ntoskrnl.exe BSOD Randomly every few days

[Broken Hyoid]

Hi,
I recently built my PC(one month roughly). About a couple weeks after I built it I got 2 BSODs in a row in the same day, I ignored it thinking it was a one off. And for a while that seemed to be the case. I got another BSOD however a few days later. Then for 1-2weeks the BSODs went dormant again making me think it was a random bug. However on monday of this week my PC had about 7-8 BSOD restarts, some happening within 10minutes of each other while others happened after a few hours. I had no idea how to fix this problem after google searching and looking at solutions for this ntoskrnl BSOD. However the next day my PC was fine, as it was the next, and the next...until today, where I just experienced a BSOD. I really do not know what it wrong. Nothing comes to mind when I think of what I am doing when the BSODs happen, they happen completely randomly, watching YouTube videos, browsing the internet. I do not know what to do and am really stuck and appreciate any help.

NOTE: the attached file only shows the last 2 BSODs(one from today and the last one from monday) however I can confirm there were many more on Monday as well as before that.

 

[Boozad]

*******************************************************************************
*                                                                             *
*                        Bugcheck Analysis                                    *
*                                                                             *
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Use !analyze -v to get detailed debugging information.
[COLOR=Red]
[B]BugCheck 124[/B][/COLOR], {0, fffffa8007acf038, 0, 0}

Probably caused by : AuthenticAMD

Followup: MachineOwner

Your other logs are showing signs of hardware errors although I'm not picking up exactly what. Follow the trouble shooting steps below.

:warn: If you're overclocking your system, revert back to stock clocks now. :warn:

:ar: Run Prime95 to stress test your CPU. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/100352-hardware-stress-test-prime95.html

   Warning

Your CPU temperatures will rise quickly while under this stress test. Keep a keen eye on them.

:ar: Run MemTest86+ to analyse your RAM. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105647-ram-test-memtest86.html

   Note

MemTest86+ needs to be run for at least 8 passes for conclusive results. Set it running before you go to bed and leave it overnight. We're looking for zero errors here. Even a single error will indicate RAM failure.

:ar: Run SeaTools to check the integrity of your HDD. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/313457-seatools-dos-windows-how-use.html

:ar: Run Furmark to stress test your GPU. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/100356-video-card-stress-test-furmark.html

   Note

Run Furmark for around 30 minutes.

   Warning

Your GPU temperatures will rise quickly while Furmark is running. Keep a keen eye on them.

 

[Broken Hyoid]

Hi, thanks for the reply, it is much appreciated. I see you have said the cause is probably ''AuthenticAMD'', I am not sure what this means, but since only 2 of my parts are AMD(cpu and gpu) I will test these first.

However before I start the tests I would just like to know what temperatures would be dangerous for the PC, For the GPU/CPU stress tests. I have HWMonitor so I can monitor them easily during the test, and I know my CPU(FX6300 6 core) is not that popular so probably would not go that high on temperature. But just to be safe can you tell me if the temperature hits a certain threshold I should stop the test? Or should I keep it going no matter what unless the PC auto shuts down due to high temperature/BSOD. Same for GPU(amd R7 260X). Thanks.

 

[Boozad]

I've asked an experienced overclocker to drop in and talk to you about temperatures. He'll be along soon.

 

[essenbe]

Hi Broken Hyoid, I'll help if I can. I am pretty much an Intel guy, but I'm reasonably sure the Max on all the 6000 series on CPUs is 70C and the 260X is 84C. However, remember your temps are being read by software which is notoriously wrong, so my advice is don't trust it too much. Look at it as a guideline when you watch temps. My policy is to not go within 10C of my max, and lower if I can. What CPU cooler are you using? If you are using the stock cooler, watch temps real close. Neither AMD nor Intel stock coolers are very good. Also, do you have a reference GPU card? They tend to get hotter than the non reference cards because the non reference cards usually use other cooling configurations. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Are you overclocked on either one?

 

[Broken Hyoid]

Hi Broken Hyoid, I'll help if I can. I am pretty much an Intel guy, but I'm reasonably sure the Max on all the 6000 series on CPUs is 70C and the 260X is 84C. However, remember your temps are being read by software which is notoriously wrong, so my advice is don't trust it too much. Look at it as a guideline when you watch temps. My policy is to not go within 10C of my max, and lower if I can. What CPU cooler are you using? If you are using the stock cooler, watch temps real close. Neither AMD nor Intel stock coolers are very good. Also, do you have a reference GPU card? They tend to get hotter than the non reference cards because the non reference cards usually use other cooling configurations. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Are you overclocked on either one?

Hi essenbe,
My GPU is a non referenced, sapphire product. I haven't personally OC'd it but it came OC'd out of the box(by sapphire) if that makes sense. The CPU isn't OC'd either. The cooling system on both things are stock cooling systems, and the case itself is being cooled by 3x 12cm fans running at full speed all the time(via molex). Normally the CPU fluctuates between 25-40 degrees(usually around 30, but 20 is the lowest I have seen it go and 45 the highest)

Thanks for telling me the temperature max. estimates, however if the temperatures do reach that high, should I end the stress test, or let it run its course? And if it does reach that high, does that mean the CPU or cooling system is at fault? Or is overheating normal for stress tests. Sorry if these seem like obvious questions, I am new to the whole BSOD troubleshooting thing, and just want to make sure I have all the right information before starting these tests, rather be safe than sorry. Thanks.

 

[essenbe]

All stress tests by nature, are designed to stress the component and make it run as hard as possible. This, obviously makes temps rise rather quickly. However, if the test makes your temps get too high, stop the test. Do not let the temps get dangerously high under any circumstances. Heat is the biggest killer of PC components. So, to answer your questions, Stress tests of any kind will cause the heat to increase rapidly and will stress the component to test stability, but do not let the temps get too high. Stop the test before then. If it does get that high, it normally means the cooling system is at fault or the thermal paste was not applied correctly, in the case of the CPU.

 

[Broken Hyoid]

Ok, thanks a million for clearing that up for me, I will do the tests and post the results here as soon as I can.

 

[essenbe]

Just let us know.

 

[Broken Hyoid]

Hi Broken Hyoid, I'll help if I can. I am pretty much an Intel guy, but I'm reasonably sure the Max on all the 6000 series on CPUs is 70C and the 260X is 84C. However, remember your temps are being read by software which is notoriously wrong, so my advice is don't trust it too much. Look at it as a guideline when you watch temps. My policy is to not go within 10C of my max, and lower if I can. What CPU cooler are you using? If you are using the stock cooler, watch temps real close. Neither AMD nor Intel stock coolers are very good. Also, do you have a reference GPU card? They tend to get hotter than the non reference cards because the non reference cards usually use other cooling configurations. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Are you overclocked on either one?

Hi, as per the tutorial that was posted earlier, I ran furmark to stress my gpu, however even though it was said to run it for around 30minutes, my gpu went to 80 degrees Celsius and rising within 2 minutes of the test. Does this mean my GPU/Cooling system is messed up, and it may be the reason for BSODs? Or is this normal for FurMark and I should carry on with the test for 30mins. I was afraid of the temp being too high, as per your advice stopped the test. It wasn't a random spike of temperature either, it was steadily going up. Should I continue doing the other tests, or this conclusive of a faulty GPU? Thanks.

 

[essenbe]

Your card will most likely never see the stress put on it by Furmark, so it will probably never see those temps. If it does, however, yes it could be the reasons for the BSODs. I seriously doubt it will though. Furmark is designed to run your card as hard as possible. But, in my opinion you did the correct thing. The rep on the AMD series has been the run excessively too hot, with the reference cooler. Some have come out with custom cooling which makes them much cooler.

If you have a utility that came with your card, I would use it and set a custom fan profile and run it with the fan speed increased considerably. If you don't have a utility to do that you can use MSI Afterburner which is primarily an overclocking utility, but allows a custom fan profile. I have it in another rig and have not overclocked that card, but I do use it for a custom fan profile and monitoring.

Try this and see what difference it makes. Download Ungine Heaven 4.0 Run it with the basic preset and see how hot it gets. If it seems to do OK, run it again after the card cools down with the Extreme preset. It has a benchmark function if you want to use it.

I would suggest you watch your Graphics card and CPU temps any time you are doing anything stressful with them. I set mine for on screen display which tells me, among other things, the temp and fan speed of my card when gaming.

 

[Broken Hyoid]

Okay so I installed the MSI afterburner, however just before I wanted to do a re test of FurMark with the higher fan speeds, my PC BSODs pretty much at idle. The PC restarts and I carry out FurMark. This time the temperature seems much better, and is around 67 degrees after 5 minutes and seems stable, however at this point I get another BSOD. Although it seemed like a GPU issue, I wanted to test with FurMark to make sure the BSOD wasnt just a coincidence. This time however, I changed the fan speed to go at 100% @ 65 degrees celsius. I carrried out furmark, the temperature rose to 66 degrees where it remained stable for 20minutes, suggesting that the GPU didn't cause the previous BSOD, but I amn't sure. I have also attached the 2 dump files of the new BSOD(2 of which are the old files, 2 of which are for the BSODs I got today). Would appreciate any advice. Thanks.

 

[Boozad]

I can't look at the logs for a couple of hours or so as I'm at work, but I'll take a look when I get home if essenbe hasn't beaten me to it.

 

[essenbe]

Sorry, the files basically show the Generic Hardware error and identifies the CPU, which I seriously doubt that is the issue. If you are overclocked, please set everything back to default levels, at lest for testing until we can get to the bottom of this. Please run more the tests Boozad laid out in Post #2.

Next I would like you to run memtest86+. It is quite a long test as it needs to be run for 8 complete passes all at the same time. Please download the test from Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool. Although the names are similar, this testis much better than memtest86. It needs to be run for 8 complete passes or until you get an error. If you get an error, stop the test. In the link above if you will go down to the middle of the page you can download either the ISO file which needs to be burned to a CD by Windows image burner or any disk image burner you choose. Or you can download the auto installer for USB Flash drives to run it from a flash drive. Whichever you choose, be sure to download the zip file and extract it. Each Pass consists of 10 tests, each pass checks a different thing and each Test checks different things. It takes a minimum of 8 passes to completely check the ram, more passes are better. It will take quite a number of hours to do the test, so it is usually better run over night. To run the test, boot from the media you chose and don't press any keys, the test will run automatically and will continue running until you tell it to stop. It will tell you how many passes it has run and how many errors are found. If it finds errors they will show up as red lines at the bottom of the page. It will take somewhere around 9-10 hours to check my Backup computer with 8 GB of ram. If you have more it will take much longer.

 

[Broken Hyoid]

Hi, just finished the memtest, and after 17hours it finally got 8 passes and 0 errors. Recommendations on what to test next? I would like to confirm that the BSODs have been on going and seem to be coming more frequently, with the exact same errors.

 

[Boozad]

So far that's just the memory that's run the complete test, yes? Run Prime95 next to test your CPU, then Furmark or Unigine to test your GPU, then run the HDD diagnostics. It's definitely a hardware problem but with 0x124s it's virtually impossible to tell exactly what it is from the logs.

 

[Broken Hyoid]

So far that's just the memory that's run the complete test, yes? Run Prime95 next to test your CPU, then Furmark or Unigine to test your GPU, then run the HDD diagnostics. It's definitely a hardware problem but with 0x124s it's virtually impossible to tell exactly what it is from the logs.

I have also tested Furmark, twice now, both for 25 minute periods, and the GPU remains stable at 65 degrees with no artifacts as far as I can tell. Will do the CPU and HDD tests next. Would also like to say that the BSODs seem more frequent with 3 happening today. I have attached the dump files for the 3 BSODs that happened today but I do not know if they will be of any use as they are probably identical to the dump of files of the many previous BSODs.

 

[Broken Hyoid]

Hi, Just finished testing both my CPU and HDD.

CPU- Ran Prime95 for 1hr 30mins approx. all workers were performing adequately and the CPU temperature remained stable from 50-55 degrees.

HDD- Ran the DOS version of Seagate and ran both the short and the long tests. Both ended successfully with a Pass and no fails.

Ok so I have now tested CPU, GPU, HDD, RAM, and all tests seem inconclusive. You guys seem to be sure it is a hardware issue, so are there any other tests you would like me to do? Maybe I should just re install windows(I realize that would mean this is a software issue, which you guys seem sure it isn't) and hope for the best?

PS. I do not know if this is relevant but I would like to point out that previous BSODs would always just restart my PC straight up to the desktop, however since yesterday all BSODs first take me to the black screen that asks if I want to start windows normally or in safe mode/safe mode with networking etc.

PPS. another thing I have noticed that my PC has never had BSOD while I have been in a game. It always seems to happen when I'm watching a youtube video, or generally using my pc. This may very likely be a coincidence, or maybe not, just thought I would let you guys know just in case this info helps.

Thanks.

 

[essenbe]

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

View attachment 323052​

Is that what you are getting or something else? Basically, all we are getting in the dumps is a generic hardware fault 0X124. That just says your CPU has detected a defective piece of hardware and has shut down. It can however be caused by a driver, but in the vast majority of the cases it is hardware. Normally if it is a driver, one of the dump files will list a driver. If you have had any since your last upload please go to C:/Windows/Minidump and open it (you will have to give admin permission several times) Copy the last ones (the numbers are dates and times) copy the ones you haven't uploaded and paste them to your desktop, highlight them, right click and select send to >compressed zip folder. Then using the paperclip icon, upload the zip folder with your next post.​

Next, Open a elevated command prompt ( click start, type cmd in the search box, right click on the cmd entry and select run as administrator) in the black box that opens, copy/paste sfc /scannow. If you decide to type it, notice the space between the sfc and the /. It is a system file checker which will scan your system files and attempt to correct any missing or corrupt files. What we want are the results to say windows found no integrity violations. If it says files were found but could not be repaired, close the box, reboot and run it again, after opening the administrative command prompt. You may have to reboot and run it three times for it to repair all system files. If it can't repair them after 3 reboots, let us know.

Also, please go into bios and give us the reading of the +12V, +5V and +3.3V.

 

[Boozad]

The only way I can think to force a problematic driver out into the open is to run Driver Verifier. It's worth a shot seeing as all hardware tests have turned nothing up.

Driver Verifier will stress your drivers and cause BSODs if any fail. Follow this tutorial to enable/disable it. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/101379-driver-verifier-enable-disable.html

Enable Driver Verifier but only enable these options:
Standard settings and IRP logging step 3.
Don't enable Force Pending I/O Requests

   Warning

Make a System Restore point before enabling Driver Verifier.

   Note

Your system will act very sluggishly while DV is enabled, this is normal as your drivers will be being subjected to heavy testing in order to make them crash.