Random BSODs. Laptop doesn't always create dump files.

Hi there! This is my first time posting for BSOD help, so please let me know if I have missed something that I am meant to include. Sorry for the long description, but I wanted to be thorough.

My wife and I have the same MSi laptops that we got at the end of 2011. My OS is Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit. I tend to frequently check for driver updates and perform PC maintenance, while she has left her drivers as they came. She has never had a BSOD. I think I noticed my first BSOD around the time when I updated my Nvidia drivers, but I also installed Cisco VPN Client at that time.

There was a period that I was using 3ds Max a lot for work and during that time, I got BSODs at least once a day - sometimes when using Max, sometimes when playing League of Legends and I remember one happening when it was idle at the desktop and I was on the other side of the room and happened to see it. I remember that some of them were "Pagefault in non-paged area" and "POOL_CORRUPTION_IN_FILE_AREA".

I rolled back my graphics card drivers as best I could and seemed to have a long spell without BSOD.

I used to use SpyBot, AVG Free and Norton anti-virus at the same time, until my computer was experiencing significant slow-downs and I first got rid of AVG, and then Norton. I still use SpyBot, but have been with out virus protection for a couple of months, relying on my router and windows firewall (as well as my own usual internet file stranger-danger awareness).

Recently, I have been getting back into 3d work using Maya and also updated my nvidia drivers due to some new games crashing (FTL and Magic 2013 thanks to Steam sales). But now I appear to getting multiple BSOD a day and my computer isn't creating any crash dumps (large or small) no matter what path I tell it to create it at, whether I let it auto restart or not after crashing and adjusting many page file settings to be well above the required amount.

I ran an extensive Windows Memory Diagnostic overnight a few days ago and also a check disk but both were completely successful with no errors. I don't have any blank CDs on hand to use MemTest86 but will purchase some next week if necessary.

Using verifier today, I uninstalled Daemon Tools Lite and Cisco VPN client, as verifier was BSODing when it got to dtsoftbus01.sys and dne64x.sys respectively. I have had Daemon Tools installed since I booted up my laptop for the first time without trouble, but it has been uninstalled just in case. I was getting "irql not less or equal" ones in the past couple of days, but today (once I got those drivers uninstalled) have all been "memory management".

I have included the SF Diagnostic Tool file as information from CPU-Z and a photo of the "memory management" bluescreen that happened prior to this post today. Here are those error codes in copy-friendly text:
0x0000001A 0x0000000000000411 0xFFFFF6FC50072778 0x884000029F91C882 0xFFFFF68000068B5B

Note that my computer seems under a fair amount of use running the (newly installed) Microsoft Security Essentials scan, just in case I have picked up a virtual nasty.

You'll also see that there was one minidump made yesterday, but I haven't been able to get it to save any more.
In my wisdom, I actually deleted my large memory.dmp file when I was trying to make sure it would create them, so sorry for that missing info from the past that may have helped.

I can go a long time without seeing one, but when they happen, they drive me nuts. I use this laptop both for work and recreation, and getting crashes when I play the same games as my wife while she has no problems just rubs it in! :) Having a crash in the middle of a skype call with a client the other day has made me redouble my efforts and to devote my day to finding a solution.

One final factor that I haven't ruled out, is the possibility that something is overheating. When I started having the issues, it was a particularly hot season and if it wasn't all in my head, I think I got less BSODs when I put my laptop on a phone book for better air circulation. They have come back now, and I happen to have a heater going full strength below the table that I sit it on (book still included). It may be that I have to move further away from the heater or make more use of my "turn fan on to maximum speed" button. Just after my BSOD this morning, Core Temp was recording temperatures above 94C for all 4 CPUs, whereas now, the fan is hardly spinning and they're sitting around 60C. I'll have to experiment more with this - especially if any of you out there suspect this to be the leading cause.

After searching the internet myself on many occasions and discovering many, many potential causes, I feel my leads are beginning to dry up. So I am her to ask you for any help or suggestions you can give. Thank you very much in advance.

Best regards,
Gikon

Hi Pauly, thanks for the welcome.

As far as I am aware, I am not OCing and always try to disable any OCing software.

I just imported my system specs from System Info. Thanks for that link.

I have read the posting instructions and hopefully made explicit the reasons for any part that I wasn't able to provide. I have switched back to small memory dumps as you suggest. Maybe we'll get lucky next time.

Kaspersky was suspicious of Akamai, but I skipped it as I'm pretty sure it was installed and used by some online multiplayer game (possibly League of Legends - but I may be mistaken). I check for updates, immunize and run a Spybot scan every day and it only clears out the same old tracking cookies that I sometimes pick up from various websites.

As I was writing my previous post, I installed and ran Microsoft Security essentials and did a quick scan. It didn't find anything, but I will leave a complete scan running in the near future.

My CPUs seems to be pretty happy sitting around 60, but I agree that getting up to their 100C tj limit is not a good thing. Why wouldn't my laptop be using its fan more when the temperatures get high, when I know it has more to give (because of aforementioned max-fan button)? Perhaps I should be getting Core Temp to run a manual fan speed increase program if it starts to overheat? Does anyone know of a good one for me to use?

Again, unless there's a way to run Memtest86+ and HDdhiag without needing a blank CD, I'm out of luck right now. The seagate short scan passed and I'll try a long test later. Maybe tomorrow night as tonight will be a complete virus scan.

Cheers for the speedy reply. Let me know if there is anything else I can do to provide more information.

Thanks!

Ah! I should have just followed your link. Thanks for that. Now why couldn't I find that option before? :) I'll get to it.

Finally! After running MemTest whenever I could to try to reach 7 passes, I got my first errors today!

I included some recent BSODs for good measure (see attached). My computer still doesn't create any dump files.

I can run Verifier for hours with no problems, and when it does cause my PC to crash, it doesn't list any drivers. The internet leads me to believe that this is probably a hardware cause, right?

Sometimes my laptop can be running smoothly for hours, and another time it will BSOD once it has just rebooted and I open a browser...

So I take it that a MemTest error means that I have RAM issues?

If so, does anyone know what the best way would be for me to get new RAM and install it in my laptop?

Thanks for any further advice!

Is there any way to tell which slot/stick it is from the error? Or do I just have to take one out and operate as normal until it crashes?

Hi there again!

I finally found an opportunity to take apart my laptop to get at the ram. Unfortunately, only two slots were in an easy-to-reach location and the other two require me dismantling the entire case, keyboard, screen, other parts, etc just to get at them. I decided to try going with half ram for a bit to see if the problems still persisted.

I am still getting frequent BSODs and programs crash-to-desktop so I ran a memtest on the 2 sticks left in my computer. I left it running for 9 passes and it found no errors (I attached another screenshot if it's any help). I will try running another test directly after a BSOD if I am able to - as that's when memtest was able to find errors last time.

It's a horrible feeling not to have a reliable computer, but I just want to fix it, not buy a new one.
But for now, are there any other possibilities I could look into for what's causing my problems?

As always, any help would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers! :)
Gikon