[Theyss]

I purchased a new computer the previous week and I have been fighting with it for this whole time.
To explain the whole story
I received two BSODs, on the 20th and 23rd with Thread Exceptions. The first was while I was browsing the Internet, the second while playing Planetside 2. Upon heavy research both on these forums and the wider Internet, and the first check of installing everything on my Motherboard's Website (Upgraded BIOS before BSODs), upgrades intel_ime etc., various drivers, I came upon the Intel RST. Upon hitting that, it basically installed the program and updated the OCZ Vertex3 SSD Drivers, (or so Windows said). So far, I have not had any BSODs (two days ago).

I ran Driver Verifier for over 36 hours, only to come back between the 34th and 40th hour (was at work during that period) to find my Razer Hardware frozen and unresponsive. This, I do not believe to be a problem with the computer, but with Razer's Synapse, as I also ran BlueScreenView, WhatisHang and WhoCrashed while verifying drivers, and saw no hangs/errors. I reset the computer, did sfc /scannow and an extensive chkdsk (for around the 5th time in the past few days) and found no integrity violations/errors.

I am at a loss of what it might have been, and IF the whole updating drivers thing, or making sure they are updated has fixed it. I am seeking help to both put my mind at ease, or see if I have faulty hardware which I can take back to the manufacturer and replaced.



The fact of the matter remains, that I use this computer for both work and gaming daily (especially the work is to be underlined here) and I wish it to be fixed/or my mind put at ease as I have more work coming up in the following weeks.

Edit: Also getting OOBE error in the Event Viewer, after uninstalling MSEssentials, which I thought removed (after following some steps of manually removing the file it cannot load from the ProgramData/Windows/Security folder, it still errors out. I dont know if that is actually important though.

Edit2: Also installed CrystalDiskInfo and it all shows up as Good. (The OCZ and the External HardDrive I use for random storage.) Firmware of Vertex3 came preinstalled at 2.22, but the drive doesnt show up for the OCZ toolbox app once I installed the Intel RST. Incidentally, both BSODs occured while the external drive was plugged in.

Edit3: I have also Memtest86'd the RAM sticks a few times without any errors.

Edit4: Added Aida64 Report just for further reference I guess, and more help for the Doctors

Attached are the SF Diagnostic Tool files

[Arc]

Welcome aboard.

You are suggested to run Disk Check. For both of your HDDs.

1. Reseat the sata and power.
2. Run chkdsk /f/r, following the option two of the tutorial Disk Check
3. Seatool for dos: SeaTools | Seagate download
   Burn it in a blank cd. boot from the CD, click on "Accept", wait for it to finish detecting the drives, then in the upper left corner select "Basic Tests", then select "Long Test" and let it run.

Let us know the results after doing those.

[Theyss]

As i mentioned I have already checked with chkdsk a few times for my ssd. No problems were found.The external disk i cant check because even if I schedule one it is not performed. I also cannot run seatools seeing as the computer doesnt currently have an optical drive. Did the bluescreen analysis show nothing? I guess I can attempt to borrow an external optical drive from work today.

[Arc]

One more thing that you can do is enabling Driver Verifier, if it points out something.

No, the earlier dumps pointed out nothing but file system issue.

[Theyss]

I appreciate the help arc. As I wrote above I did try verifier for around 40 hours and nothing happened except for losing connection to the razer hardware(mouse and keyboard somewhere around hour 34 and 40 which i am pretty certain was the fault of their program razer synapse . No bsods during driver verifier or hanged programs. I had installed a bunch of drivers after the bsods and before the verifier so it might have been that. Ill try the seatools for peace of mind's sake and see where it goes from there.

[Vir Gnarus]

I think you may have fixed the problem with the drive stuff. As for seatools, that'll only work if you're testing a HDD, as SSDs aren't really supported.

Just so you know, from what I've read there's apparently some issue with Intel RST with OCZ drives when the Motherboard SATA mode is set to IDE/Compatibility mode. Setting it to RAID (if RAID is planned) or AHCI (for single drive) seems to fix a bunch of issues (and improves performance). Understand that if Windows is installed on the OCZ drive, you might very well need to reinstall Windows once this change is made.

It's important to realize SSD drives are still kinda new, and OCZ drives have a history for being some of the most unstable out of all of them. Keep that in mind when using them, as there is indeed a risk involved.

We'll continue to be vigilant here, but for now it's pretty much just a waiting game (unless you wanna go the AHCI route) until we come across more instability.

[Anthony]

Also that Razer BlackWidow Ultimate driver looks suspect with a driver date of 21/11/2010

Driver Update:
Razer Synapse 2.0 (PC) - Cloud-based configurator and manager for Razer devices

Thanks

[Theyss]

It is peculiar, since I have synapse installed.also the ssd already came set to ahci on bios. The firmware if the ssd is 2.22 according to crystaldisk.The bsods took place before the RST was installed. After the rst, the setting in bios is still ahci and it did say it installed some drivers after the application was installed. I am tempted to install the older razer drivers instead of synapse though, if it apparently does not auto update them! Is there anyway besides the bios to make sure it is ahci through the os? What about the Aida64 report?
-thanks for the ongoing help and excuse the apparent lack of capitals, as I am writing this from a smartphone

[Theyss]

Not exactly a BSOD, but I poked my computer again and it froze up when I was running Driver Verifier (admittedly, I tried to run AS SSD Benchmark at the same time to "Stress" it a bit more. It gave me the following error in Event Viewer:

A fatal hardware error has occurred. A record describing the condition is contained in the data section of this event.

It didn't BSOD, just froze up, still running Verifier (for the third time, 1st time it ran for 40 hours, with a freeze at the last hour or so, but without the same Error event) as I type this. Also, after the restart I ran AS SSD and it ran fine. Was it just random? Was it just it not liking me pushing its limits? Or is there an underpinning issue? Should I just take it back and tell them to fix it/change SSDs? So tired of this whole mess now, Im constantly in fear that it might blow up on me or something, and the time is nigh when I will need it for work.

Should I just stop poking it/testing to see its breaking points, and operate it like a normal person for a few days and see what's what?

[Vir Gnarus]

You kinda didn't provide the actual data section of the event that would give us info on what happened. I believe that should be under the Details tab when you look at the event. Also, what kind of freezing were you experiencing? Can you describe it? Can your mouse cursor move? Does it respond to Ctrl+Alt+Del?Does the freeze go away after a while? When it freezes, is it instalock or does it slowly or quickly grow unresponsive? Details like this and more are necessary to get an idea what's causing it.

I don't think this should be neglected. There shouldn't really be any stress test that would cause your system to go unstable. The stress tests are designed to reveal already existing instability in a system, not intentionally cause it. While your system may be unstable with high load now, later on it could degrade where you'll experience it more frequently.

If you wish, I personally would recommend the SSD replacement, but right now that's on speculation. We're not very sure what's causing it, but the signs do point to the drive so far. We should test further, but if you're adamant about getting the drive swapped, then go ahead.