Surface 3 WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR - What is it and how to avoid it in the future?

mkjm80

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Aug 16, 2015
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Hey everyone. I have week old Surface 3, bought new, clean installed Windows 10 and have had no issues with it.

That is until yesterday. I woke it up from sleep after getting home from work, everything froze, bright blue screen, and a colon appeared in the upper left. Weird, I thought. So I rebooted it, and the second time got a full sad face with error message with WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR (and being told to search it online later). Well, online searches tell me little except that it's probably a hardware malfunction, and I see very little in regard to Windows 10 and nothing about this error on Surface tablets. I tried booting it in recovery mode, but it would almost always freeze, give the error, and then reset itself.

I took it to the local MS shop and they said there's pretty much nothing they can do, but since it was under warranty I could swap it out for a refurb. But even they said to send it back to amazon (where I originally purchased it) and get another new one. My attempts to boot to desktop to save some files before it could freeze have ended in failure, thankfully it's nothing too crucial, and I am now in the process of restoring it to full factory settings to wipe my personal info and files before returning it (this is the only option that has worked, I couldn't reset it to an earlier point in time or reset it and keep my personal files).

What I want to know is, what the hell exactly is a "whea_uncorrectable_error" and how can I avoid it in the future? Is it just a rare hardware malfunction? For the record, this was the 2/64 version of the S3, I used it for web browsing, youtube, and drawing with Mischief drawing software. I had Panda anti-virus installed, and I avoided shifty websites. I'm not completely inept when it comes to PCs but this baffled me.

The next Surface I get, I'm bringing it in for MS complete care (and for them to install Win 10, that way I can't be blamed). I just want to know what the heck happened. If anyone can provide some insight, I'd very much appreciate it!
 

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