Solved BSOD's Occouring randomly on daily basis

[aljowen]

[solved: cause=Xonar drivers] BSOD's Occouring randomly on daily basis

Been having quite a few BSOD issues recently. They seem to be happening at least once per day and i have done some testing with programs i always have open by closing xxx application one day and yyy application the next and nothing has helped.
I also cant figure out if i had installed / updated anything just before issues started.

I have tried using BlueScreenView to have a look through the dump files and see what the problems are but i do not fully understand the program.
As far as i can tell it is claiming the BSOD's are caused by hal.dll and ntoskrnl.exe

I have also uploaded a zip file using method 1 (SF_Diagnostics_Tool)

Thanks for any help,
aljowen

 

[Boozad]

Hello mate,

All of your dumps are showing 0x124 bugchecks which basically mean your problem is hardware related, and, as is normally the way with 0x124s the dumps aren't giving any clue as to what the problem actually is. The only way to start to find what your problem actually is will be to run follow the steps below.

*******************************************************************************
*                                                                             *
*                        Bugcheck Analysis                                    *
*                                                                             *
*******************************************************************************

Use !analyze -v to get detailed debugging information.

BugCheck 124, {0, fffffa80085a6028, be000000, 800400}

Probably caused by : GenuineIntel

Followup: MachineOwner

   Warning

: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 chkdsk. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/433-disk-check.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.

 

[aljowen]

Should i ignore where my GPU manual says not to run any stress testing software?

Its probably just a disclaimer but still worth mentioning

 

[Boozad]

I daresay FurMark has been run on countless 560tis in the past mate, it shouldn't harm your GPU at all. Leave that test until last as we'll rule out your CPU, RAM and HDD first, but yes I'd ignore what the manual says regarding that. I take it you're not overclocking anything?

 

[aljowen]

I daresay FurMark has been run on countless 560tis in the past mate, it shouldn't harm your GPU at all. Leave that test until last as we'll rule out your CPU, RAM and HDD first, but yes I'd ignore what the manual says regarding that. I take it you're not overclocking anything?

The CPU is running at 4.3Ghz on a motherboards software set up overclock. That is using the "fast" preset which aims for 4.3 and sets everything accordingly. The CPU has been running at that for about 2 years now. The CPU has a 12cm akasa venom cpu cooler on it meaning it doesn't get very hot at all, im 15 mins into prime95 testing the CPU and it is running at 58*c with the cpu fan at 94%. This is pretty typical for me when running simulation heavy games such as BeamNG.

The GPU is factory overclocked, it is the highest clocked model of 560ti that was sold running at 1Ghz factory clocked. That was until Gigabyte quietly replaced it with a 995mhz model, they said they made the change because some customers were complaining about issues with stability. But i have had the GPU in this PC for about 3 3/4 years now and it still runs just as cool as always. Which is an interesting metric in itself, in nearly all games the GPU runs pretty cool even when its maxed out and struggling but in some games by square enix it shoots up to 90*c, it seems to be an issue isolated to their engine, kinda odd. Needless to say every company is blaming each other about that issue . I tend to find that in one or two games the screen may hang for 5 seconds or so because the Nvidia drivers crashed and had to reboot but everything carries on as normal after that.

My RAM is running as close to stock as possible. But the motherboard did a slight blk boost when it did the overclock so that may have interfered with the RAM slightly. But the RAM is at XMP settings.

 

[aljowen]

Just had another BSOD 18 mins into the test. Although i genuinely couldn't tell you if it was just another random BSOD. Since CPU/GPU stress isn't something which i have noticed to cause it.

The crashes happen no matter what i am doing on the PC. Even if i just leave it with the web browser open.

One interesting thing that i realized that i forgot to mention is that when the computer is trying to dump the memory to disk once its reached the blue screen the BSOD tends to freeze at 50% and never get any higher.

Prime95 reported no errors in any of the txt files it left.

 

[Boozad]

Run the HDD checks next (SeaTools and chkdsk), I've a feeling they may find something.

 

[aljowen]

The hard drive passed both of the shorter tests and is now running through the long generic test.
Also attached a CrystalDiskInfo screenshot in case that is useful. At least from there nothing seems weird.

 

[Boozad]

Let us know how the long test goes. Can you turn off the overclock on the ASUS mobo?

 

[aljowen]

Let us know how the long test goes. Can you turn off the overclock on the ASUS mobo?

I believe so but have never seen the button for it. I guess there must be in the UEFI.

I have been using ASUS's software that runs within the OS. Since that is how you access the automatic overclocking settings. There is a button for "fast" and a button for "extreme" but no button for factory or default. So i may have a look in the UEFI later to see if i can find it since the Software automatically saves any profile so i can just revert back easily.
Failing all else i will try to find and manually tell it to run at stock settings which i could probably find on the internet somewhere.

The long generic test is about 30% done now.

 

[Boozad]

The overclock could possibly be causing the problem seeing as the i5-2500k's stock clock is 3.7GHz. It would be worth removing it and running stock clocks for a while just to be certain. The fact it bombed out in Prime95 could well be an indicator.

 

[aljowen]

Finished the long generic test with a pass.

 

[Boozad]

OK, let's rule out your memory next by running MemTest86+. I think we'll probably end up going back to your CPU though.

 

[aljowen]

Well. Today i decided to take a "disable all of the background software" approach. While i had tried not opening anything on boot i hadn't tried exiting some of the hardware related software. As far as i can tell it has worked since the computer has been running fine for 8 hours now.
I closed the following:

• Mouse software
• Steering wheel software
• Asus motherboard software
• Asus Xonar sound card software
• Drop box (not hardware but closed it anyway just in case)
  

I will continue to test this strategy for a while just to make sure that im not just getting lucky today. Tomorrow i will try going through each piece of software to find out which was causing it and uninstall it.

I also updated my network drivers yesterday since they were 3 years out of date but that made no difference.

 

[aljowen]

I didn't have a single crash yesterday so i am pretty sure that must be the cause.

So i am going through each piece of hardware control software one at a time until the crashing stops to find out which is the problem.

 

[Boozad]

Keeep us posted.

 

[aljowen]

Just did a full uninstall of Asus AI suite. Then ran the cleaner from their forums that removes all of the extra stuff that the uninstaller leaves behind. My boot up times are about 10 seconds faster now and once i get to my desktop i can start doing things straight away whereas before i had to wait about 40 seconds until the computer became responsive.
Im hoping that it was the cause, since i didn't use it that often as it was a set and forget type of software i decided i didn't need it anymore since everything has already been set up.
Its a nice bonus either way.

 

[Boozad]

Yeah I keep meaning to uninstall AI Suite but keep forgetting, I'll get round to it one day.

 

[aljowen]

Had another BSOD this morning. So i closed my soundcards driver interface and no crashes since.

Which i guess makes a bit of sense since the original Asus drivers for the soundcard gave me constant BSOD issues, so i switched to the unofficial unified drivers. Seems that has developed the same issue. So i have uninstalled them too and installed the other version of the uni drivers which uses the C-Media interface rather that the Asus interface. But i have installed it so that neither interface is loaded on boot up, meaning it is on demand. Will post again if that works. Either way, another (much smaller) improvement in boot up times. Give me a few more days and i will have my computer to an almost brand new state

 

[aljowen]

Yep, sound card drivers were the problem.

In case someone has the same issue with an Asus Xonar product:

1. Save any unsaved work, close any un needed programs, your pc will need a reboot during this. None of your sound card settings will be carried over so you may want to back them up.
2. Uninstall Asus audio drivers (control panel>Programs and features find it and click uninstall)
3. Download new drivers from here: UNi Xonar Drivers official page (scroll down for download, get the latest version)
4. Run the install exe.
5. Make sure to select the "low dpc latency" version and not the Asus drivers when installing
6. Let it finish the install process
7. Let it reboot your computer
8. New drivers are now installed. Everything should be fine.
9. Adjust your audio settings got to start>all programs>UNi xonar audio> C-Media Audio panel
10. Make sure that everything is correctly set up. Go back to C-Media Audio panel to fix it if not.

C-Media is the company that makes the DAC that is inside the xonar, asus just make a fancy skinned driver with a couple of extra features. Turns out C-Media know how to make stable drivers


Full list of feature differences in the drivers: UNi Xonar Features | MaxedTech
Keep in mind "normal" is their updated version of the Asus driver, not the original Asus driver.


Thanks for the help,
aljowen