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I'm sorry, I don't see the uploaded files you mentioned in your latest post. Can you confirm that you've uploaded it?
I'm sorry, I don't see the uploaded files you mentioned in your latest post. Can you confirm that you've uploaded it?
Oh my, I forgot to attach the files! Whoops! Here is the updated zipped folder.
Driver Verifier has detected Gigabyte Easy Saver driver doing something inappropriate. The driver itself is pre Windows-7 (dated March 2009), but I would not recommend you update it. Rather, uninstall it. In fact, go to the Gigabyte website and look for the downloads page specific for your motherboard and note all the utilities, software, etc., anything except drivers that are needed to give functionality to a component (e.g. an audio driver to hear audio, but not some USB enhanced charging driver) and go into Programs & Features in your Control Panel and start uninstalling anything that's listed. You will want your system clean of all software and utilities that came with your motherboard. Again, only drivers required to give a device functionality, like audio drivers for audio and LAN drivers for LAN, should both stay and be updated. Motherboard software, gimmick drivers, and utilities are notorious for being very buggy, so it's good to never install them and keep the system clean of them.
I am not entirely confident this is what is actually causing your regular crashes, nor can I ascertain that from the minidumps, but this is definitely a good starting point. Repeat using Driver Verifier after you have successfully cleaned everything so we can proceed in finding any other driver bugs that may be present in the system.
Thanks for the information. Unfortunately, for some reason, I can't find anything related to GIGABYTE installed on my computer. I un-installed these features a long time ago and things were fine for awhile-- however, I am currently unsure of how these uninstalled drivers could be affecting my PC from beyond the grave-- motherboard ghosts?! Who knows :P
Anywho, I'm going to keep on tracking them down. Thank you for the information and yes, this is an excellent place to start!
Edit: I lied, I opened the Command Prompt window and had the Device Manager reveal the option to show hidden drivers and removed the gdrv.sys driver from my system. Now for the driver verifier test...
Double Edit: I don't know if this is significant, but a sign that a BSOD is coming is that sometimes when I click on a program, it'll tell me that the path is inconsistent, OR, when running Google Chrome, my pages will consistently crash. Also, I have a NetGear Wireless Broadband adapter (instead of an on-board PCI card for wireless internet), and everytime I BSOD and Windows restarts, that USB device isn't detected and I have to unplug and plug it in again. When I tried checking for an update for that driver, I BSOD'd AGAIN. Let me know if you would like updated .dmp files.
This is the adapter I have: http://www.netgear.com/home/products.../wnda3100.aspx
Also ran memtest86 and chkdsk utilities but they showed nothing wrong with my hardware.
TRIPLE EDIT: I read some other posts on other forums and some articles and found that this is actually a big issue with USB network adapters like this. I think I have a corrupted driver file so I'm going to try and obtain a new one to replace the old one. My system has been stable for a little while, so maybe a few more tests should hopefully do the trick. Also, gdrv.sys kept re-installing itself and I didn't really know what to do there (and still don't). Someone suggested changing the registry hexadecimal value to 4 from 3 (so that it wouldn't turn on if any application tried accessing it). Thank you for your support and I will keep you updated!
Last edited by weechaca; 05 Feb 2013 at 04:03. Reason: Update on news
Mobo driver uninstallers have a tendency to be just as buggy as the software they install, in that they usually do a poor job and leave trace objects behind, such as the driver components. I know Driver Fusion (free) is an app that's commonly used to make sure there's nothing left behind, and that includes the Gigabyte Easy Saver driver. Understand that the driver is part of the Gigabyte Smart Recovery (or XPress2) software package, so if that's still around it may be rejuvenating it back to life.
There may indeed be an issue with your USB net adapter, but so far the crashes are not pointing in that direction, at least not what Driver Verifier has to say. If there's any bugs, DV will indeed sniff it out, but if there's more than one driver bug present, we'll have to work with what it finds first before we can address other ones.
The dump files so far haven't been of much help unless Driver Verifier was the one that caused them. If you'd like to provide more for us, DV will have to be on to make them count.
I tried using Driver Fusion to erase any trace of the Gigabyte Smart Recovery but it didn't find anymore traces of it after I did a complete removal of the software with Revo Uninstall. If this is significant, one of my recent (last night) BSOD's pointed to...
On Tue 2/5/2013 6:53:50 AM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\020413-23946-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: bcmwlhigh664.sys (bcmwlhigh664+0x1BBA3)
Bugcheck code: 0x24 (0x1904FB, 0xFFFFF8800D4B7FF8, 0xFFFFF8800D4B7850, 0xFFFFF800030AC6B5)
Error: NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM
file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\bcmwlhigh664.sys
product: Broadcom 802.11 Network Adapter wireless driver
company: Broadcom Corporation
description: Broadcom 802.11 Network Adapter wireless driver
Bug check description: This indicates a problem occurred in the NTFS file system.
A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error. It is suggested you look for an update for the following driver: bcmwlhigh664.sys (Broadcom 802.11 Network Adapter wireless driver, Broadcom Corporation).
Google query: bcmwlhigh664.sys Broadcom Corporation NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM
...a netgear driver file! bcmwlhigh664.sys. Again, I'm not sure if this is completely significant, but let me go ahead and re-do the driver verifier test, since I've since taken care of this broadcom issue and would like to bugcheck even more. Thank you for your help!
Just BSOD'd once again. I'm going to upload a new copy of the updated files that the SF Diagnostic tool grabs. Once again, after I BSOD my device driver for Netgear stops working and cannot start. It's...unusual. Perhaps I should just buy an on-board PCI card?
Anywho, if I cannot resolve this issue, I am going to just re-install windows fresh from the CD. Quick question before I do this though: what's the best way to ensure that I don't install buggy drivers from Gigabyte and other third party softwares and drivers? And should I continue with my current set-up of booting Windows from an SSD and putting other things on my HDD? Thanks for your assistance.
If you plan on doing a re-install, just make sure to only download separate drivers specifically for the components that needs it and use those. Do not use any CD that came with your motherboard.
I personally recommend giving Driver Verifier one more shot before resorting to a reinstall.
Oh, btw, have you updated the BIOS for your mobo? Wanna make sure to take care of that, since BIOS patches often fix compatibility issues with SSDs.
I have not checked for updates to my BIOS, nor have I ever really done it myself before. I'll give that a quick look.
On another note, my computer keeps BSOD-ing now on something with ____filter.sys (I forget what the first part is and I'm on my other laptop). It then also once again crashed on the Broadcom system file which belongs to the Netgear driver. I think I'm going to go ahead and just re-install everything, as I've already backed up my files anyway. Although I do have a quick question--
You mentioned to not install anything from a CD, however, I'm having a bit of trouble finding which motherboard drivers are "essential" and which ones are not. I know which basic categories to download from (Chipset, Network, Audio etc.,) but Gigabyte has this list here: GIGABYTE - Motherboard - Socket 1155 - GA-Z68XP-UD3 (rev. 1.0) and I have no idea which ones to select from that.
Thank you once again for all of your help, and I greatly appreciate it.![]()
Honestly it does sound like there's an issue with that Netgear network controller if it's consistent like this. If it's a separate card, it probably should be replaced, and if it is embedded on the mobo, it is probably conducive of a bad mobo altogether. I have also witnessed the rare occasion of some incompatibility with certain router features like UPnP.
The drivers that are essential are the ones that are needed to get things working. Are you not getting internet connection? Get the LAN drivers. No audio? Get the audio drivers. Only get the ones that are required to make things happen on your system. Anything else are to be deemed superfluous and/or unstable.
Updating the BIOS on a system is a fairly simple process nowadays. Just make sure the system is in a relatively stable state at the time. If your BSODs have typically been infrequent, it should be rather safe to run the BIOS flash utility, just make sure no other programs are running at the time.