Had 10 BSOD 0x000000116 in the last 3 days and I'm freaking out :(

[PabloFajita]

This all started a few days ago when playing Torchlight 2, my computer black screened and my GPU fan ramped up to 100% or what sounded like it.

I checked the code(278) and found out it was something to do with the display adapter. So I did a clean install of my 670's drivers. Had it happen again a day later playing DotA2.

I then called EVGA assuming it was my GPU, they did some basic troubleshooting and deemed it to be my PSU's +12v, saying they were too low, they advised me to not use my computer for gaming until I got a new PSU.

Well, I called my PSU company and while they seemed skeptical they sort of agreed that my voltages seemed low and were fluctuating too much, granted this was just checked with BIOS and Speedfan not a MM.

Well while awaiting the PSU which should come tomorrow, I have had another 8 of these crashes. Most have occurred while watching streams on twitch.tv. I had one "Windows Failed to Start" error, and then another crash while Adobe Air was open.

Thing is when these new crashes are occurring Speedfan isn't showing low voltages, Precision isn't showing high GPU temps, my CPU temps are low.

All my system specs are stock, as well, nothing was messed with or overclocked.

I'm starting to think it may actually be my GPU. I tried checking my RAM with Windows Memory Diagnostic(I have no clue how accurate it is) and it showed no problems there.

I've had this computer for 10 months, I haven't had any issues with it til 3 days ago. Before the 1st crash I had been using the 314.22 Drivers from Nvidia for 3 weeks without and issue as well.

I haven't got a crash just using the computer on the internet. Or browsing files.

I have had 2 crashes opening up Firefox for the first time after reinstalling Drivers, but disabling Hardware Acceleration seemed to fix that.

I don't know what to do, I'm beyond whatever limited capabilities I have for troubleshooting

Any help would be greatly appreciated, cause I don't know what to do atm. I don't know if it's actually the PSU not providing enough voltage to the GPU as they said, I don't know if it's actually my GPU which I first thought, I don't know if it's some sort of driver issue. I'm just really lost here.

I included the stuff the FAQ said, hopefully I did it correctly. Although the one dump file seems dated 3 days earlier and I don't know if it has all of the crashes on it. I included the Event Viewer logs of them, I don't know if that helps or not.

I ran the sfc scannow as well it found no problems.

Anyhoo, I appreciate any help anyone can offer me, thanks again.

 

[Dsprague]

OK had a look through your files, and there are a number of things we can try to help pin down the issue, or to help aleviate the issue if we are lucky.

first lets start with some GPU stress tests

Furmark is great for stress testing a GPU:

FurMark: VGA Stress Test, Graphics Card and GPU Stability Test, Burn-in Test, OpenGL Benchmark and GPU Temperature | oZone3D.Net

FurMark Setup:
- If you have more than one GPU, select Multi-GPU during setup
- In the Run mode box, select "Stability Test" and "Log GPU Temperature" (BurnIn test in newer versions).
Click "Go" to start the test
- Run the test until the GPU temperature maxes out - or until you start having problems (whichever comes first).
- Click "Quit" to exit

next please follow this tutorial starting with step two:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/160729-nvidia-amd-video-card-test-occt.html

OCCT is great for testing video memory and it also provides a very nice voltage graph which can help with troubleshooting, or rather give you a more visual representation of your possible voltage problem.

After the stress tests please do the following things (these are intended to aleviate any possible file corruption that may be causing the problem:

Run the system file checker to fix any file system corruption:

SFC.EXE /SCANNOW
Go to Start and type in "cmd.exe" (without the quotes)
At the top of the search box, right click on the cmd.exe and select "Run as adminstrator"
In the black window that opens, type "SFC.EXE /SCANNOW" (without the quotes) and press Enter.
Let the program run and post back what it says when it's done.

then try resetting your pagefile:

Use this technique to "reset" your pagefile:
a ) Go to Start...Run...and type in "sysdm.cpl" (without the quotes) and press Enter.
-Then click on the Advanced tab,
-then on the Performance Settings Button,
-then on the next Advanced tab,
-then on the Virtual Memory Change button.
b ) In this window, note down the current settings for your pagefile (so you can restore them later on).
-Then click on the "No paging file" radio button, and
- then on the "Set" button. Be sure, if you have multiple hard drives, that you ensure that the paging file is set to 0 on all of them.
-Click OK to exit the dialogs.
c ) Reboot (this will remove the pagefile from your system)
d ) Then go back in following the directions in step a ) and re-enter the settings that you wrote down in step b ). Follow the steps all the way through (and including) the reboot.
e ) Once you've rebooted this second time, go back in and check to make sure that the settings are as they're supposed to be.

last check and ensure that the firmware for your SSD is up to date.

 

[PabloFajita]

Really, really appreciate the fast response and help.

The sfc scannow I have done.

The pagefile, is using Automatically and System Managed Pagefile size. Not sure what to write down to use after resetting it, do I just go back to the those options?

For the 1st 2 things, should I be doing those if it's possible my PSU is the cause? Am I risking any other components in my machine?

 

[Dsprague]

the first one will stress test the GPU its self by pushing it to its max load, the second one will stress test the dedicated memory of the GPU but also has a nice graph that shows the voltage from the PSU during the test. so one is testing the gpu and the other is testing the GPU's dedicated RAM and monitoring the voltage.

addendum: It should not harm any components in your system, but keep an eye on the temperatures of your GPU during the tests, if the GPU is over heating it can damage its self.

 

[PabloFajita]

the first one will stress test the GPU its self by pushing it to its max load, the second one will stress test the dedicated memory of the GPU but also has a nice graph that shows the voltage from the PSU during the test. so one is testing the gpu and the other is testing the GPU's dedicated RAM and monitoring the voltage.

addendum: It should not harm any components in your system, but keep an eye on the temperatures of your GPU during the tests, if the GPU is over heating it can damage its self.

Ok... My computer just crashed on Pass 10 of the Mem test in OCCT, basically it was 2 seconds from finishing.

It had no errors up until then, it showed my voltages around 12, while speedfan showed them around 11.5.

GPU temps were fine around 45c.

And I'm kinda freaking out again.

That crash was the black screen one, where the fan spins to 100%.

I don't know what to do now.

Event Viewer shows another Bugcheck Code 278, err, 0x000000116.

The OCCT didn't save anything I'm guessing because it crashed.

 

[Dsprague]

Unfortunately it definitely sounds like a hardware level error, best advice for the time being would be to wait for the new PSU then try the test again with the new PSU installed and see if it causes a crash.

 

[PabloFajita]

Unfortunately it definitely sounds like a hardware level error, best advice for the time being would be to wait for the new PSU then try the test again with the new PSU installed and see if it causes a crash.

Again really appreciate all the help.

Do you think it's more the PSU or GPU?

The new RMA'd PSU comes tomorrow and I can test that one then, but if I end up getting this error again, does that mean it's the GPU? Or could there possibly be some other issue?

I'm just worried, and sorry if I sound like nagging wife or whatever, but I don't know how long most of the parts on my rig have left for warranty and really don't want to get caught with one that's expired. Don't exactly have a ton of money left over after building this one last year

I mean I've tried clean install of my drivers, and even an earlier version, but I doubted that to be an issue, since I had been using the drivers without any semblance of trouble for 3 weeks when the problem first arose.

I'm just really confused how EVGA thinks the PSU is causing what is showing as Display Adapter errors. I realize they say the voltages may be low, but if so, why are these voltages causing these crashes when I'm watching streams on twitch.tv with hardware acceleration turned off.

Anyhoo, again I really, really appreciate all this help. Thank you again.

 

[Dsprague]

unfortunately often times these things often come down to trial and error, its very hard to diagnose problems with a PSU short of pulling out a multi-meter and checking that way, but if the crashes continue beyond the replacement of the OSU it is likely the graphics card.

 

[PabloFajita]

unfortunately often times these things often come down to trial and error, its very hard to diagnose problems with a PSU short of pulling out a multi-meter and checking that way, but if the crashes continue beyond the replacement of the OSU it is likely the graphics card.

Ok. Thank you again.

One last thing, since I'm sort of a pessimist.

Say I still get this issue with a new PSU, and then go through the steps for a new GPU, and I still get this problem.

Is there anything else that you could think of that would cause the issues I'm having? I don't exactly know what would cause this out of the blue, nothing on my computer had changed in the 10months I've had for this to occur 3 days ago. No new programs, no viruses, no new hardware.

I mean the only issue I've ever had with this computer is, that my Keyboard has stopped working maybe 8-9 times in the last few months and I'm forced to unplug/plug it back into the USB.

I was really hoping for once, that I could finally put a computer together and not have any issues, I actually thought this was gonna be the first

Again, thank you for everything.

 

[Dsprague]

Well for your benefit here are the usual causes of this particualr BSOD error:

Usual causes:  Video driver, overheating, bad video card, BIOS, Power to card

 

[PabloFajita]

Well for your benefit here are the usual causes of this particualr BSOD error:

Usual causes:  Video driver, overheating, bad video card, BIOS, Power to card

Thanks.

I "think" I've ruled out Video Driver, well I've clean installed and clean installed old versions. And you didn't mention seeing any issue when you looked over my information.

I know for sure Overheating isn't an issue.

Gonna be checking Power, and then the video card.

What would be a BIOS problem? Would that be like overclocks on voltages and stuff? I haven't messed with any of that.

 

[Dsprague]

It could also be out dated bios but your BIOS seems fairly recent, though you can always check the motherboard manufacturers website for updates.

 

[PabloFajita]

It could also be out dated bios but your BIOS seems fairly recent, though you can always check the motherboard manufacturers website for updates.

Ok thanks again, I'll update this thread when the new PSU comes. Hopefully in a few hours depending on when UPS delivers during the day.

HOPEFULLY... It's the cause. If not then get to go through more RMA fun times with EVGA this time.

If it's still happening after that... Well, I don't want to even think about that now.

Thanks again.

 

[PabloFajita]

Little update to this thread.

About 3 hours in with the new PSU, haven't had a crash yet, granted I haven't tried a game in that time, but have watched a few streams for an hour.

I did run the OCCT memtest that crashed once, and made it through that, but that's just 1 short test.

Also notice the difference in +12v on this PSU compared to the first one, which is encouraging.

RMA'D PSU

NEW PSU

So... Don't want to jump the gun here, but it's looking "promising". Hopefully I was wrong with it being a GPU issue.

Although I am using the 310.70 drivers now instead of the 314.22. And I'm using the bare minimum of driver installs, just the Graphics Driver and Physx, I didn't install the HDAudio/3D crap/Nvidia Update/etc.

So really hoping my issue is resolved, but not gonna declare it fixed after only a few hours.

I'll update this, if I end up getting another 0x000000116 BSOD... Which then would mean logically the only thing left would be the GPU.

Thanks for everyone's help.

 

[Dsprague]

Glad to hear things are going well for you from the looks on the voltages it is much more stable than it was before, but please do keep us updated if you have further issues

 

[PabloFajita]

Sigh... Just had this happen twice now again.

Same error code.

This time I could reproduce it once. After restarting windows, opening up Speedfan within a minute or so causes a black screen.

2nd time I tried this I got a checkered screen and the background was blurred, before the computer went to a black screen and reset itself.

Basically it's random... 90% of the time when I turn on Speedfan nothing happens it loads up normal. But a few times opening Speedfan up the computer will crash.

I don't know what's causing this... Is this the GPU now? My PSU voltages have been stable since getting the new one.

Really frustrating...

 

[Dsprague]

Could you upload a fresh set of files from the SF Diagnostics tool so that we can have a look at them?