Windows 7: BSOD - Machine Check Exception intelppm

I'm going to try to make a long story short here.

I've been fighting with my computer for the last couple of days. I foolishly flashed the BIOS in hopes of fixing a small problem I had (but was living just fine with it).

I worked through several different errors (including an "uncorrectable hardware").

After following and fixing the errors (which included getting rid of a stray NVIDIA file and changing my anti-virus to MS's Security Essentials, I have come to the end of my day and the end of my wits.

I am rock solid stable in Safe mode, but after a couple of (idle) minutes in "regular" Windows 7 64-bit mode, it reboots.

I am receiving a machine check exception which points to my intelppm.sys

I've run sfc /scannow and everything has checked out.

I've googled the problem and I'm having problems making sense out of what I'm reading - I'm definitely in over my head.

The best I can make out is that I have a problem with my CPU's C states.

But I don't quite grasp what that means nor how I can fix it.

I've attached my mini dump in hopes that someone out there can help.



Thanks!

What DMP file???? Not attached

I apologize about that, I used the "manage attachments" button, but obviously something didn't work.

Let's see if this works:
Attachment 75809

Another update.

As part of my attempt to debug the problems leading up to last night's post, I uninstalled and physically removed my sound card.

Today I thought that if I'm going to be fighting with my computer I can at least do so with music - so I re-installed the sound card.

And that has given me different errors (although not really new errors).

It appears as if I'm in a bit of a Catch-22. When I have 'verifier' turned on ("Automatically select all drivers..."), I get a "device driver attempting to corrupt the system" BSOD.

When I turn 'verifier' off, I get an "uncorrectable hardware" BSOD.

Just to verify, I then turned 'verifier' back on ("Automatically select all drivers..."), and sure enough, I got the "device driver attempting to corrupt the system" BSOD.

I have attached the three dump files that go along with what I just describe.

Files 053010-22198 and -24320 document the "device driver attempting to corrupt the system" BSOD. The particular system program listed is ctoss2k.sys. I should note that I get this BSOD very quickly upon boot up into "normal" windows. I get the black "Starting Windows" screen and then the blue "Welcome" screen, but I only get the "Welcome" screen for about a minute before it goes right into the BSOD.

File 053010-24975 documents the "uncorrectable hardware" BSOD. This error occurred about 3 minutes after complete boot-up into 'normal' Windows. The particulars of this error (as found in reading the dump) are:
A couple of other things I should mention:

• I freely admit that I'm in over my head here. I'm not bad in fixing basic errors, but this is pretty much beyond me. I don't really even understand what 'verifier' does. When I was googling previous errors I came across a knowledgeable person who suggested to another person to turn it on. It has really helped, but then again, I'm not exactly sure why.
• I was having the same cycle of errors before (turn on 'verifier' get a 'driver attempting to corrupt' BSOD, turn it off and get an "uncorrectable hardware" BSOD). However, that was with my anti-virus programs. I attempted to reinstall Vipre because it was acting strangely, but when I did I started to get that cycle (the specific file there was sbtis.sys). I uninstalled Vipre and installed AVG but then got right back into the cycle (this time it was avgtdia.sys). I uninstalled AVG and installed Windows Security Essentials and got rid of the cycle but got the 'Machine Check Exception' error that started this thread.
• I've run memtest before with no errors.
• Time and again the errors seem to point to the CPU (and the C states, whatever they are). I'm wondering if I simply need to buy another chip.
• I also wonder if doing a fresh install of Windows 7 might cure this problem. I've noted that the last several things I've tried to install in the last 24 - 36 hours (Vipre, AVG, soundcard) have resulted in the aforementioned cycle of BSODs. I'd rather not reinstall Windows (we all know how time consuming it is) but I'm wondering if that would help. Of course, I'd rather have a pretty good idea that it would help instead of just a guess.

Any/all help is greatly, greatly appreciated!!

Attachment 75831

I'm still having major problems, lots of BSODs and I spend a lot of time in Safe Mode.

Can anyone help me out here?

I'm still spending most of my time in Safe Mode.

Any thoughts on why/how the system is rock solid in safe mode but not in 'regular' windows?

Any thoughts on whether I should reinstall Windows? And if I do, should I re-install Windows 7 64-bit (which is what I'm currently using) or go with the 32-bit version?

At this point I would first try a repair install, and if that doesn't resolve your problem, then go for a clean/format install... I would stay with the 64bit with the specs that you have ....

I tried the repair install and Windows didn't find anything wrong (!).

So I backed up everything and went with the fresh (re-)install of Windows 7 (64 bit).

However, near the very beginning ("Expanding Windows files") I got a BSOD ("uncorrectable hardware"). Thinking/hoping it was some kind of fluke, I tried it again and AGAIN I got the BSOD in the same exact place.

Thinking that I now had a very expensive paper weight, I decided to go through the BIOS settings one more time.

This time I stumbled across a sub-menu I had missed before and on this menu where two very interesting items:
Intel C state
Intel C state Package Limit Setting

I remembered that during all my investigation (googling) of the various BSOD error messages, I came across several places that mentioned something about C states. Doing some further googling about the "Intel C state" setting, I came across several people who solved various problems with their computers simply by disabling this option.

So, with nothing really to lose I disabled "Intel C state."

And viola! My computer is working and seems to be very stable.

However, I don't exactly know why this worked. Or, to be more specific, was the problem really the BIOS setting or is there something a bit wrong with my CPU?

Will my performance be negatively affected by disabling it? (Of course, when I enable it I have NO performance, so maybe it doesn't matter).

One last question, if you don't mind.

When I first built the computer I had random freezes and BSODs. I "fixed" it by changing the BIOS setting to fail safe. The only real difference that I could see was that it disabled the Intel Turbo setting.

I'm a bit hesitant to re-enable anything now that I seem to have it fixed. But does anyone have any idea if re-enabling the turbo would/could cause problems (especially now that the C State is disabled)?