Solved BSOD, Computer restarts, then only half ram

[rtkamb]

My computer has recently developed a BSOD problem. I've been using the same hardware for a little over two years now, but recently my computer has started BSODing. After leaving it off for a certain period of time, it will BSOD (rather randomly) after startup. It starts right back up, but then half of my ram is system reserved. It never BSOD's after the first one. The most common time for it to happen, is when I'm playing a game, watching a video, or extensive multitasking. I have HWmonitor running to check temps, and it only does it once, so I doubt it's that.

I'm not an expert, but I think it's motherboard failure. Just want some impute before I take the plunge.

 

[BorisTheAnimal]

Hello rtkamb and welcome to 7forums!

Unfortunately there are no dmp files in your upload, could you please check the following:

Open file explorer and in the address bar fill in this and hit enter: %SYSTEMROOT%\Minidump

If you find any files in the folder, please upload them here!

Cheers, Boris

 

[rtkamb]

Regrettably, I was unable to find it. It didn't bsod today. The next time it does I'll get the minidump file and post it here.

 

[BorisTheAnimal]

Alright then I would like you to look through this tutorial, just so we are sure that you've got everything right:

Dump Files - Configure Windows to Create on BSOD

And then we might try this one thing and that is to enable something called Driver Verifier and it will basically stress test third party drivers until it finds one that is faulty and crashes.

Cheers, Boris

 

[rtkamb]

I followed http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/101379-driver-verifier-enable-disable.html#option1 on how to turn on driver verifier for all non-Microsoft drivers, and my computer wouldn't load windows. Had to boot into safe mode and do a system restore. Turned on my minidump, but that got reset in the restore. I'll come back when I have the minidump file.

Though this makes it look like a driver issue now.

Edit: And here is the minidump

 

[rtkamb]

After getting the debugger and looking at my minidump file it says that it is partmgr.sys, so I ran a chkdsk on all my drives. They came back good. Did a memtest, that came back perfect as well.

I did notice there was an update to the firmware on my ocz vertex2(I have 1.27 and the most recent is a 1.37). I find it a little odd that this is only happening now though. Anyway it's the firmware? The only other three things I can think of: CPU going bad, motherboard going bad, or (hopefully) a bad driver.

Note: I have, in the last 3-4 days, stopped playing Civilization 5 everyday. Since then, then BSOD has stopped happening. Again, I'm watching temps. Playing a little Might and Magic: Heroes 7, and the BSOD doesn't happen. I'd rather not mark this as solved, because I would like to play civ5 again, and I'd stake my typing hands that civ5 doesn't directly cause a BSOD.

 

[BorisTheAnimal]

Hello rtkamb and sorry for not being active.

I would recommend that you head to ASRock Support download page and download both HDD updates available:
ASRock > 990FX Extreme3

Cheers, Boris

 

[rtkamb]

This seemed to fix it. Thanks for the help.

 

[BorisTheAnimal]

Happy to help and I'm relieved to hear you got it fixed!