BSODs sometimes scrambled screen, sometimes Windows Explorer quits

inashgu · 14 Sep 2015

Hi guys,

I seem for the last 4 weeks or so to get BSOD/unexpected shutdowns in 2 ways:

1. The screen becomes very scrambled but appears to be a BSOD screen that is jumping all around the screen and chopped up. I could not read anything but it had the blue background with what appeared to be fragments of gray symbols. I have thought that maybe this was a graphics driver issue and have done clean installs of the appropriate nvidia driver several times, but have had no luck.

2. The screen flashes black for a very short time - less than a second - and then the network connection symbol switches to the crossed out bars symbol for "no connection on a wifi," basically empty bars with a red line crossing it out. Then the taskbar vanishes. The whole thing reminds me of what happened when you "quit windows explorer" in earlier windows versions, but I really don't know what's going on.

Overall, I'm not quite sure what to do - I think my drivers are up to date, and the BSODs and crashes are happening frequently enough to interrupt my work.

Thanks in advance for your help!

essenbe · 15 Sep 2015

Hello, inashgu and welcome to the forums. I will try to help with this. Could you go over your system specs located at the bottom left of your last post and make sure they are filled out in as much detail as possible. Please include anything connected to your computer. Do you have an NAS or something like that?

Some of your dump files could not be read. The others were pretty consistent.

Code:

CRITICAL_OBJECT_TERMINATION (f4)
A process or thread crucial to system operation has unexpectedly exited or been
terminated.
Several processes and threads are necessary for the operation of the
system; when they are terminated (for any reason), the system can no
longer function.
Arguments:
Arg1: 0000000000000003, Process
Arg2: fffffa800a210b10, Terminating object
Arg3: fffffa800a210df0, Process image file name
Arg4: fffff800033d8e70, Explanatory message (ascii)

EXCEPTION_CODE: (NTSTATUS) 0xc0000006 - The instruction at 0x%p referenced memory at 0x%p. The required data was not placed into memory because of an I/O error status of 0x%x.

BUGCHECK_STR:  0xF4_IOERR

F4 is typically a hard drive error, or storage related. The items marked in red seem to say so too. An I/O Error is storage as well.

Code:

Device object (fffffa800a210b10) is for:
 Cannot read _DRIVER_OBJECT at fffffa8009556818
 DriverObject fffffa8009556818
Current Irp fffffa800a210b28 RefCount 0 Type 00040001 Flags 0a398e48
Vpb fffffa8008426b78 DevExt 00000000 DevObjExt 00060107 
Characteristics (0xfffffa80)  FILE_AUTOGENERATED_DEVICE_NAME, FILE_CHARACTERISTIC_PNP_DEVICE, 
                              FILE_CHARACTERISTIC_TS_DEVICE, FILE_CHARACTERISTIC_WEBDAV_DEVICE, 
                              FILE_CHARACTERISTIC_CSV, FILE_DEVICE_ALLOW_APPCONTAINER_TRAVERSAL, 
                              FILE_PORTABLE_DEVICE
                              Unknown flags 0xfff8c200

Are you connected to a NAS or any other server type device? What else is connected to your computer? Are you connected to a cloud service or external hard drive?

Please run Seatools for DOS on your hard drive. Both the short and the Long test. SeaTools for DOS and Windows - How to Use

Also, open an elevated command prompt ( click start, type cmd in the search box, right click on the cmd entry and select run as administrator) in the black box that opens, copy/paste sfc /scannow. If you decide to type it, notice the space between the sfc and the /. It is a system file checker which will scan your system files and attempt to correct any missing or corrupt files. What we want are the results to say windows found no integrity violations. If it says files were found but could not be repaired, close the box, reboot and run it again, after opening the administrative command prompt. You may have to reboot and run it three times for it to repair all system files. If it can't repair them after 3 reboots, let us know.

inashgu · 15 Sep 2015

Hi essenbe,

Thanks very much. I do have several network resources I need for work - I'll try your suggestions with SeaTools and sfc and get you a comprehensive list of those resources.

essenbe · 15 Sep 2015

The object, if you notice, was a WEBDAV device, lists a CSV file and says it is a removable device.

inashgu · 15 Sep 2015

So, I've tried some things, but the system is crashing more often.

1. I did have some network drives mapped for work. To access them I need Pulse VPN, and if I wasn't connected via the VPN I would get the usual errors about being unable to connect. I figured that it was possible some program or process was trying to access them, so I disconnected them by right clicking on the drive icons and clicking 'Disconnect'.

2. I also have some drives on another computer accessible via my home router and the Windows homegroup feature. I have had these crashes when at work, away from that router - I don't know whether they may or may not be part of the problem, but I did get these crashes before I got the homegroup set up in the end of August.

3. Norton Internet Security occasionally throws dialog boxes during the crashes. My thought was that NIS might be searching network drives and doing something inappropriate, or might be playing badly with my work network's antivirus. I disabled network drive protection in NIS and am still having issues.

I'm having trouble getting the system stable long enough to use seatools, but I did run chkdisk on both partitions on this laptop and they came up with no errors.

essenbe · 15 Sep 2015

Norton is a known cause of BSODs. I would remove it and replace it with Microsoft Security Essentials (Microsoft Security Essentials - Microsoft Windows). Remove Norton from uninstall programs, then run the Norton removal tool, https://support.norton.com/sp/en/us/...rProfile_en_us.

See if that makes a difference. You can remove it just for a test and see if that is the cause of some or all of your problems. MSE has never been known to cause a BSOD, so is a good test. Once you know the answer, you can install whatever AV program you want.

inashgu · 15 Sep 2015

It's not Norton - I removed it by uninstall/change programs, then ran the Norton removal tool, then got an F4 BSOD as MSE was finishing up its first scan. I did happen to lose my internet connection on my other computer right at the moment the BSOD crashed, but I don't know whether it's related. Shall I proceed with seatools?

essenbe · 15 Sep 2015

I probably would run it. A stop code F4 is a storage related error most times. So, I would run it, at least to eliminate that possibility.

Please upload the BSOD Posting Instructions https://www.sevenforums.com/bsod-help-support/96879-blue-screen-death-bsod-posting-instructions.html. Upload the files here, this will tell you how. https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-screenshots-files-upload-post-seven-forums.html

inashgu · 15 Sep 2015

I'll upload a new .zip soon.

Sorry, my BIOS has no option for ATA instead of AHCI. Do I just use seatools for windows, since the DOS version won't work?

EDIT: I did boot into seatools for DOS anyway, but it couldn't see any drives.

essenbe · 15 Sep 2015

If you have to, yes use Seatools for Windows, but the DOS test is better. It is better to test the drive when it is not in use. But, if the option is the program for Windows or none at all, use the one for Windows.