Constant BSODs when computer is working hard. Memory/CPU load related

ChopperCharles · 01 Dec 2016

I'm barely able to use Chrome anymore, and using Chrome while a VM is open is out of the question. I can no longer complete long build operations either, I'll get a BSOD every time. I've run chkdsk /f several times, but that isn't fixing anything. At a loss now. I've got WinDbg and the symbols loaded, but I'm not understanding what I'm seeing here. Something about filesystem.sys trying to read from invalid memory (0xffffffff), but what caused that and how to rectify it, I don't know.

Updating Windows didn't fix the problem either btw.

Any help you could give me would be *greatly* appreciated.

Charles.

ICIT2LOL · 12 Dec 2016

Hello and welcome CC mate it might be worth running this RAM - Test with Memtest86+ now it has to be run for at least 8 passes any less and you may as well not bother. Now you can stop the test if errors come up before the 8 passes have run.

Now mate what about soem specs please it is very hard to work without knowing what there is in a machine
System Info - See Your System Specs as it could also be down to drivers too and if we don't knw what you have cannot link you to them.

ChopperCharles · 13 Dec 2016

Wow yeah, it appears to be a bad stick of ram. I didn't even get a chance to try the memtest, I used the Windows Memory Diagnostic and it almost immediately showed a hardware problem. I took out both 8GB sticks, rebooted, and tried again... and hardware problem disappeared. Used trial and error to track down the bad stick. I've been running for several hours now and now BSOD so far. And I've been doing things that would get me a BSOD every time -- lots of browser windows open, a VM working on a build in the background, and the big one, a large .z7 archive. I was getting CrC errors before, and I don't have any now. Problem appears to be solved!

Charles.

ICIT2LOL · 13 Dec 2016

Ok Charles mate it must have been pretty bad since the Windows memtest is not that good whereas the one I linked is the only one we recommend. Now what exactly did you remove just one stick and test each one at a time? as usually when the memtest comes back bad it is generally accepted to try each stick in succession until one finds the bad one. Am asking just out of curiosity really:)

Now sometimes in case this happens again - the problem can be down to a bad slot too the sticks can be all good and then it is a problem insomuch that if you want 16GB RAM then you are left using one dedicated stick in one slot if you have only two slots available, and have been using 2x8GB sticks for example. This can be a nuisance because you can be left using just one channel for RAM to the CPU- if that makes sense and I have not got it terribly wrong of course