Freezes and BSOD, error 0x00000124

[writhziden]

Those are the three most likely to cause power management issues. The most important drivers on the system are the chipset drivers, so make sure those are up to date, as well.

 

[tripleclick]

Now I also got a freeze with full-power setting.

Thanks, writhziden, drivers are all up-to-date. At least when I check in Windows (right-click > check for driver updates) and what HP suggests for my machine/Windows. Do you also check the manufacturers of the individual parts? Does this make any sense? I guess not so much. So I'll now start changing drivers back to the 2nd newest version, first is the graphics driver... let's see what happens... if anything at all...

 

[writhziden]

The best place to find the driver updates for a laptop is the laptop support site through the vendor. In your case, you want to get all driver updates through the Elitebook 8530w support site and nowhere else. If you have drivers from another source, they can cause issues with power management since the drivers provided by HP are designed to provide the best power management settings for your system.

 

[tripleclick]

Ok, writhziden, that's a clear statement. Thank you. Will do that.
Quick update: Changed the NVIDIA driver to a year-old driver. Still freezed. For Audio HP still has only that one driver from 2009. I guess video and audio drivers are therefore ok. Network is next...

 

[tripleclick]

Here I am again. Meanwhile I tried old drivers for audio, video and networks. At one point I was hopeful and thought I had found the bad guy when I got no freezes for several days. But it was just wishful thinking. Now, two developments that might give you a hint (I am unfortunately not experienced enough):

• I usually use my machine on a table. After several days of no freezes I used it on one of my legs and bang - freeze. I even think I have seen this before. But could as well be just a coincidence. If not: Couldn't this point at a real hardware problem, e.g. a "hairline" crack somewhere (although the 8530w is built quite sturdy)? Ventilation was not an issue btw.
• I got another bluescreen about 2 hours ago, but a different one this time:
  IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
  STOP: 0x0000000A (0x0000000000000020, 0x0000000000000002,
  0x0000000000000000, 0xFFFFF80002CAEDB4
  Unfortunately without "Address 0xVVVVVVVV has base at [address] - [driver]" as it sometimes seems to happen. Could it be of any use to do that procedure with the dump and so on again and upload the data here?

Thanks in advance! What would I do without you...

 

[profdlp]

...I usually use my machine on a table. After several days of no freezes I used it on one of my legs and bang - freeze...

Look on the bottom of your laptop for cooling vents. My guess is that when you have it on your legs you are blocking them and causing the computer to overheat.

 

[tripleclick]

Thanks for your idea, profdlp, but that's why I wrote "Ventilation was not an issue btw.". I am absolutely sure. I *am* relatively inexperienced, but not *that* inexperienced. No cooling vents right there. Thanks nevertheless.

 

[profdlp]

Sorry, I should have taken you at your word.

I saw the comment about ventilation but thought perhaps you were feeling good airflow from a side/back exhaust and missing a possible intake from the bottom. Most people feel the heat coming out and don't always think about air trying to get in.

Stop errors like that usually mean that a driver is trying to use an area of memory it is not supposed to. Since you've been through the driver update/rollback thing already it might be time to look at the memory itself.

I'd try a few passes of Memtest86.com - Memory Diagnostic

Go for the free download. You'll get an .iso file which you can burn to make a bootable disc. The test will start automatically once you've booted from the disc and will run as long as you let it. I'd give it four or five passes and see if it spots any errors.

 

[tripleclick]

No problem, profdlp, I am thankful that you try to help.

Memtest86+: Actually I've already run it for several hours. (And also a specialized memtest tool of HP.) Of course I can do it again. The problem with it is if it doesn't find anything within a reasonable time frame, you're still not sure whether the memory is ok. It is a stress test. Even with a defective memory, sometimes it finds something, sometimes it takes sooo much time that you just give up and just assume it's ok.

Anyway, do you suggest I should nevertheless do another overnight memtest86+ session? I trust you guys more than my own judgement. If you think yes, I'll do it

 

[profdlp]

If you look at the "Pass" column it will tell you how many completed passes it has gone through. (It will read "0" when you start, since you haven't yet finished one full round.) Depending on how much RAM you have, "several hours" might be just a few passes or a great many.

EDIT: I should add that even one error is one too many.

 

[tripleclick]

I've got 4 GB. Last time I stopped during the 9th pass.

Yes, one error would be enough already to confirm that the memory is faulty. Only mimtest86+ didn't find one single error so far.

 

[profdlp]

Your RAM ought to be fine, then.

Do you have a temperature monitoring program? If not, it wouldn't hurt to watch your temps and see if you can find any correlation between temperature spikes and the BSODs. CoreTemp and RealTemp are a couple of good ones, though if HP has one I would try that first.

If it were anything but a laptop I would say it's time to start swapping parts out one-by-one and try to narrow it down a little. But...

 

[tripleclick]

That's something I haven't done yet. I guess these tools log the temperature and once a crash occurs I take a look at the log. I would then rather focus on a correlation between temperature spikes and freezes, rather than bluescreens. Because the latter "only" happen about once a month, but freezes quite frequently.

One thing before I spend too much time with this: A few weeks ago I asked an HP engineer (was fixing something else) about a possible heat problem with my notebook. He showed me the cooling vents which were all clean and said he doesn't think that's the problem. Does it still make sense to log temperatures? Could there be another culprit than the actual cooling vents that still effects temperature? (Please excuse my asking to naively; I just don't know.)

 

[writhziden]

Yes, there are other factors that can affect temperatures. Dust is the most common. If your system is free of dust, another common cause of overheating is a failing fan. The third most common cause would be improper spreading of the thermal compound between the CPU and the heat sink to allow heat to flow from the CPU to the heat sink so the fan on the heat sink can dissipate the heat into the air. I have seen cases with laptops in which the thermal compound was not spread properly on the CPU resulting in overheating.

I definitely would proceed with checking your temperatures. We can provide a few stress tests that are designed to increase temperatures to test cooling and see if everything is working as it should. My usual hardware temperature checks are:

• Monitor temperatures during the following tests.
  
  Use the following programs to monitor the temperatures.​
  • Real Temp is a good CPU temperature monitor.
  • Speccy - System Information - Free Download will monitor all hardware temperatures.
  • HWiNFO, HWiNFO32 & HWiNFO64 - Hardware Information and Analysis Tools can be inaccurate for CPU temperatures, but is a good program for GPU temperature monitoring.
  • 
    Use FurMark: VGA Stress Test, Graphics Card and GPU Stability Test, Burn-in Test, OpenGL Benchmark and GPU Temperature | oZone3D.Net to test the graphics card GPU. Then use the |MG| Video Memory Stress Test 1.7.116 Download to test your graphics card memory. Let the memory test run for at least seven passes; the more the better.
    
    
  • Run http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/100352-hardware-stress-test-prime95.html to determine any hardware problems. Run all three tests for a few hours each. If you get errors, stop the test and post back here.

 

[tripleclick]

Wow, you amaze me over and over again with your experience. Thanks, writhziden. Will do that. Probably over the weekend or so.

 

[writhziden]

You're welcome. Make sure to stop any tests if your CPU temperatures get too high. Your CPU is rated up to 105 C, so anything over 85-90 C should be considered critical for the CPU. I could not find temperature information for your GPU with a cursory search, but they are usually designed up to 100 C, so 80-85 C should be the critical temperature for it.

The temperatures I have given are a bit conservative, but with adequate cooling, the system really should not be getting close to those temperatures. The CPU should run 75-80 C at its hottest, and the GPU should be around 70-75 C nominally.

 

[tripleclick]

Oh, very helpful and critical information indeed! I had just guessed something - and probably the wrong - or would have had to ask again. Even if I repeat myself: Bid thanks!

 

[profdlp]

...another common cause of overheating is a failing fan...

That's the one I was thinking about. Laptop fans are not noted for their reliability. Throw in the fact that even when they are running it can be hard to hear them and you might have an intermittent fan.

 

[tripleclick]

Such a simple thing actually. But might be, indeed. I'll let you know what the temperature measurements show as soon as I find the time to run the tests.

 

[tripleclick]

Just came to my mind: On the other hand a failing fan would not explain - even contradict - the fact that the freezes do only occur if no video is playing or the other way round: Freezes never happen when a video is playing. And that would certainly be the time of highest expected/needed fan activity.