Do you have any tips to avoid it?

You could send an EM_SETREADONLY or WM_SETTEXT message to the control (assuming it is a textbox).
The code would be specific to the program

There are different types of HWID. It depends which one the software is trying to check

It sounds like booting from USB is becoming a bit unreliable.

For troubleshooting purposes it would be useful to know are you able to run any kind of motherboard/BIOS memory test?

I wouldn't rely so much on a percentage to tell the drive status.
If you are concerned about the drive you should back up your data first and then run chkdsk /r to check for bad blocks. If there are bad blocks you can assume the drive is becoming unreliable.

The throughput performance attribute doesn't give much useful information by itself.
You might want to check the startup programs and remove any that you don't use.

Is there any reason the outp function is commented out?

If you want to search for multiple color values it would make sense to look for RGB ranges in the FindColor function.
For example:

I have re-written most of the code to get a screenshot and work with the timer (I don't think it was originally intended for this): Private Sub btnStart_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnStart.Click tmrSearch.Start() End Sub Public Sub FindColor(ByVal hWND ...

Ok now the code only gives numbers starting from 1.
You might want to use Random.Next(0, lstbox1.Items.Count)