Intermittent BSODs with no obvious commonality

Saraiguma · 17 Dec 2014

I have been having BSOD issues for the past few months, they started very rarely and have become increasingly more common, to the point where I will crash once every other day at least. There does not seem to be a common cause to them, they have happened playing games, writing email, clicking links, receiving messages on Steam, and even overnight when nothing out of the ordinary would have happened to trigger them.

Unfortunately the actual blue screen goes away very quickly so I never have a chance to copy what they say the only time I actually got a chance I believe the messages were 0xc00000e9 and BAD_POOL_HEADER though I did not see what the sys file was.

I have followed all the steps to have Windows create minidump files but it does not do so unfortunately. I have run Malwarebytes, a system file check, 10 passes of memtest, a chkdsk, and run an antivirus scan and each test has come up clean.

I attached the zip file created by the tool in the sticky thread, though I am unsure how helpful it will be without minidumps.

Gator · 17 Dec 2014

Hello Saraiguma, Welcome to Sevenforums.

Your file doesn't include the dump files. Please setup your PC to create a small memory dump upon receiving a BSOD.
Dump Files - Configure Windows to Create on BSOD

Saraiguma · 18 Dec 2014

Gator said:

Hello Saraiguma, Welcome to Sevenforums.

Your file doesn't include the dump files. Please setup your PC to create a small memory dump upon receiving a BSOD.
Dump Files - Configure Windows to Create on BSOD

as I said I have followed all of these steps but Windows simply does not produce minidump files, Minidumps are enabled in startup and recovery, the page file is enabled on the same drive as my windows install, and the Windows error reporting service starts automatically with Windows (I am not positive that this is correlated to minidumps but I saw someone suggest it so I checked it)

Gator · 18 Dec 2014

Saraiguma said:

Gator said:

Hello Saraiguma, Welcome to Sevenforums.

Your file doesn't include the dump files. Please setup your PC to create a small memory dump upon receiving a BSOD.
Dump Files - Configure Windows to Create on BSOD

as I said I have followed all of these steps but Windows simply does not produce minidump files, Minidumps are enabled in startup and recovery, the page file is enabled on the same drive as my windows install, and the Windows error reporting service starts automatically with Windows (I am not positive that this is correlated to minidumps but I saw someone suggest it so I checked it)

Oops, sometimes I jump straight into the files lol..

My apologies.

Try this:
PC keeps crashing and no minidump is being created.

Or this
How do I generate a memory dump manually? - ESET Knowledgebase

Saraiguma · 18 Dec 2014

Gator said:

Saraiguma said:

Gator said:

Hello Saraiguma, Welcome to Sevenforums.

Your file doesn't include the dump files. Please setup your PC to create a small memory dump upon receiving a BSOD.
Dump Files - Configure Windows to Create on BSOD

as I said I have followed all of these steps but Windows simply does not produce minidump files, Minidumps are enabled in startup and recovery, the page file is enabled on the same drive as my windows install, and the Windows error reporting service starts automatically with Windows (I am not positive that this is correlated to minidumps but I saw someone suggest it so I checked it)

Oops, sometimes I jump straight into the files lol..

My apologies.

Try this:
PC keeps crashing and no minidump is being created.

Or this
How do I generate a memory dump manually? - ESET Knowledgebase

I've turned on the driver verifier and will report back if it causes a crash, I have also turned off automatic reboot so I can take a picture of the blue screen if nothing else.

The second link seems to be a way to force a false stop error which would be a way to dump memory but since my install is currently not making dumps at all and this would likely not create the same error that a legitimate crash would I do not see how it would be helpful in diagnosis of my problem, if I am mistaken feel free to correct me and I will attempt it though.

Gator · 18 Dec 2014

Saraiguma said:

Gator said:

Saraiguma said:

as I said I have followed all of these steps but Windows simply does not produce minidump files, Minidumps are enabled in startup and recovery, the page file is enabled on the same drive as my windows install, and the Windows error reporting service starts automatically with Windows (I am not positive that this is correlated to minidumps but I saw someone suggest it so I checked it)

Oops, sometimes I jump straight into the files lol..

My apologies.

Try this:
PC keeps crashing and no minidump is being created.

Or this
How do I generate a memory dump manually? - ESET Knowledgebase

I've turned on the driver verifier and will report back if it causes a crash, I have also turned off automatic reboot so I can take a picture of the blue screen if nothing else.

The second link seems to be a way to force a false stop error which would be a way to dump memory but since my install is currently not making dumps at all and this would likely not create the same error that a legitimate crash would I do not see how it would be helpful in diagnosis of my problem, if I am mistaken feel free to correct me and I will attempt it though.

Possibly, but we can still dig in and find out if there are other underlying problems and also check drivers and other things.

Follow the steps in the thread below. Make sure to use Microsoft Security essentials for now while we troubleshoot your BSOD. It will provide a more stable environment.

Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7

Follow everything as close as possible stopping short of when it asks you to reinstall.

Saraiguma · 18 Dec 2014

Gator said:

Saraiguma said:

Gator said:

Oops, sometimes I jump straight into the files lol..

My apologies.

Try this:
PC keeps crashing and no minidump is being created.

Or this
How do I generate a memory dump manually? - ESET Knowledgebase

I've turned on the driver verifier and will report back if it causes a crash, I have also turned off automatic reboot so I can take a picture of the blue screen if nothing else.

The second link seems to be a way to force a false stop error which would be a way to dump memory but since my install is currently not making dumps at all and this would likely not create the same error that a legitimate crash would I do not see how it would be helpful in diagnosis of my problem, if I am mistaken feel free to correct me and I will attempt it though.

Possibly, but we can still dig in and find out if there are other underlying problems and also check drivers and other things.

Follow the steps in the thread below. Make sure to use Microsoft Security essentials for now while we troubleshoot your BSOD. It will provide a more stable environment.

Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7

Follow everything as close as possible stopping short of when it asks you to reinstall.

I'd already done all of those except installing Coretemp, which I did and it shows no problems.

I have had a Bluescreen since enabling the driver verifier and it is not a message I have ever seen before

Despite the message at the bottom it did not create a crash dump

Golden · 18 Dec 2014

Can you upload the ZIP file anyway....there may be clues as to the issue.

Check in C:\Windows\Minidump.....are there any .dmp files present there?

**cluberti** · 18 Dec 2014

Also, if you've disabled your paging file, or moved it to a drive other than the one that \Windows is on, or if you've made it too small to capture a dump file, then that could explain not capturing a file like \Windows\Memory.dmp or \Windows\minidump\*.dmp. If you're sure you've already handled that, certain security software can impede the ability to create a .dmp file, as can a disk controller driver actually causing the crash (as one needs to be running properly when the OS crashes, so that the .dmp file can be written out to the disk it presents to the OS). There are other reasons too, but those are the most common. Given you've enabled special pool, and are seeing a crash, it's at least possible this is driver-related, so the fact you aren't getting .dmp files could actually be giving us a clue as to what's going on (have you updated drivers or security/antivirus software recently?).

Saraiguma · 18 Dec 2014

Golden said:

Can you upload the ZIP file anyway....there may be clues as to the issue.

Check in C:\Windows\Minidump.....are there any .dmp files present there?

I originally uploaded it then managed to accidentally remove it, I added it back to the original post, the \minidump\ folder exists but is empty (system and hidden files are set to be visible.)

cluberti said:

Also, if you've disabled your paging file, or moved it to a drive other than the one that \Windows is on, or if you've made it too small to capture a dump file, then that could explain not capturing a file like \Windows\Memory.dmp or \Windows\minidump\*.dmp. If you're sure you've already handled that, certain security software can impede the ability to create a .dmp file, as can a disk controller driver actually causing the crash (as one needs to be running properly when the OS crashes, so that the .dmp file can be written out to the disk it presents to the OS). There are other reasons too, but those are the most common. Given you've enabled special pool, and are seeing a crash, it's at least possible this is driver-related, so the fact you aren't getting .dmp files could actually be giving us a clue as to what's going on (have you updated drivers or security/antivirus software recently?).

I only have a single hard drive with a single partition that the page file is on, it is set to allocate automatically and has a listed total paging file size of 12279MB which I presume would be enough for that. I did not (to my knowledge) enable special pool, this error seems to have been caused by a program designed to stress test drivers.

My antivirus and most drivers are kept up to date automatically and checking manually they all appear to be in order.