Self-built gaming PC having BSODs and freezes; can't pinpoint cause.

Driver Verifier will be mostly causing the freezes, since it 'stressing' the drivers, in order to hopefully pinpoint a faulty driver which needs to be either updated or removed. Driver Verifier will produce a BSOD if a driver is found.

You may stop Driver Verifier after 24 hours, and try to keep the computer on as long as possible, if you need to shut down then try and shut down in Windows.

It's been 24+ hours, and still no crashes with Verifier running.

Disable Driver Verifier for now, there doesn't seem to be any driver related issues, as of yet.

Run some hard-drive diagnostics and follow these steps:

• Hard Drive Diagnostic Procedure

Find your hard-drive manufacturer and run their tests.

Additional Tests:

• SeaTools for DOS | Seagate
• CrystalDiskInfo - Software - Crystal Dew World

Post a screenshot of Crystal Disk Info summary:

• Screenshots and Files - Upload and Post in Seven Forums

writhziden said:

If you have an SSD, make sure the following are up to date:

• SSD firmware
• BIOS Version
• Chipset Drivers
• Hard disk controller drivers/SATA drivers
• If you have a Marvell IDE ATA/ATAPI device, make sure the drivers are up to date from the Intel site or Marvell site and not from your motherboard/vendor support site.

Check for any file system errors and bad sectors using Option #2 of:

• Disk Check

Use this command with Disk Check:

Code:

chkdsk C: /f /r

So far I've done chkdsk, but I'm not sure if/where it created a log file?

I just got a blue screen a few minutes ago, and it's an error I've never seen before until this crash. I've attached the file itself and posted the info about the crash from WhoCrashed and WinDbg below. What do y'all make of it?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WinDbg showed:

WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR (124)
A fatal hardware error has occurred. Parameter 1 identifies the type of error
source that reported the error. Parameter 2 holds the address of the
WHEA_ERROR_RECORD structure that describes the error conditon.
Arguments:
Arg1: 0000000000000000, Machine Check Exception
Arg2: fffffa8008004028, Address of the WHEA_ERROR_RECORD structure.
Arg3: 00000000be000000, High order 32-bits of the MCi_STATUS value.
Arg4: 0000000000800400, Low order 32-bits of the MCi_STATUS value.

Debugging Details:
------------------


BUGCHECK_STR: 0x124_GenuineIntel

CUSTOMER_CRASH_COUNT: 1

DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: VISTA_DRIVER_FAULT

PROCESS_NAME: System

CURRENT_IRQL: f

STACK_TEXT:
fffff800`00ba8a98 fffff800`0302aa3b : 00000000`00000124 00000000`00000000 fffffa80`08004028 00000000`be000000 : nt!KeBugCheckEx
fffff800`00ba8aa0 fffff800`031ed633 : 00000000`00000001 fffffa80`07852490 00000000`00000000 fffffa80`078524e0 : hal!HalBugCheckSystem+0x1e3
fffff800`00ba8ae0 fffff800`0302a700 : 00000000`00000728 fffffa80`07852490 fffff800`00ba8e70 fffff800`00ba8e00 : nt!WheaReportHwError+0x263
fffff800`00ba8b40 fffff800`0302a052 : fffffa80`07852490 fffff800`00ba8e70 fffffa80`07852490 00000000`00000000 : hal!HalpMcaReportError+0x4c
fffff800`00ba8c90 fffff800`03029f0d : 00000000`00000004 00000000`00000001 fffff800`00ba8ef0 00000000`00000000 : hal!HalpMceHandler+0x9e
fffff800`00ba8cd0 fffff800`0301de88 : fffff880`0ae6e880 00000000`00f71a51 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : hal!HalpMceHandlerWithRendezvous+0x55
fffff800`00ba8d00 fffff800`030d552c : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : hal!HalHandleMcheck+0x40
fffff800`00ba8d30 fffff800`030d5393 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : nt!KxMcheckAbort+0x6c
fffff800`00ba8e70 fffff880`059231e6 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : nt!KiMcheckAbort+0x153
fffff800`00b9c9b8 00000000`00000000 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : USBPORT!USBPORTSVC_LogEntry+0xa


STACK_COMMAND: kb

FOLLOWUP_NAME: MachineOwner

MODULE_NAME: hardware

IMAGE_NAME: hardware

DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP: 0

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: X64_0x124_GenuineIntel_PROCESSOR_MAE

BUCKET_ID: X64_0x124_GenuineIntel_PROCESSOR_MAE

Followup: MachineOwner
---------

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WhoCrashed showed:

On Mon 4/1/2013 6:44:32 PM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\memory.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: hal.dll (hal!HalBugCheckSystem+0x1E3)
Bugcheck code: 0x124 (0x0, 0xFFFFFA8008004028, 0xBE000000, 0x800400)
Error: WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR
file path: C:\Windows\system32\hal.dll
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: Hardware Abstraction Layer DLL
Bug check description: This bug check indicates that a fatal hardware error has occurred. This bug check uses the error data that is provided by the Windows Hardware Error Architecture (WHEA).
This is likely to be caused by a hardware problem problem. This problem might be caused by a thermal issue.
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I got ANOTHER crash just now, where the computer randomly restarted; no freeze, no BSOD. Seriously, I can't get a grip on what in the world is going on. Does ANYONE have ANY idea about what this can be? Any general highly probable cause? To me it's looking like CPU or MOBO at this point, more likely MOBO, but I don't really know.

The first parameter or argument has the value of 0x0, which is a Machine Check Exception, which means the CPU has detected a hardware problem and the address points to a processor error because the CPU has found one, so it could be a different form of hardware which is causing the issue.

In such a situation, it is best to use these steps:

• Hardware - Stress Test With Prime95

Enable "Round off checking" before the test (see first post below tutorial).

• 
  Stop 0x124 - what it means and what to try

All the hardware seeming to be running stable and tests reporting no errors, could mean a bad motherboard.

   Note

Remember to finish the hard-drive tests.

Thanks, will do. I was about to use Prime95 before but it sounded like it may be risky, seeing how it pushes the components to their max. But if it's safe and won't cause further damage, I'll try it.

I'd like to quickly mention (in the hopes it could somehow be relevant to the other crashes) that every time I play a certain game (Arma II, mostly happens on multi-player), my screen goes black, the game crashes to my desktop and I can't maximize it but when I attempt to I can hear the sounds from the game and the program still works, but the visuals won't come back and I can only hear myself play from the desktop screen. After these crashes (it happens the same way every time I try to play the game), the reliability center logs the crash as "video hardware error" and under the report it says:

Description:
A problem with your video hardware caused Windows to stop working correctly.

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: LiveKernelEvent
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033

Files that help describe the problem
WD-20130327-2058.dmp
sysdata.xml
WERInternalMetadata.xml

View a temporary copy of these files
Warning: If a virus or other security threat caused the problem, opening a copy of the files could harm your computer.

Extra information about the problem
BCCode: 117
BCP1: FFFFFA800BA5A360
BCP2: FFFFF88004C1C2B0
BCP3: 0000000000000000
BCP4: 0000000000000000
OS Version: 6_1_7601
Service Pack: 1_0
Product: 768_1

Stop 0x124 is almost always a hardware related error, and it may be better to test your graphics card instead first:

• NVIDIA/AMD Video Card - Test with OCCT

You can use a program such as CoreTemp or CPUID HWMonitor to monitor your temperatures.