Windows 7 BSOD help

So I recently installed Windows 7 Professional and have been getting frequent BSOD's. Not frequent to the point of un-usable. I can use the computer for most things and just general use however whenever I'm playing a computer game for an hour or longer I get BSOD'd.

It is usually one of these:

Memory_Management
pfn_list_corrupt

Now it ONLY happens when I'm playing a game. I've run memtest and no issues with my RAM that I could find with the program.

Any ideas?

System Specs:
Asus P5B Motherboard
Intel Core2Duo 6600
SoundBlaster XFi Titanium PCi-E
Nvidia GTX 280
Hitachi 1TB SATA hard drive
6GB RAM - Corsair XMS 2 DDR 2 6400

Collectively, your crashes look rather hardware-ish to me. There are multiple problems while adjusting process working sets, mapping virtual to physical memory, DMA buffer access issues - all rather suggestive of unreliable hardware.

The first thing you should do is to rule out over-clocking and under-cooling. The only-in-games situation may be linked to a heat problem.

Afterwards, the fact that memory testing has not picked up anything is good, but it's far from conclusive. The entire OS and all apps together constitute one big memory testing jig, and yet the crashes are relatively rare. Running memory testers for a few minutes or even a few hours isn't necessarily guaranteed to reveal any problems.

If you can, try removing RAM sticks until you're running on as-little-as possible as a test. Then if the machine is stable, swap the sticks around so you get a feel for what happens with which RAM stick(s). You may end up finding that they work in some configurations, but not all together.

H2SO4 said:

Collectively, your crashes look rather hardware-ish to me. There are multiple problems while adjusting process working sets, mapping virtual to physical memory, DMA buffer access issues - all rather suggestive of unreliable hardware.

The first thing you should do is to rule out over-clocking and under-cooling. The only-in-games situation may be linked to a heat problem.

Afterwards, the fact that memory testing has not picked up anything is good, but it's far from conclusive. The entire OS and all apps together constitute one big memory testing jig, and yet the crashes are relatively rare. Running memory testers for a few minutes or even a few hours isn't necessarily guaranteed to reveal any problems.

If you can, try removing RAM sticks until you're running on as-little-as possible as a test. Then if the machine is stable, swap the sticks around so you get a feel for what happens with which RAM stick(s). You may end up finding that they work in some configurations, but not all together.

I actually did the swapping of the RAM sticks already :). I saw it advised elsewhere when running memtest.

I don't overclock on purpose despite using a liquid cooling setup. I know the kinds of issues it can create which is why I avoid it.

Give you an idea of average temperatures:
GPU - IDLE: 48-50 LOAD: 60-68
CPU - IDLE: 38-41 LOAD: 50-55

Hope that helps somewhat with determining the cause.

another question might be could not enough power from the PSU cause it?

Trem said:

Hope that helps somewhat with determining the cause.

another question might be could not enough power from the PSU cause it?

Sorry mate. Minidumps are not a good way to work out precisely what's wrong when bad hardware is suspected. To use one of my favoured macabre car analogies, an autopsy of the mangled driver (the minidump) doesn't tell you what part of their cliff-diving car (hardware) was defective

It could be the PSU, processor, RAM, motherboard... almost literally anything except for the little battery perhaps. Have you definitely experienced the same crashes on a single stick of RAM?

I can't run it on a single stick.
I've run memtest on each single stick and each stick has come back fine.
I haven't had any crashes today and I spent 3 hours tonight doing some heavy gaming.

That is why I wanted to know if it could be my PSU as it is the only thing in the system that is somewhat below spec.

Trem,
I've got nothing to lend but moral support, but something very similar is happening to me. I, too, recently installed Windows 7 Professional (x64) and have been getting BSOD's. There doesn't seem to be any real rhyme or reason to when the BSOD will strike and I'm not a gamer.

My BSOD errors are typically one of these:

Memory_Management
pfn_list_corrupt
irql_not_less_or_equal

I'm inclined to blame it on my Nvidia card, which I think was causing BSOD (driver-related) issues with Vista before I upgraded, but I can't prove that as I don't have another card to use.

I should also mention that my PSU just died on Friday and I replaced it with a Corsair TX650W. Once I put that in, the on-board audio that had been working all along now emits a high-pitched tone anytime that an audio driver is enabled in Windows 7. I've tried it through speakers and headphones.

When the system is booting (i.e. in the bios) there is no tone, or if you disable the driver, no tone, which leads me to wonder if it is a Windows 7 issue and not a hardware issue. Regardless, the tone makes the on-board sound unusable, so I installed an old Soundblaster PC card that loaded automatically in Windows 7 with the Envy 24 Family Audio Contorller WDM. Annoying, but functional. I'm not certain that the audio issue is related to the BSOD issue, but I find it a strange correlation.

So, with that, just know that you aren't the only one that is having these troubles and hopefully once Windows 7 hits the streets someone out there will have some tips on how to remedy these annoyances.

Any ideas? (running memtest as soon as I post this)

System Specs:
Asus P5K SE Motherboard
Intel Core2Quad Q6600
Nvidia GeForce 9500 GT
Seagate 750 GB SATA HD
4GB RAM - Corsair DDR2 (PC2-6400)

More circumstantial evidence pointing towards Nvidia: before upgrading to Win7, but with the same Nvidia GeForce 9500 GT card installed, every time I would get a BSOD, I would check and there would be a new driver available from the Nvidia site.

Last night, after posting to this site about my BSOD troubles (which I suffered again yesterday), I went to bed. Today, in my windows update popup, what should appear but a new driver for my Nvidia GeForce 9500 GT.

Obviously, this isn't scientific, but it is very suspicious. Anybody else having trouble with this card specifically or reporting anything of this nature?

Ktrout said:

More circumstantial evidence pointing towards Nvidia: before upgrading to Win7, but with the same Nvidia GeForce 9500 GT card installed, every time I would get a BSOD, I would check and there would be a new driver available from the Nvidia site.

Last night, after posting to this site about my BSOD troubles (which I suffered again yesterday), I went to bed. Today, in my windows update popup, what should appear but a new driver for my Nvidia GeForce 9500 GT.

Obviously, this isn't scientific, but it is very suspicious. Anybody else having trouble with this card specifically or reporting anything of this nature?

As a suggestion, why don't you start your own thread pertaining to your issue, and if you attach your minidumps somebody may be able to tell you more.

Sorry, H2S04. I noted that Trem and I both have Nvidia cards and similar BSOD issues and therefore didn't feel I was hijacking the thread. I'm also new to this "debugging windows" game, so I don't have any minidumps to share, just stories to tell. I'll step back and see how things play out, but I'll be sure to let you all know if I figure anything out on my end.

Ktrout said:

Sorry, H2S04. I noted that Trem and I both have Nvidia cards and similar BSOD issues and therefore didn't feel I was hijacking the thread. I'm also new to this "debugging windows" game, so I don't have any minidumps to share, just stories to tell. I'll step back and see how things play out, but I'll be sure to let you all know if I figure anything out on my end.

I understand, and there's no need to be sorry. It's just that there are really just a handful of common bugcheck codes (BSOD categories), and the vast majority of crashes fall into one of these groups:

0xA
0xD1
0x50
0x8E
... and so on

The fact that two machines are crashing with the same code(s) means almost nothing by itself. To use the ol' standby car analogy, think of those names above as "engine overheated and stopped", "engine coughed and then stopped", "engine flew out through the bonnet at high speed"... almost meaningless in terms of identifying the real root cause. That's why it's necessary to analyse the crash dumps and check for specifics.