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?