SSD issue or Windows 8.1 issue?

[Dave3000]

Today I was watching a video on youtube and after about a minute of watching it, I get a blue screen saying that my PC has encountered a problem and will restart. It also says something about a corrupt structure. After the reboot, I lost 32 GB of free space on my Games partition on my SSD (D: drive) and gained 5 GB of free space on my OS partition on my SSD (C: drive). I talked to Samsung tech support on the phone and it turned out that the reason I lost 32 GB space on my D: drive was because Windows for some strange reason automatically moved the page file to my D: drive and disabled it on my C: drive and increased the size to 32 GB from 5 GB. Isn't the default page file size 5 GB in Windows 8.1 as that was what it was before if I let Windows manage the page file? I have 32 GB RAM. I also had around 20 GB of free space on my C: drive when the crashing occurred. Tech support told me to disable the page file since I have 32 GB RAM and said I don't need a page file so that's what I did and got my space back on my D: drive. However, now when I set Windows to manage the page file automatically, it goes to drive E: (750 GB "Games" partition on my 1 TB HDD) even if I have 65 GB free space on my C: drive.

Tech support does not think it's my SSD that's the issue and it's something else with my system. Crystal Disk Info shows Good Health on my drive and so does Samsung Magician, running the SFC command shows no issues with my SSD neither does chkdsk. Tech support denies that it a problem with my SSD and it's something else is up with my system. Does this sound like a Windows 8.1 issue. Is it weird that Windows 8.1 would suddenly want to increase my page file to 32 GB and transfer that page file to drive D:?

 

[bbhaag]

That's a lot of D:....what was the error code that Windows threw at you when it blue screened?

 

[Dave3000]

That's a lot of D:....what was the error code that Windows threw at you when it blue screened?

The message did not stay long enough on the screen before my system automatically rebooted. All that I can recall is that it said that "This PC has encountered a problem and will restart" and there was something about a corrupt structure. Could have Windows 8.1 get confused because of my 2 partitions on my SSD (OS and Games), and maybe Windows assumed that the Games partition was the OS partition for some strange reason? Is this a common problem with using multiple partitions on one physical drive instead of multiple physical drives with one partition each? I also have around 20 TB written on my SSD so far but Crystal Disk Info says it's Health is Good and anything Error stuff in the details list is at 0 for my SSD.

 

[Elixer]

You can find the message in the event viewer.

The tech support person you talked to was full of it. Windows would not, out of the blue, move the pagefile for no reason, and it would NOT disable the pagefile for no reason.

Your logs will tell you what went on, look at the ones with red X, and yellow !.

Also, SMART wouldn't necessarily say a SSD is going bad, it depends.
When my sammy died on me, SMART didn't detect anything wrong with it.

 

[Dave3000]

You can find the message in the event viewer.

The tech support person you talked to was full of it. Windows would not, out of the blue, move the pagefile for no reason, and it would NOT disable the pagefile for no reason.

Your logs will tell you what went on, look at the ones with red X, and yellow !.

Also, SMART wouldn't necessarily say a SSD is going bad, it depends.
When my sammy died on me, SMART didn't detect anything wrong with it.

The tech support guy didn't say that the page file was moved to another partition or that Windows caused it to move to another partition. He did say that it was 32GB because I have 32GB RAM. In Windows 7 the page file by default gets set to the amount of RAM installed on the system but in Windows 8 and 8.1 it's 5 GB by default even with 32 GB RAM installed. He told to to disable the page file because I have 32 GB RAM which I think I should not have to do and I read that disabling the page file can cause issues with some software, no matter how much RAM is installed. Having a page file managed by Windows should not cause crashes. I noticed the page file moved to my Drive D when I was at the Virtual Memory menu and I saw the page file on System Managed mode on Drive D and on None for the rest of my drives.

 

[VirtualLarry]

You should set a pagefile on your C: drive (assuming that's your OS drive). The reason, is so that the OS can write crashdump files. If there's no pagefile on the OS drive, it can't, and then you may not easily get to the root of the crashes.

I have a feeling more is going on here.

 

[mikeymikec]

+1 the general advice so far. I'd also run a file system check on the SSD:

Right-click on Start button, Command Prompt (Admin)

chkdsk C: /f /v /r

A failing drive is one possible reason why Windows might move the page file (though I've never seen it happen before, possibly because not many average users have multiple fixed storage volumes), though another reason might be that the SSD's file system is a bit wonky and that disk check would fix it. These aren't the only two possibilities IMO.

Results can be found in the event viewer > application log, under an entry with the source name 'Wininit'.

 

[Dave3000]

Maybe more is going on. A few days ago I installed a new optical drive since my old one would sometimes eject the tray when powering up my system and sometimes the tray would close on it's own a few seconds after I ejected it. However I doubt the new optical drive is causing the issue as I wasn't using it at the time the crash happened. I got it on sale for $15 and it was OEM, no box, just inside a plastic bag, but it was only $15. Even if it was damaged, I don't think that would cause that crash, since it was not in use at the time.

 

[Dave3000]

I looked at the Event Viewer under WinlNet and this is what it says and it's dated 9/13/2014, about 5 weeks before this crash happened:

The description for Event ID 5600 from source Microsoft-Windows-WinINet-Config cannot be found. Either the component that raises this event is not installed on your local computer or the installation is corrupted. You can install or repair the component on the local computer.

If the event originated on another computer, the display information had to be saved with the event.

The following information was included with the event:

True

The message id for the desired message could not be found

 

[corkyg]

It is possible that the YouTube vudeo you were watching could have hacked your system.

 

[mikeymikec]

Wininit not Wininet