BSOD at random times, mostly error 0x3b

[kajtje]

Hi all,

I searched the BSOD section of this forum for threads with similar problems, but none of the solutions seem to have the desired effect. I'm wondering if maybe I'm missing something, or if my pc is really dying..

Since a month or so, I've been receiving loads of BSODs while basically doing nothing special (random browsing, Spotify, MS Excel, sometimes even when idling). Most of the times the error code was 0x3b, system service exception, 'caused by' driver ntoskrnl.exe. From what these forums and WhoCrashed tell me, this is likely not really the causing driver. Sometimes other error codes (d1, 7e) occur, although I suspect the latter to be the result of me messing around with driver updates in order to fix the 3b-error problem.

Notably, the 3b-errors started to become frequent after returning from holiday and switching the pc back on after 3 weeks of absence (end of August). Previously I only had the 3b-error a couple of times over the course of 3 years, but it DID happen before, so there might be some underlying cause that has always been there. Anyway, a few days later the errors seemed to be gone again, but about a week ago the sh*t really hit the fan, so to say, and the 3b-BSODs now happen pretty much 10 times a day...

What I've already tried:
- Updating the drivers. I also looked to see if the BIOS needed updating, but apparently I already have the latest version
- Checking if all wires and cables were plugged in decently and removing excessive dust (although there wasn't really much dust)
- System restore to the point before the BSODs started happening 10 times a day
- Running memtest86+ for I think 13 or so passes, 0 errors found
- Running Driver Verifier, which did make the system BSOD, but I still couldn't figure out the culprit. Come to think of it, I've updated a lot of drivers afterwards, so I'll run it again to see if it does anything, any upcoming dumpfiles I will post later.

All these, as you'd figured from me starting this thread, to no avail..

I have to admit I'm really unfamiliar with these kinds of issues, so I only have a slight clue as how to interpret all various diagnostic tools (WhoCrashed, windbg), so to you there might be something obvious that I simply cannot figure out. If I need to do anything, a (link to) some sort of explanation how to do so would be much appreciated.

Enclosed you find the stuff DM log collector gathered, I hope that'll be a good starting point for any analysis.

 

[Golden]

fffff880`0211db38  fffff880`00001f80
fffff880`0211db40  00000000`00024820
fffff880`0211db48  fffff880`0489b726Unable to load image \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\atikmdag.sys, Win32 error 0n2
*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for [COLOR="Red"][B]atikmdag.sys[/B][/COLOR]
*** ERROR: Module load completed but symbols could not be loaded for atikmdag.sys
 atikmdag+0x1e726
fffff880`0211db50  00000000`00000000
fffff880`0211db58  fffffa80`02b25010
.
.
.
1: kd> lmvm atikmdag
start             end                 module name
fffff880`0487d000 fffff880`04ded000   atikmdag T (no symbols)           
    Loaded symbol image file: atikmdag.sys
    Image path: \SystemRoot\system32\DRIVERS\atikmdag.sys
    Image name: atikmdag.sys
    Timestamp:        [COLOR="red"][B]Thu Feb 11 16:17:46 2010[/B][/COLOR] (4B739A02)
    CheckSum:         005283A6
    ImageSize:        00570000
    Translations:     0000.04b0 0000.04e4 0409.04b0 0409.04e4

The video driver is 4 years old....either install an updated driver from the manufacturers site, or run Windows Update and check the optional updates to see if an updated driver is offered for installation.

In this case, I would use the Windows Update route firstly.

 

[kajtje]

Windows Update doesn't show any updates for the graphics driver as far as I can see, and if I run the AMD Driver Autodetect tool (as they recommend) it says I have the latest driver for my system. The driver download page also doesn't show a newer driver than 2010 for my Radeon X1600 card. The graphics card is quite old, I believe, so maybe there are no longer any new drivers for it?

 

[Golden]

That would appear to be the case. Unfortunately there isn't much we can do about the issue

 

[kajtje]

Hmm.. I switched from Google Chrome to Firefox to see if that helps in any way, and so far I've not had any BSODs.. But that could be just good luck, I guess

 

[Golden]

It might be...the harder you tax the video card, the more probable the crashes will be. You could check to see that it is clean/free of dust etc. That will help.