New Computer weirdness (laptops, HDD, games, email)

[berdee]

Disclaimer -- I am definitely not a techie/guru when it comes to the inner workings of computers .. I am a plug it in, turn it on and hope it runs without problems type of person. When I describe what's going on it probably won't be in the 'language' that you're used to, and, since I'm not sure what may be relevant I may end up posting more than you need to read, or maybe not enough .. so please bear with me.

I use my computer a lot but I don't do a whole lot on my computer as far as heavy gaming, detailed work, etc. Most of what I do is going to forums like this one, doing searches through federal and different states legal statutes websites (to try to help people on sites like this one), using FB, playing a couple FB games, watching movies/tv shows, music vids, etc., Netflix, youtube, etc.

I bought a computer from Newegg and received it last week.
TOSHIBA C75D-B7215 Notebook AMD A-Series A8-6410 (2.00GHz) 8GB Memory 1TB HDD AMD Radeon R5 Series 17.3" Windows 8.1

Notice that the description says AMD Radeon R5. I checked the graphics card on this computer and it backs it up as being an R5 .. but .. it appears that Newegg is the only one that is selling this particular computer model with the R5, while it seems every other place that sells this same exact computer model states that their computers are R4. I don't know if this (with my computer) is due to some mislabeling/misinformation, wrong parts/hardware put in that don't mesh with the other parts, etc. (they put in R5 but the rest of the computer is geared for R4-or the other way around), or, if Toshiba actually made this particular computer as R4 for some sellers and R5 for other sellers.

My problems..
I got the computer last week and for a couple of days it ran great, I had removed some of the bloat (that I knew was bloat and left alone what I wasn't sure about), I uninstalled Norton and went with Windows Defender.

After a couple of days I started noticing some odd flickering around the window frame on the open window, it would flick off of the blue color frame and turn it white - kind of like it would look I had clicked off of the window, but I hadn't (edited to add, I believe the flickering would start when I was getting windows updates). Then, boom, I'd get a blue screen with an error message and it would quickly shut down to try to fix what was wrong. This happened several times over the next day or two and sometimes I'd get the same error code and sometimes a different one. I tried to quickly write the codes down but I wasn't quick enough to get the full code or to make sure that the characters were correct (if it was l, i or 1, etc).
The three that it had given me were lxa0000, atllcmdag (not too sure about the correct characters in those first two), and, atikmdag .. I had run across a full error message screen shot someone had posted of the last one and it read in full ...
"YOU’RE PC RAN INTO A PROBLEM AND NEEDS TO RESTART. WE’RE JUST COLLECTING ERROR INFO AND WE’LL RESTART FOR YOU IN A MINUTE WHEN COMPLETE. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO KNOW MORE, YOU CAN SEARCH FOR THIS ERROR. SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED atikmdag.sys"

I ended up doing a full system recovery, taking it back to where it was when I'd first started using it. This time I didn't uninstall any of the bloat and left Norton on. Things worked fine for a couple of days and then it started happening again.

I did do a bit of Google searching the first time it happened and found quite a few people were having this problem, and doing a system recovery was mentioned so that's why I tried that. After the second time it happened I did a more intensive search - from Microsoft to Toshiba and everywhere in between.
This seems to be affecting many people, and, Nobody (none of the experts, even on Microsoft) on any of those sites seems to know exactly why this is happening, they mention everything from a bad graphics card to bad Windows update downloads (bad updates might explain why it works fine for awhile then crashes). It isn't happening on just Toshiba machines, it's happening on other machines as well. And, it didn't matter if people were using Firefox, Chrome, or other, it was happening on all of them (though nobody seemed to be using IE and one of the Microsoft experts seemed a bit bent about that, lol)

The common element is that all of us who are having this problem are on Windows 8.1

Some people had mentioned that they changed out the graphics cards themselves, others sent their computers in to be worked on, changing out the graphics cards, etc., and they all still had the same problem after doing that.

One had mentioned going in and turning off the hardware acceleration. So, I tried that -- so far no error message, and it's been about 3 days (1 day longer without the error message then before). I'm still holding my breath but I'm hoping that continues to work.

Some of my questions are..
Will it harm my computer to continually run it with the hardware acceleration turned off?

Does it sound more like a graphics card problem, or a Windows 8.1 update problem (or both)?

Instead of going through the hassle, and possible expense, of changing out the graphics card, should I continue to run it with the acceleration turned off (if it continues to keep that error message at bay) and wait until they roll out Windows 10, then, after installing 10 turning the acceleration back on and see if the problem is solved by Windows 10?

Any clue to why this computer says it's an R5 when all of the same exact computers from other stores are R4's???

TIA

[nezlie]

No clues on anything you've mentioned, but if the problem persists, I would consider downloading the latest video drivers just to rule out the possibility of their being corrupt on your machine.

[Tek_Freek]

I'd send an email to Newegg explaining the problem (keep it short) and include a number of links to sites showing others with the same problem. Ask them why they sold you a computer with a known problem.

Just to see what, if anything, they will do to help.

Post their response here so we know what they tell you.

[berdee]

Thank you for the responses.

I'll send that email to Newegg and keep you updated.

[Peregrine]

Originally Posted by berdee

Some of my questions are..
Will it harm my computer to continually run it with the hardware acceleration turned off?

Not even a little, no.

Does it sound more like a graphics card problem, or a Windows 8.1 update problem (or both)?

It does sound like the Graphics Card if turning off H-A seems to have fiuxed it.

Instead of going through the hassle, and possible expense, of changing out the graphics card, should I continue to run it with the acceleration turned off (if it continues to keep that error message at bay) and wait until they roll out Windows 10, then, after installing 10 turning the acceleration back on and see if the problem is solved by Windows 10?

Check for a driver update from AMD and NOT Toshiba. Download any kind of "Software Update Software" they offer.

Any clue to why this computer says it's an R5 when all of the same exact computers from other stores are R4's???

Many companies do this, create a specific slightly different model just for one particular retailer.

[Xircal]

Do the following.

1. Right click the Start button and go to Control Panel.
2. If you don't see a large number of small icons, click the dropdown menu top right and choose "Small icons" from there,'
3. In the list of menus which appears click Troubleshooting.
4. In the System and Security menu at the bottom, click "Run Maintenance Tasks".

If that doesn't fix the problem, go to the next step.

1. Right click the Start button again and then click Command Prompt (Admin).
2. Type: SFC /SCANNOW and hit Enter. You can also copy/paste if you prefer.

Windows will scan itself for integrity corruption and if it finds any, will attempt to repair the files. If it can't do that, you'll see a message which says, "System File Checker scanned Windows files and found corruption but was unable to fix it".


If you see that message, open another Command Prompt (Admin) and then copy/paste the command in red and hit Enter.

• DISM.exe/Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth

Both of these commands can take sometime. Also, particularly with DISM.exe, it may look like it stopped suddenly at 20% into the scan, but this is normal. Just be patient and allow the tool to run. Here's a screenshot of DISM.exe when I ran it on my own system recently.

By the way, it's important to maintain an Internet connection when running DISM.exe. This is because the tool downloads original Windows system files from Microsoft's servers to replace the corrupt files which System File Checker was unable to fix.

[berdee]

I'd sent an email to Newegg, no response yet. Though I'm willing to bet they will just refer me to Toshiba to see if it can be fixed. I didn't bother getting the full warranty on this, like I probably would have if I'd gotten a more expensive machine, I just have a 1 year limited parts and labor warranty that automatically came with it.

Originally Posted by Peregrine

Not even a little, no.

It does sound like the Graphics Card if turning off H-A seems to have fiuxed it.

Check for a driver update from AMD and NOT Toshiba. Download any kind of "Software Update Software" they offer.

Many companies do this, create a specific slightly different model just for one particular retailer.

Thank you for your response, especially for pointing out going to AMD instead of Toshiba.


Xircal, thank you so much for your detailed, and easy to follow steps, response. I hope it won't matter doing that while the H-A is turned off. I don't know if it matters, but after I'd get that error message and my computer would shut down, when it came back on it would still be running trying to correct the issue .. it would always end up saying that it was unable to fix it and it was reinstalling 'something' (I don't remember the exact words, but that was the gist of it). I'm off to do what you suggested.


Again, thanks to all who responded

[berdee]

Originally Posted by Xircal

Do the following.

1. Right click the Start button and go to Control Panel.
2. If you don't see a large number of small icons, click the dropdown menu top right and choose "Small icons" from there,'
3. In the list of menus which appears click Troubleshooting.
4. In the System and Security menu at the bottom, click "Run Maintenance Tasks".

If that doesn't fix the problem, go to the next step.

1. Right click the Start button again and then click Command Prompt (Admin).
2. Type: SFC /SCANNOW and hit Enter. You can also copy/paste if you prefer.

Windows will scan itself for integrity corruption and if it finds any, will attempt to repair the files. If it can't do that, you'll see a message which says, "System File Checker scanned Windows files and found corruption but was unable to fix it".

Update

I ran these two and neither of them found any problems.

[Xircal]

As regard the R5 issue, the specs you have are correct. You can check them on the Toshiba site for that model by clicking the "Specs" button: Toshiba Satellite C75D-B7215 Laptop

I wouldn't advise you to interfere with the components yourself though because doing so will invalidate the warranty.

Toshiba has their own support site which you'll find at the foot of the same link. There's also a community forum where you can try posting. They'll be a lot more familiar with their own products there than we will here. If they identify it as hardware related, then you can organize a repair under warranty.

[Peregrine]

AMD Catalyst