contast BSODs

Hey there guys, I'm fairly new (oh, this is my first post. I thought i had posted here before!), I'll try to be as specific as possible here, hopefully someone can help!

I've been running various builds of win7, 7000,7100,7137, and now 7229.

7229 was running great for me until a few days ago. I've been getting BSODs on the regular. Sometimes 2 minutes after booting, sometimes it'll go 3-4

hours. It'll happen while playing a flash game, typing something in notepad, playing a fullscreen video.... anything really. no pattern. I've tried

playing a game with networking totally disabled to see if it was iffy network drivers, (i had that issue at first, downloaded new ones from asus), but

still got a bsod. In fact, I'm typing this in notepad, because I'm afraid it'll crash while trying to type this into the web form, and ctrl-S-ing every

30 seconds lol.

But I digress. After checking many forums, including this one, I've tried a few things. the sfc /scannow option reported 3 broken files, chess.dll and

two files relating to windows natural speech. I assume it has something to do with this not being a final build, and in fact have never even used that

service. My BSODs give me errors ranging from IRQ_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL to something like WINDOWS_SERVICE_ERROR. Sometimes they point to a (seemingly

random) dll file, sometimes they are flagrant STOP errors pointing to nothing.

I have tested my memory using the windows checker and another one on a boot diagnostics disc i have, memory checks out. I tested the motherboard using

another program (can't remember which, came on hirens boot CD), no errors there. chkdsk came back with a few bad pointers, but that's pretty normal, and

i've still had issues since those got fixed.

Analyzing my minidump files gives me pretty much nothing, since the modules (or whatever they're called) aren't designed for windows 7... it pretty much

just errors out and tells me ntoskrnl.exe is broken. its not. I've checked. Even if it was, that wouldn't allow me to boot, but wouldn't cause BSODs.

Anyway, heres my hardware:

ASUS P5Q SE2 socket 775
Q9600 2.66 quad
corsair 800mhz DDR2 2GBx2 (4 total) (tried at stock 1.7V, and 1.8V, maybe it was 1.8/1.9. either way, tried upping it by .1 volt)
650 watt antec power supply (my 12V reading is a bit iffy at 11.62, but i've always heard 11.5 - 12.5 is more than fine)
ICE-Q Radeon HD4650 1gig RAM (tried with latest, and second latest win7 drivers)

I'm banging my head against the wall. I've tried everything. Any help will be greatly greatly appreciated.

Here's a link to 2 crash dump reports, which provide very little information.
http://pastebin.ca/1476036

PS: It's not overheating. I couldn't FORCE my cpu temp over 52C, and couldn't FORCE my video card over 60C.

It's very difficult to get anything from the unsupported builds. But it is possible.
I can't seem to open the link to where you've stored the minidumps - could you check to see if it's functioning?

There's a lot missing from the dump file(s) that you posted (I finally got into the site to look at them). The headers and excess information often provide clues as to what's going on.

The 1st dump that I saw pointed to dxgmms1.sys which is a Windows file associated w/DirectX. So, it's most likely (in no particular order):
- PSU issue (? - I saw a few of these posts when searching the web)
- video card issue/malfunction
- driver issue (video card or other video programs)
- Windows issue

The second dump didn't tell much, pointing to ntoskrnl.exe trying to use the "Special Pool".

Could you zip up the latest dump file and then upload the .zip file in your next post? Maybe an indepth look at the analysis will reveal something we're not thinking of.

Your PSU likely has enough power to run the rig, unless there's something wrong with it (I don't know of any tests for it).

Your video card may have problems, I've seen systems overheat even though the temps were good (it was an nVidia 250 card). Pointing an 80 mm fan at the card stopped the crashing - so that's the diagnostic test for thst.

Windows? Well, it's an unofficial build and as JeeperDon has stated, he experienced some similar issues. Dunno if it's exactly the same issue, but it's a possiblity.

Finally drivers...Try running Driver Verifier using the instructions that follow. Please read the directions completely before trying it, as it can render your system unbootable:

Using Driver Verifier is an iffy proposition. Most times it'll crash and it'll tell you what the driver is. But sometimes it'll crash and won't tell you the driver. Other times it'll crash before you can log in to Windows. If you can't get to Safe Mode, then you'll have to resort to offline editing of the registry to disable Driver Verifier.


So, I'd suggest that you first backup your stuff and then make sure you've got access to another computer so you can contact us if problems arise. Then make a System Restore point (so you can restore the system using the Vista Startup Repair feature).


Then, here's the procedure:
- Go to Start and type in "verifier" (without the quotes) and press Enter
- Select "Create custom settings (for code developers)" and click "Next"
- Select "Select individual settings from a full list" and click "Next"
- Select everything EXCEPT FOR "Low Resource Simulation" and click "Next"
- Select "Automatically select unsigned drivers" and click "Next"



If no drivers show up, then select "Select driver names from a list" and click "Next"
Then select all drivers NOT provided by Microsoft and click "Next"



- Select "Finish" on the next page.


Reboot the system and wait for it to crash to the Blue Screen.

Reboot into Windows, turn off Driver Verifier by going back in and selecting "Delete existing settings" on the first page, then locate and zip up the memory dump file and upload it with your next post.


If you can't get into Windows because it crashes too soon, try it in Safe Mode.
If you can't get into Safe Mode, try using System Restore from your installation DVD to set the system back to the previous restore point that you created.
If that doesn't work, post back and we'll have to see about fixing the registry entry off-line.

Don't worry about Windows files (especially in unofficial builds) - unless there's indications that this isn't the real thing (such as a hacked version rather than a leaked build).

I suspect a hardware issue here - but it's only a guess on my part. Either compatibility issues, or an actual hardware problem. BSOD's all over the place are usually indicative of it - especially if it's a low level incompatibility such as video, chipset, or storage drivers (I've got this issue with my RAID card).

Let's see what Driver Verifier tells us before moving on to other things.

Well, this might help with the slowdown - Intel chipset users seemed ot have run into a snag with eralier builds regarding HD access times - it seems that HDs went extremely slowly after a while for both nVidia chipset based machines as well as Intel based machines - you can read the entire thread, but I'll link you to my contribution of it - short story is to uninstall those Intel drivers one by one and see which actually affects your HD performance.

Show Us Your WEI

I never was able to figure out a solution for Intel Chipset-based machines as I don't have one here to play with....