Blue screening / freezing randomly in W7

Ever since I got my computer, the OEM Vista on it was a pain n the butt. It never was stable. That's why I upgraded to Windows Seven Professional. My computer had been running nearly perfectly until recently. Now I'm experiencing quite a bit of freezing and a few bluescreens whenever I play certain games. So far I have not frozen while idle, it always occurs while playing a game. So, because the problem is so random, in an attempt to get all the information someone might need to help me, I'm going to probably give too much information. I've also attached the diagnostic stuff just as this forum asked me to do.

The first blue screen I experienced happened in a game called Cogs. I didn't get any of its details unfortunately.

The second blue screen appeared while playing Portal 2. At the time I brushed it off as an effect of it being really new software. A few updates to the game itself didn't solve the problem. The game would still blue screen (sometimes citing my display drivers or memory management or nothing at all) and sometimes entirely freeze without a blue screen (no response from computer and looping the last 10 milliseconds or so of sound). Finally, I tried running he compatibility diagnostic tool which (the real name of it escapes me at this time) turned on compatibility mode for the executable. It still has the same issue but now it sometimes (maybe half the time) just crashes to my desktop.

Now my computer has frozen several times while playing MineCraft. Only once has it ever blue screened rather than freeze and it definitely caused my display driver to crash.

Next, I recently experienced a bluescreen (display driver crash this time) while playing UT 99. Usually this game is rock solid and never causes issues, but this time after two unexplainable display driver errors in-game, my computer blue screened.

Sometimes I use Skype while playing these games with friends. It crashes (harmlessly in the background) a lot during games like MineCraft, but can go for several hours without issue in a game like Unreal Tournament 99 online. Using Ventrillo instead of Skype has made no difference, and not using either still causes the above blue screens and freezes. It seems my computer's interactions with online software may be to blame, though I can't be certain.

I Googled one of the associated drivers from one of my bluescreens that I had never heard of before. People say that it is a driver for Norton AV which I recently (112 days ago) installed. Some forums also say that Norton causes blue screens in a belated fashin, several weeks after installing it. The fact that Norton actually has a Norton removal tool on their site seems a little tell-tale.

Failing that, the only other software that could be the issue (besides the games themselves) is my SpyBot Search and Destroy (which I love and would really hate to give up).

Lastly, I did investigate a few errors in my Event Viewer. The most troubling were:

• The WD File Management Engine service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s).

This is my external hard drive, but these drivers and software are 100% up to date.

• The platform firmware has corrupted memory across the previous system power transition. Please check for updated firmware for your system.

I read on a Microsoft KB article that this is simply an error report they were using to find out why the first 1 MB of memory becomes corrupted upon resuming from sleep mode.

• The Windows Font Cache Service service hung on starting.

I think I just have a lot of fonts, but this happens every boot.

• The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk3\DR3.

My third drive is bad? I need to pull data off it and remove it anyway as it housed my previous Vista install and I don't want the bad juju from it getting into my system.

• The file system structure on the disk is corrupt and unusable. Please run the chkdsk utility on the volume \Device\HarddiskVolume2.

No idea which drive this is, I wish it would name a letter drive.

• The server {Numbers and letters here} did not register with DCOM within the required timeout.

No idea what this is.

So that's my wall-o-text. Hope this and the diagnostic stuff is enough for someone to lend me a little advice at least.

1-Norton is a Huge cause of BSOD's, in fact one of the leading ones.

2-Sounds like a video driver but we need the actual DMP files to be sure.

3-You can in the interim run a system file check

Run a system file check to verify and repair your system files.
To do this type cmd in search, then right click to run as administrator, then
SFC /SCANNOW

Read here for more information SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker

Let us know the results from the report at the end.

Dump is corrupt no useful info.

Norton cant be tested and often is difficult to remove.

We are going to have to wait for the next one/. the only thing I can see here is cdd.dll canonomical display driver was loaded when it crashed.

Okay, while on Minecraft ans Skype I got a BSOD that mentioned Ntfs.sys. Here is that dump.

http://lab.nerfarena.net/mem.zip

Rajada said:

Okay, while on Minecraft ans Skype I got a BSOD that mentioned Ntfs.sys. Here is that dump.

http://lab.nerfarena.net/mem.zip

First you are running a full kernal dump that is why it is 100 Mb. Change the setting in syscpl. to small memory dump to upload here. see pix


Second the DMP is corrupt in that it loads the module but cant load the symbol for over half of your files. The crash may be happening so quickly that it cant write the memory to pagefile fast enough (or you may have no page file)

I do notice you have Symantec loaded in the active thread on each crash so I would remove it as it is a known Cause of BSOD's and replace it with Microsoft Security essentials

Download and run the Norton Removal Tool to uninstall your Norton product | Norton Support

http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

Ok, I changed that to small memory dump. Good news and bad news time. The good news is I uninstalled Norton and went hours on end without issue in Minecraft. Luckily I got Norton for super cheap at a Fry's free with rebate table so I'm not concerned about a refund. Bad news is I can't be sure if it was the whole problem without either extensive testing or hitting another BSOD.

So what I'm gonna do is run Portal 2 since it gave me the most problems. If I can't get a BSOD in the next few days, I'll call this thread resolved. Otherwise I'll post data back here. Either way I'll probably be back here in another thread as I've been getting other weird error messages in event viewer lately that aren't threatening but still annoying.

All I have to say now is it's quite annoying that Symantec thought this was an appropriately stable AV program.

Rajada said:

Ok, I changed that to small memory dump. Good news and bad news time. The good news is I uninstalled Norton and went hours on end without issue in Minecraft. Luckily I got Norton for super cheap at a Fry's free with rebate table so I'm not concerned about a refund. Bad news is I can't be sure if it was the whole problem without either extensive testing or hitting another BSOD.

So what I'm gonna do is run Portal 2 since it gave me the most problems. If I can't get a BSOD in the next few days, I'll call this thread resolved. Otherwise I'll post data back here. Either way I'll probably be back here in another thread as I've been getting other weird error messages in event viewer lately that aren't threatening but still annoying.

All I have to say now is it's quite annoying that Symantec thought this was an appropriately stable AV program.

It is impossible to remove and one of the largest causes of BSOD's

When you say 'impossible' I assume you are using exaggeration for emphasis because the removal tool seems to have done a decent job. There isn't more I need to do to fully remove it is there?

Also, I had McAfee before, would that be better than nothing or another option? Or should I just go without and stick with MSE.

Rajada said:

When you say 'impossible' I assume you are using exaggeration for emphasis because the removal tool seems to have done a decent job. There isn't more I need to do to fully remove it is there?

Also, I had McAfee before, would that be better than nothing or another option? Or should I just go without and stick with MSE.

"impossible", sometimes only a reformat will do.

Macaffee is almost as bad (when it comes to BSOD's)

The one that crashes least are Microsoft Security Essentials