ntoskrnl.exe BSOD Randomly every few days

essenbe said:

Please explain. What you are describing is a restart of the computer and not a classic BSOD. BOODs (Blue Screen of Death) is when the screen turns blue and text appears telling you a bunch of stuff. Like this

Attachment 323052

[LEFT]Is that what you are getting or something else?

Okay I have never gotten that screen, the PC just restarts, and once I am at my dekstop again, I get a window such as this one :

Then once I click ''View Problem Details'' , it tells me it was a blue screen etc and ofcourse the 'Check for solution' button does nothing helpful... Also all the restarts do come up in BlueScreenViewer. What I was just saying was that I used to go straight to my dekstop after a PC BSOD restart and get that window shown above but now it brings me to this screen first :

and then once I am back onto my desktop I get that window as shown above again.


But yes, I have never actually gotten the physical ''Blue Screen'' that you posted upon restarts.

Will do the new tests you advised now and post results. Thanks.

Create a restore point so you can get back to where you were before Driver Verifier was enabled. System Restore Point : Create at System Startup

Driver verifier should be enabled on non Microsoft drivers. It will make your system run sluggish. It puts stress on your drivers, trying to make the weaker ones BSOD, thus being able to identify the offending driver, if there is one. That is the purpose of driver verifier. So, although the BSOD code says it is a hardware error, we are trying to make sure a driver is not causing the hardware error. Does that make it a little more understandable? I hope so, if not, ask away. BTW, to answer your question more fully, no it creates no file. It has to BSOD to identify the driver that is causing your issues to work, that is assuming it is a driver.

Yes, thanks that did clear things up. Also I have noticed now since enabling this driver verifier games are unplayable on my pc. sure they run and evrything but the FPS fluctuates between 10-100fps and thus makes the game unplayable and I get FPS 'lagg', I assume this is normal because of the verifier and not the GPU or its drivers messing up? My PC has become pretty useless apart from just general web browsing and I will probably leave it Idle for driververifier to run in the background, but amn't sure if that is the right way to test the drivers? It said to leave the verifier running while I carry out normal tasks, but since I cannot do that and am leaving the PC idle, I don't know if im getting full use out of this test, any advice?

NB. As I was typing this another BSOD happened. Same error code, no outstanding drivers etc, feel its not because of the driver verifier and just another ''normal'' BSOD that happened to take place now. Will keep you posted on any more BSOD, so far they haven't changed in frequency since enabling DV.

The experience you see is to be expected. I hope you can do without gaming or tolerate it for 24 hours of use. Gaming, as I understand it, is when you usually get the BSODs, so try other activities that will put some stress on everything. This is one time we want you to BSOD as often as possible. But, in Gaming we always get the same codes, so lets make an effort to either find ehich driver it is, or rule out drivers.

I am not at my normal computer at the moment, so will need to wait a while until I get back to look at the dump file. When you get time, could you save me the trouble of reading this whole thread and make a list of everything you have done, tests we have done so I can see if we have overlooked anything. I really don't think so. Also, did you try another card on this board since we started this?

Please understand, I'm old and forget a lot and we are dealing with quite a few cases all at the same time, so sometimes it's difficult for us old foggies to keep things straight. So, please bear with me. But, these type of BSODs are some of the most difficult to deal with because we get no specific information from the dump files. That's why Boozad asked you to run Driver verifier. Maybe with a couple of BSODs, it will give us some info to go on. But, don't give up, we haven't.

They're all 0x124s and I can't get a thing out of them. Driver Verifier seems to be doing something to cause that many BSODs but there's absolutely nothing showing except for this:

Code:

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: fffffa80087f6038, Address of the WHEA_ERROR_RECORD structure.
Arg3: 0000000000000000, High order 32-bits of the MCi_STATUS value.
Arg4: 0000000000000000, Low order 32-bits of the MCi_STATUS value.

The same as all the others. I'm going to ask a couple more people take a look because if all hardware tests have passed and DV isn't showing up any rogue drivers then all I can think of is the motherboard.

OK, I'll take a look in a minute, but the vanilla reinstall is where I was thinking of going next. Download all of your Motherboard drivers from the Asus site, they should be the most current, and your GPU driver from AMD and Microsoft security essentials.. Put them on a USB Flash drive. What I do, which will upset some people here. As soon as I get to the desktop, go to Windows update and in the left column select change settings, set it to download updates and let me decide what to install. But, install no updates, which you should not have internet access anyway. Transfer the drivers from the USB drive to the desktop. Install all of your drivers, but, install the chipset driver first and do all the restarts for each driver. Do not install any of the Asus utilities like AI tuner. Install the rest of the drivers, but make sure the Lan driver is installed last of the motherboard drivers. Then install Msft Security essentials, then the GPU driver. Select custom install and only install the Display driver and the PhysX driver.making sure the 'clean install' checkbox is checked even though it should not be necessary. Once all of that is installed, go to windows update, you will have about 100 updates to inwstall. Take your time. Select about 10 at a time, and install them. Be sure throughout this process to install no hardware drivers. After each 10, use the computer for a few minutes to make sure it is running OK, then install another 10, give it a little time between each so if something is not right, you will know which ones messed it up. Continue this until you check and there are no more updates to install. Then install nothing else. That should put you in a clean state. I forgot to mention, when you do the install, disconnect 1 wire from each hard drive except the one you are installing windows on. After all drivers and windows updates are installed, do an image of the install and save it on another drive somewhere or a DVD drive. That may save you from having to do this again. You can install the image and have a perfectly clean install.

Now, install nothing at all and do not connect any drives for a few days, if possible. You will have nothing that should cause a driver problem. Now, if you can hold out for a few days and get no BSODs, you will have a pretty god idea that a driver is at fault. If you have BSODs after this, you will know you have a hardware problem. that is exactly what I would do. With just the basic clean install, use it for doing normal stuff, which will not be a lot, but give it a good run for as long as possible. Once you feel good about it, if that happens, install 1 program at a time and use it for awhile until you feel good about it, then another. I know this is a PITA, but at least if you install a program and all of a sudden start having BSODs, you will know exactly what it is. That is exactly the way to do this to identify what is wrong. Before the install, set BIOS to optimized defaults, set the sata controller to what you want (AHCI is best and probably the default) set your ram timings, frequency and voltage to manufacturers specs), you can set the boot order to DVD/CD 1st boot device and hard drive to second device. That way if you need to use the installation disk or recovery disk, it will be no problem.

So, disconnect all but the drive you are installing windows to first, set bios to defaults next, while in bios put the installation DVD in the drive, set the boot order save and exit. You should boot straight into the installation disk. When you get to the screen of where do you want to install windows, you may want to select advanced options and select format first, when that is done, select that drive and install. You will have no 100MB partition, the boot files will be on the C drive if you do that, but it will hopefully clean off anything that may be on the drive that could mess you up.

If you have any doubts or questions be sure to ask before starting. I don't mind a bit. But, I would wait until you have run driver verifier for the full 24 hours first, and that is 24 hours of use.

What manufacturer, nodel and size of PSU do you have? The values you gave me fro Bios are all quite good. But that is at idle, what it does under stress could be something very different.