New HP Laptop Restarting Without Warning

[leaf2]

I would like to begin by saying I'm not very computer savvy so both vague and overly complicated responses will just go over my head. Honestly I'm not even sure if I've selected the right subforum for this (sorry if I haven't!). Please try to put responses in stupid people speak 😄

I bought a HP Pavilion with an intel core i3 processor (this: http://www.johnlewis.com/hp-pavilion-14-al015na-laptop-intel-core-i3-8gb-ram-1tb-14-natural-silver/p...) less than a month ago and I've barely been using it as it's really for when uni starts back. Despite this, I've had issues several times with it restarting without warning whilst I'm in the middle of doing something. I also had this error message once: SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED (bcmwl63a.sys) as it switched itself off. It also requests to be restarted for updates and just because it seemingly feels like it basically the whole time it's turned on.

I have moved all of my documents, pictures and music from my old laptop (also a HP) to my new but I left program files etc behind. My old laptop had issues where it would freeze and become completely unresponsive (not restart as in the case of my new laptop) and have to be turned off by the power button, causing anything I was working on to be lost, and this was one of a few reasons I decided to replace it. Also, everytime I powered it up it brought up a pop-up, the kind you see when installing a program. I uninstalled the program in question but the pop-up persisted. I have always had McAfee virus protection on all of my devices - both laptops and my phone, which has been connected to both - but I'm guessing something managed to slip through the cracks?

Basically I would like to know if the issues with my new laptop are the result of a virus or not (the same one that affected my old laptop??) and of course whether it's saveable or not. Thanks in advance,

Estella.

[Riddle_Decipher · Accepted solution]

@leaf2,
Thank you for joining HP Forums, Estella. 
I'll be glad to help you!
 

As I understand your laptop restarts without a warning after displaying the message-"SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED (bcmwl63a.sys)" once, it constantly freezes and frequently restarts, here's what I recommend we do:

According to my research, it could be a bad driver causing the issue if not that we will need to perform a hardware test on your memory cards, I'll let you know how to do that, later.

To remove the bad driver, I recommend the below steps:

1. Start Control Panel, click Hardware and Sound, and then click Device Manager.

2. Expand the node below Network Adapters, right-click the device entry, and click Properties.

3. Select Driver and then click Roll Back Drivers, if that's gray in color (unable to click) select uninstall drivers.

Once the above is done, restart the computer and then go to HP Support website and download the latest drivers for your network adapter: Click here.

If the issue persists, click here to know about - "how to run a hardware test on your laptop".

Keep me posted!

​​​​​​​Regards,

[leaf2]

Thanks @Riddle_Decipher! This appears to have worked, my laptop has not yet restarted itself since I did this.

[leaf2]

Although my laptop was fine for a while, this issue has now reared its head again - twice in the last two days. I didn't include this detail in my first post, it may help. It is the same error as before: bcmwl63a.sys. Any other ideas?