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About a week ago I got Machine check exception when I was starting my Windows 10 machine (HPE-420cs), the progress remained stuck at 0% for several hours and no error code was provided.

After waiting cca 3hrs I restarted PC using hardware button, since the PC didn't respond to any other way of commanding it. The error appeared again and the progress, again, remained stuck at 0%.

Next I booted to the recovery mode only to find out that none of the recovery points work, the automatic repair also didn't help and so I had to perform system reset.

The windows reinstalled while keeping all my files and settings and everything went to normal. I check hard drive and memory for errors and all tests were passed with no problems, except that the search function ignored icons in Star menu. I reinstalled Cortana, checked indexing options, deleted related registry entry and rebuild index with no results, so I decided to let it go seeing as it was not that much of an issue.

I started using the PC again only for the error to return today, again only factory reset option solved the issue and allowed me to enter Windows.

I have been running tests since then from UBCD, memtest and CPU stress tests came out all clear. Right now I am testing the hard drive again but so far I found no errors and I doubt there will be any.

I don't really now where to go from here, the hardware seems to be ok. The windows is, more or less, cleanly installed and looking for help online turned out nothing. And since Windows does not display detailed error message I am left with guess work.

Is there any way to resolve this issue or at least find out what exactly is wrong with my PC?

user1561358
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Machine Check Exceptions are generally caused by the CPU raising a signal that tells the OS that a hardware fault has occurred. Your operating system is almost never at fault. This can be caused by a number of things:

  • If your system is overclocked, try backing down on your overclock/using stock settings. An overclock that was stable when you first built/purchased the system can cause instability over time.
  • Check that the power supply is operating within spec. It's pretty unlikely that the power supply would be the issue, but it's definitely worth checking. There are guides online that tell you how to check your PSU with a digital multimeter, if you have one. Alternatively, you can swap the power supply.
  • Check for any BIOS updates available for your motherboard - an outdated BIOS, while usually not the cause, can cause issues such as these on rare occasions. It's worth checking, but only try this if you feel your system is stable enough to do so! If the BIOS update is interrupted, you can render your computer's motherboard next to useless.

Failing that, if you can, please upload the crash dump somewhere and reply with a link and I'll try to analyze it for you.

emberdex
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  • 1. I never overclocked this system. In fact with the BIOS provided it's prohibitively hard. 2. Power supply should be ok, given that this computer is almost the same config as it was when I bought it. The only change are two additional memory modules, which I have installed two years back. 3. The manufacturer does not provide BIOS updates, in fact they only released one BIOS version for this board. Finally, whatever the problem is it didn't create memory dumps, or it deleted them. One way or another they are not in any normal location. – user1561358 Dec 12 '16 at 23:54