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BSOD randomly strikes when gaming, "ntoskrnl.exe"?
Hello everyone, this is the first time i have ever posted in a tech support forum but this one has really got me baffled so any help will be most appreciated.
I have followed the instruction and posted the files here . Or if you prefer to download them from the site i have figured out how to attach them.
Unfortunately sometimes it does not actually BSOD so no dump is recorded, however by luck i saved one to documents a few days ago and i put that in a folder entitled "olddump".
After interrogating that one and the two that followed (unfortunately those ones are lost) i believe the error has something to do with ntoskrnl.exe something about symbols not found, looking around on google hasn't dug anything i can use up so if anyone can point me in the right direction would be great!
I first started getting errors whilst playing battlefield 3, i can usually play bf3 reasonably with no lag, get the odd crash but these ones were different and ended up in a restart or bsod, the problem is and why i am so sketchy is the errors occurred extremely randomly, and sometimes after extended periods of gametime.
It wasnt too much of an issue and i didnt give it much thought until i tried to play the guild wars 2 beta weekend, then i was hit with almost constant BSOD 1 or 2 minutes into getting in, this one was alot easier to pinpoint and after a few restarts i worked out it was FRAPS that was causing the problems, i disabled and it worked fine.
In between this i was playing Age of Empires 3 on-line with no problems at all.
When the BWE3 finished i gave my computer a spring clean, clearing out all dust, getting rid of all the "crap" i didnt need, removed all my old fraps videos and gave it a defrag, disk cleanup, full virus scan, i defiantly noticed the difference.
I began playing Empire Total War and i received a number of BSOD, also some crashes which froze my computer and what i can only describe as gave a "blind" effect on the screen, the sound turned into a "hum"?
I had a previous problem like this with my RAM so i did a memtest, it detected no errors at all. I have 1 stick of DDR3 RAM 4GB which i am unable to change at present.
Last night i did every scan i possibly could, i ran a chkdsk, defrag, sfc scan, full virus scan, registry clean.. yet when i get back into Empire Total War this afternoon exactly the same thing although this time it just shut down.
I have been monitoring temperatures at idle for the past week now and the temps rarely go above 42 idle and are quite consistent (GPU stays under 40), as i say fans are cleared of dust and can confirm they are all spinning.
I think it is graphical related simply because it only happens when i play video games although the "ntoskrnl.exe" i got from the dump file makes me think it may be some NT coding, i am really not sure?
Over the period of the errors i have done the following;
- updated my graphic card to the latest drivers
- carried out various scans/cleanups
- searched google to try and find what is wrong with limited success
- i have even tried gently shaking my desk incase something was loose or faulty
- removed/put back different USB (printer etc.) to see if that made a difference
I did notice whilst playing movies from DVD, it would freeze at specific points, no big deal but it froze my whole computer for a good 5 minutes when i tried to move on, maybe related maybe not.
Things i am unable to do
- Buy/change hardware , unfortunately this is not possible at present although i am looking at purchasing more RAM.
Things i am unwilling to do
- Windows reinstall, i really would like to keep this as a last last resort, simply because the amount i would have to backup, i really dont have the time or patience although if it is the only option then i will obviously consider it.
Things i am going to try
- another ckhdsk, i did one but not sure i did it correctly, i tried to do one while posting this but had to exit it due to lagging my pc
- paying different games to really isolate the issue
- get another BSOD so i can grab the newest minidump
Before i posted this i unlocked the forth core of my processor to see if it would help.
It may be something simple that i am missing, im not sure but it has been doing my head in for two days now and i think a fresh pair of eyes wouldnt go a miss!
I am really new towards all of this.
Thanks in advance
- Andrew
Specs (also in .zip file)
AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 B40 Processor
DDR3 4GB RAM
AMD Radeon HD 6700 Series