HardHang every night, no BSOD, not fixed in startup, common 0xC000000D

Fantastic! Will start that right away.

Acronis is "True Image Home 2011" ... should not be causing problems - should be solving problems! Will check for updates and/or disable it if the following tests come back negative.

I disabled auto-restart, and selected "small memory dump" in the minidump folder (previously, it was set to Kernel memory dump).

Also -- Reading another post with the same error code as above (this post), there was a comment about a "LiveKerneReports" folder. I went to check it just because... I already did several searches on Windows Explorer for "*.dmp" and didn't find any dmp files I wasn't aware of... so it would be empty, of course. (what the hell!) DARN! there are a bunch of dmp files there!!! (How come? Really? What else am I missing?) I attached here the last 5 of them. These files are somewhat new, but are not complete -- the last 2 crashes did not produce a dmp file in there, for example. Anyway... out to torture this machine now ------- HAPPY TO DO IT.

Thank you Vir!
Mario

The latest of these was from back in July, and extends back to Feb. They all report TDR failure, which means your graphics driver did not respond to a request, and when Windows tried to bring it back to life, it failed to revive, and therefore the BSOD. This can be caused be an issue with the graphics card in that it was not cooperating, and therefore the driver was held up waiting on the card, or this could be the fault of the driver itself.

I did notice that the graphics driver is back from Feb 29, 2012, which if I recall correctly I remember back then of support forums receiving an large influx of people with driver woes because there was some bug that festered in that version of the driver. You'll definitely wanna see about updating it if you have not already done so.

Prime95 will certainly put your CPU to its limits, which is why it's used frequently for benchmarking and overclock testing.

As for reinstalling all drivers without changing Windows, not that I'm aware of. The closest thing is installing a copy of Windows over your existing one, but this will alter the environment and cause you to reinstall your programs as well. I don't believe a repair install will help you in this situation.

The concern I have is that we have no conclusive evidence for anything right now, nor will we ever. Tests are not showing up positives, and crashdumps are scarce and misleading. So I know we are dealing with hardware, but unfortunately which hardware cannot be ascertained. Since Prime95, Memtest and Seatools showed up nothing, I can only pinpoint it to the Trio of Trouble - CPU, Motherboard or PSU. Either of these can evade diagnostic tests, and there's no sufficient testing for the mobo nor the PSU. So to be honest, despite what I can go on based on the information provided, it's still a bit of a gamble on whether or not it's the PSU. I personally would start with it first, but we can't be 100% sure it is without swapping it with an ok PSU, and that costs money.

As for looking for replacement PSUs, this is a good article to base decisions off of, and has some good recommendations at the bottom. When comparing PSUs of similar wattage, you're paying more for reliability and modularity, not performance.

Backup HD? I was not aware you had any internal drive aside from the one Windows is installed on, and even so I didn't think it would cause the failure to write dumps to your Windows drive.

Either way, I can be more sure we're dealing with a bad drive. That click is commonly referred to as the "click of death", which is a common behavior on dead drives. So I can evidently see your drive causing your hanging issues as Windows would be trying to do anything from indexing it to maintaining its mount(s) and so on. The drive then ends up failing to reply to any of the requests, which will therefore end up causing an interrupt storm as interrupts for drive I/O requests will keep piling up until your system hangs from it.

When did you install this backup HD?

We should not rule out the possibility that it's the PSU, but right now that evidence alone is enough to convict the HD as being cause, as it is the piece of hardware that is certainly bad.

My joy was short lived... and you are correct again -- it is not that HD. Rebooted without the backup drive, all was good, watching a youtube video and suddently... freeze all -- screen, audio, all... and re-started. Same behavior -- no dumps.

The backup HD was always there. It may be failing, but it is not the sole cause of the problem -- at the most, it is a contributor.

So, the Event Viewer log tells me the usual:
<Provider Name="EventLog" />
<EventID Qualifiers="32768">6008</EventID>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2012-09-11T14:32:58.000000000Z" />....

But I also found this 'warning':
<Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Search" Guid="{CA4E628D-8567-4896-AB6B-835B221F373F}" EventSourceName="Windows Search Service" />
<EventID Qualifiers="32768">3036</EventID>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2012-09-11T14:33:18.000000000Z" />



Not sure if it means anything that <EventID Qualifiers="32768"> is the same in both.

So -- replace PSU is my logical next step? Anything else I can try before that? (if possible, I would like to try to force the system to create crashdump files -- is that possible?)



Thanks again,
Joyless...
Mario still hanged.

I think a final questionnaire round should be in order before we proceed:

1. Have you tried using any other graphics card or onboard video controller (on your mobo) and see if the system stabilizes with those?

2. What exactly is the hang experience? Does mouse still move or is the cursor also frozen? Is it a progressively increasing hang (be it fast growing or slow), or is it an instalock?

3. While you originally mentioned the hangs occur any time, have you noticed any consistency at all lately, or is it still very erratic? You did mention it happened with a youtube video. Can this be reproduced? Are there any actions that allows you to reproduce it?

3. What exactly is your PSU? In fact, can you provide us your entire PC hardware specs? I don't recall that we ever went around to doing that.

This all may be redundant questions but I'm too lazy to read over the entire thread again to grab details and it'd be nice to have these all answered in one post just so we're absolutely clear on things.

Vir Gnarus said:

1. Have you tried using any other graphics card or onboard video controller (on your mobo) and see if the system stabilizes with those?

I had an older video card (Nvidia 8400 GS), which I replaced (on 11/09/11) with the current Nvidia GEForce-GT520 because of suspicion the video card was causing these crashes.

Vir Gnarus said:

2. What exactly is the hang experience? Does mouse still move or is the cursor also frozen? Is it a progressively increasing hang (be it fast growing or slow), or is it an instalock?

Normal working (office) or browsing on computer, everything normal, all CPUs with small load, small RAM used, no overheating, no noises, all normal... suddenly, it all freezes: image is frozen even if it's a screensaver, no keyboard input (keyboard can't turn on Caps, or can't turn off Numlock), mouse cursor disappears and there is no mouse input possible. All fans remain working without a glitch. No new noises. If there is a sound being played at the freeze time, that sound is locked in a loop (some 1/10 of a second, I guess). The computer seems to remain in that frozen state until I reset of force power down -- Last week it was frozen from 10PM to 8AM.

Vir Gnarus said:

3. While you originally mentioned the hangs occur any time, have you noticed any consistency at all lately, or is it still very erratic? You did mention it happened with a youtube video. Can this be reproduced? Are there any actions that allows you to reproduce it?

It is still completely erratic /random to the best of my knowledge. I tried to reproduce it many times, including loading and playing several videos, and I can't repeat it.

Vir Gnarus said:

4. What exactly is your PSU? In fact, can you provide us your entire PC hardware specs?

• PSU: Cooler Master RS 600-PCAR-E3 (used the calculator in one of your links and it told me I need 440W PSU with a 30% buffer on the energy supply).
• Motherboard: Gigabyte Technology, P67A-UD3-B3, V1.1
• BIOS info: Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG Version: GBT - 42302e31, downloaded/installed latest update F9.
• CPU: Intel64 Family 6 Model 42 Stepping 7, i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40GHz Speed: 3701
• Installed RAM: 16GB, in 4 x 4GB, Corsair XMS3
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 520, located on PCI bus 6, device 0, function 0, Driver Date: 20120515, Version: 8.17.13.142
• CD/DVD drives: ATAPI iHAS124 Y (Standard CD-ROM drives), Microsoft driver V6.1.7601.17514
• Network Adapter: incorporated in Mobo.
WAN Miniport (SSTP) (IKEv2) (L2TP) (PPTP) (PPPOE) (IPv6) (IP) (Network Monitor) Microsoft
Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller, MAC Address: 1C:6F:65[IMG]file:///C:\Users\MARIOS~1\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtml1\01\clip_image001.gif[/IMG]7:74:A7, driver date 6/12/2012, version 7.61.612.2012, signed by MSFT.
Microsoft ISATAP Adapter, Teredo Tunneling Adapter, 6to4 Adapter, ISATAP Adapter, RAS Async Adapter (MAC Address: 20:41:53:59:4E:FF)
• Monitors: two Samsung SyncMaster 943BWX, 1440 x 900 (32 bit) (60Hz) Driver Name: nvd3dumx.dll, nvwgf2umx.dll, nvwgf2umx.dll, nvd3dum, nvwgf2um, nvwgf2um, Driver File Version: 8.17.0013.0142 (English)
• Comfort Curve Keyboard 2000 wired to USB, and Logitech MK700 wireless set at the same time.
• Drive: C:
Free Space: 861.9 GB, Total Space: 953.8 GB, File System: NTFS, Model: ST31000528AS
• Drive: E: (used for backup, and currently unplugged)
Free Space: 542.6 GB, Total Space: 953.9 GB, File System: NTFS, Model: ST31000528AS
• Sound: NVidia High Definition Audio - Disabled; Realtek High Definition Audio Enabled with Driver Date 6/19/2012, Version 6.0.1.6662.
• OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.120503-2030)
[[[Let me know if I forgot anything]]]

Vir Gnarus said:

This all may be redundant questions but I'm too lazy to read over the entire thread again to grab details and it'd be nice to have these all answered in one post just so we're absolutely clear on things.

That is fine, but please:
- Let me know if I should run the SF Diag tool again.
- Look at post #5 made by you -- I was sure you were going to solve this problem in a Software fix or driver update.
- I would like to try to force the system to create crashdump files -- is that possible?
- Let me know if this is relevant: Windows has a lot of problems recorded here: Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Action Center\Check For Solutions. All are old, but shows you what I’ve been dealing with:
(7/26/2012) A problem with your video hardware caused Windows to stop working correctly.
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: LiveKernelEvent
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033
Files that help describe the problem
WD-20120726-1708.dmp (one of the older dmps – I attached it here.)
sysdata.xml
WERInternalMetadata.xml

Also... I asked for a "system health report" from Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Performance Information and Tools\Advanced Tools.... in there, you can see a hardware failure as you predicted. It's in the Mobo... but I cannot read that language - I have no idea what the report is talking about. Can you?

Then, I generated a system information file. There are several items in the "conflicts/sharing" area... System info file is also attached.

Hope these 2 help. thanks again.