Solved Fresh Win7 x64 Install - BSOD / ntoskrnl / 0xf4 / CRITICAL_OBJECT_TERM

[flyerguymn]

Hi all,

I did a fresh install of Win7 x64 onto a brand new Intel 730 SSD drive. After installing chipset/USB3/audio/video drivers and connecting all hardware, I started to restore user files to the system via CrashPlan backups from an external hard drive. During that, I got a couple of BSODs. After that, I started getting BSODs consistently, and since then, I get them within 0-15 minutes of boot.

Because it started happening while I was doing my first big transfer from the external HDD, I started to suspect USB3, but my troubleshooting doesn't seem to point that way any more.

Troubleshooting steps I've taken:

1. Detached all USB devices other than keyboard/mouse/wifi (no wired network available near computer)
2. Removed all internal hard drives other than the boot SSD mentioned above.
3. Ran 3 passes of memtest86 (no errors).
4. Ran full diagnostics on the Intel SSD (passed).
5. Rechecked SATA cabling to the SSD.

Still getting BSODs at the same frequency. I then recalled that the video driver was among the last drivers I had installed. I used the ATI/AMD driver autodetect utility to install my driver, and it had recommended Catalyst 13.9 for my HD 4770.

6. I uninstalled Catalyst 13.9

At first I thought I had finally solved the problem because the system is definitely a bit more stable using the standard VGA driver (I worked on it for an hour or so), but then I got a BSOD, so it appears I still have at least some of the issue.

I ran BluescreenView and almost all of my crash dumps point to ntoskrnl and 0xf4 and CRITICAL_OBJECT_TERMINATION. I've definitely had more BSODs than I have dump files. From Googling, I see that 0xf4 can often be memory or hard drive, so that's why I ran memtest86 and the Intel SSD diags, but no clues there. But I've also seen that this is a very generic set of errors that can indicate pretty much anything wrong from drivers to hardware failure.

My full setup is a Gigabyte GA-H87-D3H with Core i5 4570 and 16GB mem, the Intel 730 SSD and a Sapphire HD4770 graphics card.

I've attached the dump files. Not sure where to go from here, I am hoping someone with better BSOD debugging skills can point me in the right direction. Thanks!!

 

[flyerguymn]

Also, last night after posting I thought to remove the Intel HD 4600 graphics driver, and then try the Catalyst 13.9 driver (just the driver not the whole Catalyst package). That provided some stability as I was able to work for quite a while.

Then I started to connect my external hard drives again, one at a time, and see if things remained stable. On the first one it seemed fine, but on the second I got the BSOD on bootup. On a whim, I tried moving that one to a different USB3 port. So far, it's been stable up and running overnight and this morning. It wasn't doing much at the time, so that could be coincidental, but it did do some CrashPlan backup tasks and this morning I browsed for a bit and installed a software package, and so far it's still up.

Just more information and clues for anyone who is willing to look at the dump files. Thank you!

 

[essenbe]

flyerguymn, welcome to Seven Forums. I will try to help you with this.Could you tell me what temps ea are talking about fro the CPU and GPU, also what anti virus are you using? I would like to know if your drivers were from the drivers disk or downloaded frommmm the internet, did you install the Dameon tools and the Gigabyte utilities and are you overclocking anything?
Firest, if you have them installed, please unimstall all Gigabyte utilities, they are known causes of BSODs.

Please open an elevated command prompt ( click start, type cmd in the search box, right click on the cmd entry and select run as administrator) in the black box that opens, copy/paste sfc /scannow. If you decide to type it, notice the space between the sfc and the /. It is a system file checker which will scan your system files and attempt to correct any missing or corrupt files. What we want are the results to say windows found no integrity violations. If it says files were found but could not be repaired, close the box, reboot and run it again, after opening the administrative command prompt. You may have to reboot and run it three times for it to repair all system files. If it can't repair them after 3 reboots, let us know.

 

[flyerguymn]

No Gigabyte utils installed (by that I assume you mean App Center and its optional modules. App Center not installed).

No Daemon Tools.

Not overclocking.

Drivers were downloaded, used the latest stable for everything except ATI/AMD Catalyst, because their driver autodetect tool specifically chose 13.9.

sfc /scannow did something interesting. It reported:
"Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some of them"
So I followed the directions here to analyze the CBS.log file and produce a sfcdetails.txt file:
Use the System File Checker tool to repair missing or corrupted system files log
That does NOT find any corrupt files noted in the log. sfcdetails.txt attached here.
Repeated this process multiple times with same result.

 

[essenbe]

flyerguymn, I asked for help to read the log. I can't do that very well. It shouldn't be too long

 

[NoelDP]

There's no problems showing in the sfcdetails data - but the full logs may be more informative...


Please follow the Windows Update Posting Instructions and post the requested data

If the file is too large (8MB compressed), remove the older CBSPersist cab files until the final file is below the limit - you can always post them separately after zipping them. (the forum doesn't allow the upload of bare CAB files, for a number of reasons)

 

[flyerguymn]

This system has been stable for three days now, so I think I've solved the problem. The issue had to be caused by one or more of the following:

1. Presence of both Intel HD 4600 and ATI/AMD Catalyst drivers on the system (I removed the Intel HD drivers 3 days ago).
2. A bad USB3 port (I relocated one of the external hard drives to a different port that same day).
3. A loose or bad cable. I reseated all cables inside the box that day.

My money is on #1, but #2 or #3 wouldn't surprise me, either.

Thanks for your help, all seems well now. Not sure what to make of sfc /scannow telling me there are corrupt files when it isn't logging any, but that seems to be a red herring so I'm choosing to ignore it.

 

[NoelDP]

Please run another SFC and post the new logs - even if things are 'normal' now, they may turn nasty later.