BSOD but only on certain programs, help needed!

[colejuk]

Hey folks,

I've got a problem with my PC and I registered here to see if anyone can help. Basically it's BSOD whenever I open Thunderbird or Photoshop. It's only those two programs though from what I can tell, everything else is fine.

My PC was as stable as a rock up until last week, where once I turned it on it start showing the BSOD whenever I started up (it would get to the desktop, after about 10 secs it would bluescreen).

I'm not an expert, but not a novice either. I've built a few systems in my time and know that a lot of the time BSODs are either memory errors, hard drive errors or driver errors. So here what I've done so far-

Ran Memtest86 all day, no errors found.

Then I thought it might be my RAID0 playing up (I used to have a RAID0 with two 320Gb WD Hard Drives) which I kept all my apps and games on. I thought one might of failed, leading to the errors. Seeing as there wasn't any data on those I couldn't replace I got rid of the RAID and tried just using one of them with a new simple partition. There was partial success- the system could boot into windows fine. However, I had the problem I have now which was whenever I launched either Thunderbird or Photoshop, it would bluescreen. I tried reinstalling both programs to check it wasn't trying to find data on the previous RAID, but no luck.

Then the sound died. At the time I was running a Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Platinum. According to device manager, the device was functioning fine. But I had no audio output and the creative console failed to launch- saying there was no compatible card detected.

Knowing that creative sound cards have caused many a compatibility problem in the past with the new versions of Windows, I got rid of the sound card completely and reverted to on-board sound. I also completely removed the drivers and installed the motherboard ones. The on-board sound is fine, but it didn't stop the bluescreen errors.

Also tried using CCleaner and TuneUp utilities to fix any registry errors I might of gained by removing the RAID.

The temps on the system are fine, good even. I'm not running any overclock and the CPU is running 25-35 idle and I've rarely seen it go past 40. Motherboard is around 30. I've run memtest for hours and no errors have been found.

This is where I am now. I can run pretty much everything fine as far as I know- I used the PC all day yesterday for web browsing, playing games and watching films with chrome, steam, VLC, itunes etc. It seems to be just Thunderbird and Photoshop causing the BSOD, and I'm out of ideas.

 

[Tews]

We need the .dmp files for analysis ... read this.. How to ask for help with a BSOD problem

 

[CarlTR6]

Hi, colejuk, and welcome to the forum.

Just a word of advice, most of us here recommend against the use of 3rd party "tuneup" utilities. Unlike XP, Win 7 does not need these. At best, they do nothing; at worst they can degrade and screw up Win 7. Win 7 is a completely new operating system and the makers of these apps do not have access to the system core.

Win 7 handles the registry efficiently and differently from previous Windows OS's. We do not recommend registry cleaners unless you are very familiar with the registry and know exactly what you are doing. We get a lot of problems here brought about by third party registry cleaners.

Just some advice.

 

[colejuk]

Here are the minidumps from the last few days.

Advice noted about the registry cleaners, I don't think they are the cause of this problem though as the bluescreens were happening before I did any "cleaning" or even installed them.

I forgot to add, I have updated all my drivers for gfx, sound, chipset etc with no luck.

Many thanks for your time guys, I really appreciate your help

 

[ickymay]

these drivers are old and need updating

wacommousefilter.sys fffff880`04f40000 fffff880`04f48000 0x00008000 0x45d5f401 16/02/2007 19:12:17
PxHlpa64.sys fffff880`01000000 fffff880`0100bae0 0x0000bae0 0x475dd06d 11/12/2007 00:49:01
WinVd32.sys fffff880`06fa5000 fffff880`06fd34e0 0x0002e4e0 0x49882e48 03/02/2009 12:45:12
Rt64win7.sys fffff880`03fbe000 fffff880`03ff0000 0x00032000 0x49a65b0d 26/02/2009 10:04:13

that's your wacom mouse tablet drivers and also PxHlpa64.sys could belong to any of these programs

RecordNow!
ESSSONIC
Sonic RecordNow!/Sonic_PrimoSDK
Dell Media Experience
Pioneer RecordNow DX
Sonic MyDVD/RecordNow!/RecordNow DX/MyDVD Plus/PrimoSDK
Microsoft Plus! Digital Media/Digital Image Suite
Corel Photo Album
HP RecordNow/DigitalMedia Archive
IBM RecordNow!
Roxio Easy Media Creator/RecordNow Copy/Drag-to-Disc/Creator Basic v/Media Manager/CinePlayer
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
Yahoo! Music Jukebox or Roxio
Napster Burn Engine
1CLICK DivxToDVD
OLYMPUS muvee theaterPack
by Sonic Solutions (Sonic Solutions - DVD Burning - DVD Decoder - DVD & Video Editing Software) or VERITAS Software, Inc (Data Center Optimization: Datacenter Management Software, Data Center Software, Data Center Solutions | Symantec).

WinVd32.sys belongs to kaspersky and if this is from an old install i suggest you find a way to completely clear out the old drivers or if it's your current antivirus maybe remove it and replace with MSE for debugging purposes ?

and your Realtek driver is over a year old ?

apart from those drivers can you tell us what antivirus and or third party firewall are you using ?

 

[CarlTR6]

Sorry, icky; I didn't mean to step on you.

 

[colejuk]

Hey,

Thanks for your help and swift reply.

I tried downloading and installing the latest drivers for my Wacom Tablet- but it didn't solve the problem.

I don't recognise any of those programs you listed, unlesss it's add/spyware and it's installed itself or bundled with something. I can't find any on my add/remove list.

The realtek drivers (both for sound and network) should be up to date because I downloaded and installed the latest drivers for both recently while trying to solve this.

As for Kaspersy, I can say I've never used it at all, ever. And I'm 100% it was never installed on this machine as the windows install is only just 2 months old (I re-formatted when I got a ssd).

 

[colejuk]

Also forgot to mention I am using Avast! Antivirus free version, all up to date.

Also Spybot search & destroy, and the default windows firewall.

 

[CarlTR6]

Avast works well with Windows 7 and should not cause a conflict. If you are running Tea Timer with Spybot, disable it. I have seen Tea Timer cause a problem.

How To Find Drivers:

- search Google for the name of the driver
- compare the Google results with what's installed on your system to figure out which device/program it belongs to
- visit the web site of the manufacturer of the hardware/program to get the latest drivers (DON'T use Windows Update or the Update driver function of Device Manager).
- if there are difficulties in locating them, post back with questions and someone will try and help you locate the appropriate program.
- - The most common drivers are listed on this page: Driver Reference
- - Driver manufacturer links are on this page: Drivers and Downloads

I suggest that you go to the manufacturers' sites and see if you can find updates for your mouse and your Realtek drivers. The mouse driver is seriously out of date. If you can't find an updated driver, I suggest you update your mouse.

For the Kaspersky driver and the PxHlpa64.sys driver, if you don't have Kaspersky installed or any of the programs on that list, navigate to C:\windows\system32\drivers and rename WinVd32.sys to WinVd32.bak and PxHlpa64.sys to PxHlpa64.bak. This way, if something doesn't work, you can rename the driver(s).

Reboot and see how your system does.

 

[ickymay]

Sorry, icky; I didn't mean to step on you.

no wurries carl and i know we are working together and good follow up post

 

[colejuk]

Hey guys, I hope I'm not posting this too soon but it would appear the problem is fixed

I uninstalled spybot search & destroy,
updated my mouse drivers,
renamed PxHlpa64.sys (couldn't find the other file though)

Photoshop and Thunderbird open without any problems now Many thanks for taking the time to help me!

 

[CarlTR6]

Thank you very much for posting back with your results and what you did. I hope you will continue to have smooth sailing. If you get another BSOD, by all means, post back and upload it.

 

[CarlTR6]

Sorry, icky; I didn't mean to step on you.

no wurries carl and i know we are working together and good follow up post

Thanks, ickymay. It looks like your analysis was spot on.

 

[ickymay]

I hope so if colejuk can post back in a week or so still bluescreen free I would consider it solved