Solved BSOD - Happens at different times

[essenbe]

Sirsnazzy, I want you to know, that I know what a pain it can be running these hardware stress tests. I've been ther myself more than a few times. However, this is the only way I know of to identify which piece of hardware is the problem. And, many of these tests are not 100% accurate. But, we ask for certain tests to be run because they are the best tests there are and the 'standard' in hardware testing. So, I know how frustrating it can be and please believe me, I would not ask you to run them unless I thought it was needed. As it stands right now, I am going on the assumption that it is a hardware problem. All of your dump files are showing either different stop codes or Windows files that don't cause BSODs. It could still be a program or a bad driver causing these. But, in my opinion it seems to be a hardware problem.

 

[Sirsnazzy]

I completely understand, I'm just really thankful for you taking time out of your day to help me. I really do appreciated it, I wouldn't know where to begin otherwise.

I got my Windows 7 physical disc copy from Microsoft directly. But, now that you bring that up I did have to go a funky way of installing Windows 7 on my current machine. The disc I have is an upgrade disc and I could not find my Windows XP instal disc to go about the installation the proper way. I called Microsoft and one of their techs helped me use my upgrade disc without having to install a previous version of Windows. This did involve about 20 minutes of changing things, including several registry files. I wonder if this could be causing some of the issues? I am open to reformatting my drive and starting fresh if it comes down to it (as I do know where my XP disc is).

I will start running the test and let you know what I find.

 

[essenbe]

That's good. It will be no problem to reinstall with your upgrade disk with no need of your XP disk. If or when you do this please make sure you do not install any programs made for XP. That will completely mess up your system normally. Microsoft has provided a way to run XP programs with XP mode which is basically a virtual XP OS. Just please be careful of your CPU temps. They will rise quickly and quite high.

 

[Sirsnazzy]

I ran the Small FFTs test like the tutorial said for about 7.5 hours last night. All four tests kept running with no faults.

Below is a screen shot of the program before I stopped it with the temperatures off to the side.
http://i.imgur.com/dRlou46.jpg

 

[essenbe]

OK Those are good temps. Good job.

 

[essenbe]

Sirsnazzy, if you would, please try this test http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/100356-video-card-stress-test-furmark.html Watch your GPU temps closely. If you don't have a GPU monitoring program, I can suggest one. Run the test and watch for artifacts. If the temps go too high or you see artifacts, stop the test. run it until you see the temps level out. They will rise quickly and get quite high, so keep a watch on them. it does not usually take that long.

 

[Sirsnazzy]

I ran the test for 10 minutes and my temperatures leveled out at 77*C. I did not notice any artifacts or tearing. Below is a screenshot of the test.

imgur: the simple image sharer

 

[Sirsnazzy]

I formatted my hard drive and installed a fresh copy of Windows 7. It got to the point where I was experiencing a BSOD almost every 15 minutes. I'll let you know after a few days on how things are going.

 

[essenbe]

sirsnazzy, I wish you would have waited a little. Install no more programs or drivers. Run all Windows Updates. I want as a 'virgin' install as we can get. Nothing other than Windows and Microsoft Security Essentials. See if you get a BSOD with a Virgin Install.

 

[Sirsnazzy]

I had already installed all the drivers by the time I saw your post. I did continue to BSOD after I had everything installed. I decided to test each stick of ram individually using memtest and both passed with no errors. I ran my system with only one stick of ram to see if this would fix it and I ended up having no blue screens. I then did some digging around in my BIOS and found my ram was set to 1333 instead of the 1600 it was rated at. I also found the Intel XMP (Extreme Memory Profile) setting which automatically set my ram to what it should have been running at (1600 9-9-9-24 1.5V per CORSAIR). My motherboard had a much newer BIOS version available as well so I updated it. After doing all of this I put my 2nd stick of Ram back in with no issues so far and its been almost two days now.

 

[essenbe]

That's great, Sirsnazzy. Great news. I know you are happy so far. I really hope the good luck continues for you. Let us know how it continues for you. If or when you feel your problem is solved, please mark this thread as solved. Congratulations. Well done.

 

[Sirsnazzy]

I still have yet to blue screen after doing the actions detailed in my last post - I am going to mark this thread as solved.

essenbe, I would like to thank you for taking time to help me with this problemhttp://www.sevenforums.com/members/essenbe.html it is GREATLY appreciated. Without you I would not have known where to start; you helped me narrow my problem down until it was solved. Yourself and the other helpers on this forum do great things for so many people. You probably don't hear this as much as you should - Thank you for your help!

 

[essenbe]

Thank you for your kind comments, it is sincerely appreciated. You did the work and followed the instructions. I realize sometimes, there seems to be no rhyme or reason for what we ask. But, at least in the majority of the cases, it is pretty methodical. Thank you for sticking in with us. You deserve the credit for doing the work.