nice little cleaner Drac and on sale. Thank you but in the meantime I will stick to my guns

LOL! Orion, I got that little compressor for about $50 a good 15 years ago!

Orion I would stick with Draclvr's recommendation, I saw your video re: Leaf blower, wow that guy is lucky he did not Bend his Video and or Sound card, that is one heck of a strong force and I do not care what distance you do it from. And how did he get his machine so dirty, if you do a regular 6 months cleaning one should not accumulate that much dust, I have 2 dogs and 2 cats and my machine would never get that dirty.

I hear everything you are saying Starcom, thank you for your concern. I have been blowing out my computers with an electric blower for years including a DOS that sat for years. It came close to that video. I have yet to run into a problem. I clean mine once a year. Controlling the airflow it actually does a very good job. I would not recommend it to anyone. Drac's suggestion is a good way to go

You get that issue figured out oldbroad. Are you good?

Not exactly, but it hasn't happened again. I have, however, been having a mouse problem. I finally moved it to a different port to see if that will help. Fingers crossed! All my problems are probably dust related.

Are you set up to clean out that dust

Last night I had the shut down again but this time my screen turned blue and it told me that my device ran into a problem and needs to restart (as opposed to just shutting down without warning). I did try to do some cleaning in the case today but I can mostly just spray with the canned air. I use a brush on the outside of the back panel and around some other outside areas. I tried to use a so called static free cloth a bit but cannot really get inside good and don't want to mess anything up.

Changing the mouse to a different port did not help. It still doesn't want to work. Maybe it is just worn out from over use. I will try a different one if it continues to give me issues but I think this happened once before and it seemed to correct itself at some point (like it was caused by some stupid update or other).

Have you checked to see if your graphics drivers have any updates? That is one of the reasons you could be getting the "your device ran into a problem" message.

Unfortunately, some time back a Windows update decided to update my video card driver and I can no longer update it myself. I was thinking of trying to run a hardware diagnostics but am not really certain of how to do that or how long it will take or what I would do with the results anyway.

Others here will probably be able to offer more suggestions and maybe suggest a good diagnostics program.

I'm handing my computer over to my grandson to game for a couple of hours, so won't be able to check back. Windows update should never update your video card drivers. It will update the drivers on the video chip which is part of your processor, but not a stand alone video card. All Windows update has are generic drivers that run on Windows, not the latest updates for a stand-alone video card. So, something does not sound right there.

I would start with the simplest diagnostic, a System Diagnosis scan and see what it comes up before running a full diagnostic of the drive. Do you have a hard drive or an SSD?

Try the instructions here and see what it finds.

https://www.thewindowsclub.com/how-to-run-system-diagnostics-on-windows

I may not be saying it right Drac, but what information I found a long time back indicated that was the issue. In looking again now, this is what I have found. The warning shown in this article is very similar to what is shown when I click on my Radeon Software icon but is not as lengthy. I used to update through the software but can no longer do that. I have a AMD Radeon RX 5700. The article says "adrenalin edition" which is not what I have (as far as I know). The second link has a download section for a driver but again, I am uncertain about it. In the past I looked and could not find any new drivers showing for my card.

https://www.amd.com/en/resources/support-articles/faqs/PA-300.html

https://www.amd.com/en/support/down...n-rx-5000-series/amd-radeon-rx-5700.html

I have a SSD and also a (not SSD) hard drive.

He finished the game!

If you are getting that error, it sounds like you do need to update your video card drivers. One Youtube video I found told you how to roll back the driver and then down the most recent ones anew. But let's see what version you have. Go to Settings and Apps... scroll down to your AMD driver and it should say what version it is underneath it.

It happened again just a little while ago. This time I saw that it said: "K Mode Exception not handled".

I cannot find where to see the video driver version. In the past I found it but I have actually been looking for it for a couple of days now.

OMG, I was just typing in here when the screen changed and I was on a "sign in to X" screen (or something). Anyway, I think I found the driver information through Device Manager and DX Diag.

32.0.11027.1003 Digital signer is Microsoft Windows Hardware Compatibility Publisher - not something I did - 8/26/24

Why can't I just use that link I posted above for the AMD Radeon RX5700 ?

Did you try what I suggested... Settings, Apps, and then either AMD or Radeon - not sure how it would be listed?

Bump up - typing at same time. No, can not find it where you directed me to.

So, in Apps, there is nothing for your video card software? I assume this is your Windows 10 computer?

Yes there is for the software but as I mentioned above, I cannot access it. That is where it shows the similar message as in the first link I posted above. I used to use it to update the drivers; now I cannot!

I'm not talking about accessing it. Just reading what it says below for the driver version - assuming it's there. We're just trying to find your driver version.

It does not show anything below it - nothing about drivers.

OK. That's what I wanted to know. Let's try another way. Right click on the white windows logo in the lower left. Click on Device Manager. Click on Display Adapter. Right click on your video card. Click on Properties. Click on Driver.

32.0.11027.1003 Digital signer is Microsoft Windows Hardware Compatibility Publisher - not something I did - 8/26/24

Why can't I just use that link I posted above for the AMD Radeon RX5700 ?

Yes. DEFINITELY use that link and download the driver for Windows 10. I just wanted to be sure that one wasn't already installed.

The 39 MB Auto Detect and Install one right?

Got the BSOD again so I went ahead and did this one. I'll see what happens Tuesday. Time for now!

Sorry, I went to bed a little before midnight... granddaughter and I stayed up talking for awhile.

Yes, that one is OK, but I meant the actual driver itself which is the one below. But hopefully the auto-detect one detected your video card and downloaded and installed the correct driver for it. You were running on a generic Microsoft driver which, while functional, is NOT the driver you need as it only has basic functionality.

Let's see what happens. I also did a lot of searching on the K mode exception error. There can be many causes, but one of them is drivers, so I wanted to get that taken care of first as that's the easiest one to deal with. The other fixes are more complicated. Did you ever run that System Diagnostics?

If this does turn out to be a driver issue, I wonder if those Domini games where you get a black screen might work properly now, ob. But I am really getting ahead of myself here.

Far as I can tell, both links led to drivers. And even that first one ended up being the Adrenalin version though it did not say that. Also, I repeat, I did not install the Microsoft driver. That happened during an update. That is information I found from Googling and the solution was to uninstall the update and reinstall the software. (Something along those lines anyway.) This must have been at least two years ago when I noticed I could no longer access my AMD software to check for driver updates. I was also unable, at that time, to find any more current drivers.

Marian, I will be checking that but it seemed that the games were just not compatible with the card. The card was new in 2019 and none of the games developed since 2019 worked. I'll post when I try one. I think they are still installed, so maybe later.

From what I've been able to find, there was some reason Microsoft installed that driver... ALL the AMD driver software is called Adrenalin. The first link should have detected you video card and then installed the correct driver. I think at the time you couldn't use your software was when Microsoft detected something amiss and installed it for you. Fingers crossed that this solves your issues... otherwise, we have more detective work to do!

On My Windows 7 these games all played perfectly and the video card in that machine was released in 2012.

They all played perfectly on my Win 7 computer also. I don't know the video card release date for that on though. I just tried Twin Mind: Power of Love. It does not have video; just a black screen and audio.

Oh, well. It was worth a try!

One thing bothering me though. In the software app it shows a lot of the games I have installed and it shows play time for them. There are a couple of Sherlock Holmes games showing play time but I have not played them. There is also Alien Isolation showing 165 hours. This is a game I do not even own! It doesn't show the game icon picture like the other games do. It shows something like a spiral note pad. ???

Just Googled and see others with this issue. Off to read about it!

New stop code: Kernel Security Check Failure

I Googled but I think I may need a trip to Best Buy. I cannot deal with all of this!

Exactly what I was going to suggest. That is such a generic error and covers a lot of territory. We could go back and forth here, but that is really your best option. Darn! I was hoping the resolution of your video card driver would have been the end of it.

Sorry I can't send my son over there to you, ob. He would get this sorted out. Otherwise, having someone else take a look at it is probably your best bet now.

There are a lot of steps involved in sorting it out and I'm sure someone like Marian's son could fix it! I just hesitate to start telling you to do chkdsks and booting into safe mode and all kinds of other stuff.

If you take it to Best Buy, they are known for being lazy and just wiping the disk and reinstalling the OS and "hopefully" all your other stuff. So, make sure you talk to them about what they intend to do. I wish you had a reputable computer repair place nearby!

Yes, I too would recommend a reputable computer repair place over Best Buy. I agree with Drac that what Best Buy would probably do is just reformat the hard drive. I live in the boondocks and years ago when my son was not here, on a couple of occasions I actually found someone to come to my house and do the troubleshooting: one person was a local, and the other was someone from Dell.

Having googled the kernel failure message myself, it sounds like there are several different reasons why you could be getting this message and they need to be looked into, one by one.

And now it went back to the "K Mode Exception not handled".

Also, earlier, I had this message when I tried to open a show on TubiTV:

upstream connect error or disconnect/reset before headers reset reason: connection termination

Don't know if that is all connected or not.

I plugged that error into a search and it came up with clear your browser cache and cookies. At least THAT would be easy! That K Mode Exception not handled was similar to that Kernel Security error - many possibilities for a cause.