Windows 7: Frequent Blue Screens, Possibly From Torrenting.

Sixnails · 16 Jan 2013

Hello Once Again!

I've been charged with fixing this pc and i have no idea what is wrong. He says that it is from putting music on his zune, torrenting, and downloading games off of gog.com. His utorrent is always running so i suppose that might be causing the problem but I'm not sure. Any help is always appreciated!

**koolkat77** · 16 Jan 2013

Hi.

Take memtest. Run for 8 passes and test each stick in a know good slot for an additional 6 passes.

RAM - Test with Memtest86+

Quote:

The goal is to test all the RAM sticks and all the motherboard slots.

Check your motherboard manual to ensure the RAM sticks are in the recommended motherboard slots. Some motherboards have very specific slots required for the number of RAM sticks installed.

If you get errors, stop the test and continue with the next step.

1. Remove all but one stick of RAM from your computer (this will be RAM stick #1), and run Memtest86 again, for 7 passes.

*Be sure to note the RAM stick, use a piece of tape with a number, and note the motherboard slot.

If this stick passes the test then go to step #3.

2. If RAM stick #1 has errors, repeat the test with RAM stick #2 in the same motherboard slot.

*If RAM stick #2 passes, this indicates that RAM stick #1 may be bad. If you want to be absolutely sure, re-test RAM stick #1 in another known good slot.

*If RAM stick #2 has errors, this indicates another possible bad RAM stick, a possible motherboard slot failure or inadequate settings.

3. Test the next stick of RAM (stick #2) in the next motherboard slot.

*If this RAM stick has errors repeat step #2 using a known good stick if possible, or another stick.

*If this RAM stick has no errors and both sticks failed in slot#1, test RAM stick #1 in this slot.

4. If you find a stick that passes the test, test it in all the other motherboard slots.

If Part 2 testing shows errors, and all tests in Part 3 show errors, you will need to test the RAM sticks in another computer and/or test other RAM in your computer to identify the problem.

In this way, you can identify whether it is a bad stick of RAM, a bad motherboard, or incompatibility between the sticks.

Information

Errors are sometimes found after 8 passes.

Tip

Do this test overnight, before going to bed.

Sixnails · 17 Jan 2013

Ok thank you i will try this when i get home from work. Just to clarify, if i put one ram stick in (he only has 2) and it is detected it is safe to assume that the slot is functional yes? Also, how do i run this test overnight when i have to physically swap out the ram? And finally, how long will this test take, or should take, if it is recommended i run it over night lol. Thank you for the response!

EDIT: actually i will test the ram in my computer, i have 4/4 slots filled and all my ram works. that way i just have to see if they are good or not. would this save time or no?

**Pauly** · 17 Jan 2013

Hi sixnails we meet again, well had a look through your dumps and they are a bit inconclusive, they have a variety of errors blaming different things nothing specific
Most of the dumps blame memory/memory management this could mean problems with RAM, HDD (pagefile/hiberfile), graphics memory or a dodgy/faulting driver passing something bad into memory.

If the machine is being OCed in any way turn it off now, either way check bios settings are on default value and double check all ram settings/timings/voltages and if needs be set manually to manufacturers specs (should be a sticker on the ram)

I agree with koolkat definate first step would be hardware tests, get memtest run for minimum 8-9 passes initially i would leave all ram sticks in and see what happens but as you have 16GBs of ram thats going to take a very long time but DO NOT cut it short, this is the first thing to prove before moving on to software stuff
RAM - Test with Memtest86+

run a check on all hard drives in machine Hard Drive Diagnostic Procedure using something like SeaTools | Seagate
also run some stress tests to prove gfx mem and rest of hardware
Hardware - Stress Test With Prime95
Video Card - Stress Test with Furmark
please make sure you have temp monitoring software instaled before running stress tests and keep an eye on it all the way through until temps level out

Run some virus checks
Windows Defender Offline
http://support.kaspersky.com/5350

If all hardware tests pass then we can dig deeper into software/drivers but initially i have noticed a few things in your log files (most of this is for testing purposes and can be changed back later if reqd)
Someones messed with pagefile settings recommend you set it to be managed by windows, with that amount of ram it doesnt need to be set that high
Clear the starup programs on the machine just leave AV running on boot the rest dont need to be there
There is very old driver installed bios64.sys from 2003 which is something to do with biostar I/O driver could do with updating, there are more old drivers but we will come to that later

While i think of it im away for couple days if no one else replies i will come back to this thread but may not be until end of weekend

Sixnails · 17 Jan 2013

hey guys thanks for the memtest and thank you pauly for everything else. It took me a while to figure out how to burn an iso but i finally got it to work. and with in 3 seconds i got over 100 errors. its been about 4 minutes no2 and have 73k errors. im guessing that is an issue. i will have it go all night but is it safe to say this is the wrench in the machine?

Windows 7: Frequent Blue Screens, Possibly From Torrenting.

Frequent Blue Screens, Possibly From Torrenting. problems?