New
#1
BSODs during regular PC use, error 0x000000f4
The past few days, I've been going through what can only be described as "BSOD Hell" with 0xF4.
Saturday morning involved waking up to a BSOD. Then I restarted my PC and things were working fine, no further issues until the next morning. Still, I ran a Malwarebytes scan, nothing infected.
Sunday morning and further involved my PC running okay until further BSODs that o the point where they were occurring after simply (re)starting Windows 7 and even during Safe Mode. I had downloaded WhoCrashed after some searches, and noticed that all of them specifically listed ntoskrnl.exe. Looked that up, tried running SFC, but that actually failed with a crash while in Windows AND during booting. Attempted a System Restore, failed. CHKDSK, failed.
This suggested to me that it might be an HDD problem with my C: drive, which IS very old (5+ years old). I assumed some kind of hardware issues, so I opened up my PC, checked cables, removed and reseated hardware, ran CrystalDiskInfo after getting into Windows, no problems with my C: drive's health.
In any case, the frustration set in to the point where I decided to do a fresh install of Windows 7 after formatting the C: HDD, and this process went all the way through Monday morning.
So, Monday. Fresh Windows 7, was running fine since early morning installed AMD Drivers, used Nanite, things were working fine. then a BSOD happens around early evening. Unlike the ones I mentioned before, neither WhoCrashed and BlueScreenView can point out a main cause for this. About an hour before this post, I got a similar BSOD. Searched, found other people with the same issue and noticed RAM was involved. Opened my PC, put my two sticks of RAM (4GBx2 = 8GB) into different slots. Started up again, ran fine for an hour, was installing a Windows Update, same BSOD.
It's getting to the point where I don't even want to run Windows Updates because that may trigger another crash. What makes this even more frustrating is that I can't pinpoint the source of the problem.
In the meantime, I'm ordering a brand new Western Digital 1TB HDD from Amazon and getting it shipped to me ASAP in case this is specifially an HDD issue because of how old it is. I expected issues with it at some point, and it's time for it to get replaced.
In any case, I'll report any further BSODs to this thread. I hope this forum will be able to help. My past searches from months back lead me here and you've managed to fix peoples' problems, so I trust this forum.