Random BSODs, multiple error messages, no clear cause

Cattybiscuits · 01 Oct 2012

Hello,

I have been running Windows 7 professional 64-bit for about 2 years now without any problems. In the past couple of weeks, I have had about a dozen BSODs with no common apparent cause. I've run a handful of basic diagnostics without anything conclusive coming up.

Details are below, and I've attached a dump of the latest crash as per the instructions on this forum.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

--

OS: Windows 7 professional, 64-bit
Processor: Intel Core i5

Memory:4 Gb, memtest ran 3 passes without any issues.

Hard drives:
Kingston SNV425S2 64Gb SSD - couldn't find a manufacturer's test
Seagate ST31000340AS 1 Tb - SeaTools didn't detect any issues
Western Digital WD5000AAKS-00V6A0 - WinDlg didn't detect any issues

I haven't made any hardware, driver, or system changes recently.

Error messages that I've been able to record include:
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
KERNEL_STACK_INPAGE_ERROR
MEMORY_MANAGEMENT
PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

There have been BSODs:
-while gaming
-when the computer is sitting idle
-shortly after an AVG scan begins
-once while doing an AVG scan in safe mode

AVG reports no viruses (at least when it's not causing a crash).

Maguscreed · 01 Oct 2012

The failure I'm seeing in the dump file was from a driver state power failure.
This would most likely be the result of the idle crash.
Have you looked in your windows update under optional updates?

Also do you have any external drives or devices plugged in when this is going on?

Cattybiscuits · 01 Oct 2012

Thanks for the suggestion Maguscreed! Optional updates does suggest updates relating to the video card, network card, and display - I'll apply those and see if it helps.

To answer your question, there is a joystick and local printer plugged in at the time of the crashes. The printer is generally powered on. No other devices are consistently plugged in. Do you suspect one of them as a culprit?

Maguscreed · 01 Oct 2012

joystick is a direct x device strangely.
That may also link up.
Here is a simple setting you can change that sometimes keeps misbehaving usb devices from causing problems, and it will make no change that will be noticeable to you as a user.

To Disable Selective Suspend:

open the control panel
go to power options (you may have to set view to small icons)
click change plan settings
in the window that opens:
click change plan settings
click change advanced power settings, expand usb and ensure usb selective suspend is disabled.

Cattybiscuits · 02 Oct 2012

Thanks again - made the USB power settings change you suggested, and did the optional updates. Now I guess we'll see if there are any more crashes over the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime do you know what might have caused this problem to come up, seemingly out of nowhere? I'm somewhat afraid that some hardware is in the early stages of failure.

Maguscreed · 02 Oct 2012

There is a specific hardware code for actual failing hardware. the number to keep an eye out for is 124, errors with 124 in them, are bad.
Basically once you get those all you can do is start looking for what's broken, as illustrated here.
Stop 0x124 - what it means and what to try

This does not apply to you as of the moment though.

Cattybiscuits · 16 Oct 2012

Thanks again! Tried your suggestions and observed it for two weeks, and there have been no further crashes. Marking this as solved.

Thanks for all the help!

Cattybiscuits · 20 Oct 2012

Apologies for double-posting. As luck would have it, it started crashing again right after I marked the problem solved. I've included a couple of sets of data gathered by the SF Diagnostic Tool.

Other oddities: I can't seem to install any utilities for viewing .dmp files myself. I've tried bluescreenview, whocrashed, and various Windows debugging kits directly from Microsoft, and all of their installers report that the version of the file is not compatible with the version of Windows I'm running. This despite them all claiming to work with 64-bit Win7.

Any insight into potential causes of these crashes would be appreciated!

EDIT: some more symptoms:
The SSD appears to be caching any data written to it, but not actually writing anything to the drive. For example, if I create any file on the SSD, it vanishes on reboot, and if I delete any file on the SSD, it reappears on reboot. Most notably, I've tried running chkdsk after booting from the Windows DVD and it appears to repair problems on the drive, but subsequent reboots will continue to report disk issues.

I've tried disabling write caching on the drive but that setting change doesn't stick, and it's re-enabled again on reboot.