Solved Numerous BSODs at various times doing various things

[freixas]

Hi,

My system has been crashing on a regular basis for the last month or two. Here's what I've done:

Ran MEMTEST86+. No problems.

Ran a CPU stress test. No problems.

Ran CHKDSK on the drives after crashes. Various problems fixed on various drives.

Ran sfc /scannow. No problems reported.

Checked all connections in the PC, specially the power connections. Nothing obviously wrong.

Visually inspected the motherboard for problems. Nothing seen.

Reseated the video and memory cards.

Bought a new motherboard, CPU and DVD RW. The components that remain from the old system are the memory (but only running half of the DIMMs), the 750W power supply, the drives, the video card and the case. Still having problems.

Ran the diagnostics package provided by ASUS. After running the stress tests for several hours, the diagnostic would report that all was well and then the system would BSOD a few minutes later.

Some crashes seem to occur after the system wakes up from Sleep.

Because the new CPU has integrated graphics, I removed the video card. Still having problems.

Noticed the suggestion to use Driver Verifier in this forum. Enabled Driver Verifier yesterday following the instructions in the Driver Verifier thread. The system crashed when trying to start Windows 7. Tried it several times and then turned off Driver Verifier in Safe Mode this morning.

I've attached the information described as needed for BSOD analysis. This includes some dumps from the Driver Verifier and some from before I enabled it (some are probably from the old motherboard/CPU). I've used a program called "Who Crashed" to analyze the dumps, but they point to various core MS drivers (when using Driver Verifier, I only enabled checking for the non-MS drivers).

Any ideas where the problem is?

P.S. Thanks in advance for your help. In looking at the other threads, you guys seem pretty awesome!

 

[Northernsoul55]

Hi,

From your logs:

*******************************************************************************
*                                                                             *
*                        Bugcheck Analysis                                    *
*                                                                             *
*******************************************************************************
Use !analyze -v to get detailed debugging information.
[B]BugCheck C4[/B], {e1, fffff98001540f9c, 0, 0}
Unable to load image \SystemRoot\System32\Drivers\uim_vimx64.sys, Win32 error 0n2
*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for uim_vimx64.sys
*** ERROR: Module load completed but symbols could not be loaded for uim_vimx64.sys
Probably caused by : [COLOR=red]uim_vimx64.sys[/COLOR] ( uim_vimx64+1a2ce )

If you still have Driver Verifier running please stop.

Uninstall Paragon Image Mounter (UIM) Plugin driver as it is contributing
to your BSOD's.

Uninstall any registry tweak programs installed.

This is overclocking software and can lead to system instability
and often BSOD's. Reset all components to their stock speeds and then
remove the software:

Start Menu\Programs\ASUS 
Start Menu\Programs\ASUS\AI Suite II
Start Menu\Programs\ASUS\AI Suite 3
[COLOR=red]And all other Asus Bloatware.[/COLOR]

:ar: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219576-clean-up-factory-bloatware.html

Free up the startup/Disable Startup Programs as you have many entries:

1. Click on the Start button
2. Type “msconfig" (without quotes), click the resulting link.
3. It will open the System Configuration window.
4. Select the “Startup” tab.
5. Deselect all items other than the antivirus. Apply>OK
6. Click the "Services" tab, click the "Hide All Microsoft Services" box, then click Disable All.
7. Click OK, then restart the computer.

Aim to uninstall all unnecessary programs.

Cheers

Dave

 

[freixas]

Thanks so much for your quick response.

Driver Verifier was stopped.

All Paragon UIM drivers were removed.

Not sure what exactly you mean by registry tweak programs. Do you mean something like CCleaner? Or RegEdt32? Not sure how I would identify them all (most programs tweak the registry) and some of them do useful and harmless stuff (like replacing the Caps Lock key with something useful). Is there a list of particularly troublesome tweakers?

I uninstalled the parts of ASUS Suite that seemed related to overclocking and anything related to my old motherboard. The system is not and has not been overclocked. All settings are at their nominal valu, as far as I know.

I removed most startup programs and most services. I wasn't sure if your advice was to determine the cause of the BSOD or if it was generic advice for the long run.

I deleted a few programs. Believe it or not, most are there for a reason.

I assume the next step would be to wait for another BSOD? Should I reenable Driver Verifier with the new configuration?

Thanks!

 

[Northernsoul55]

Hi,

Thanks for the feedback

My advice was not generic, although it may have seemed that way.

Paragon driver was causing issues and showing as contributing to BSOD in your logs.

Asus bloatware, especially AI suites are just utilities that are problematic at best.

And I asked you to free up the Start up in order to see if any programs associated
were causing issues and it may well speed up boot time?

Reg tweakers.....maybe I was guilty of being a little generic here
as I meant if you had any such programs installed the they may do
more harm than good and best to remove them

CCleaner is deemed very good used in the correct way,
and one that is recommended and is an exception to the following:

Windows is a closed source system. Developers of tuneup utilities and registry 
cleaners do not have the core code of Win 7 and are not working on definitive 
information, but rather they are going on past knowledge and experience, 
most of which is not applicable to Win 7.
There is almost no tweaking that can be done to Win 7 to speed it up. 
The system is designed to diagnose itself and take care of itself which 
it does remarkably well. Win 7 maintains itself and that includes the registry.

Hope this helps explain. (No argument necessary)

Leave DV disabled and wait for another crash (Hopefully not)

Cheers

Dave

 

[freixas]

OK, thanks for the followup. If I get another BSOD, I will be more aggressive about turning stuff off and wait again. If it still crashes after that, I will send in another crash dump. If the system goes several days without crashing, I'll come back and mark this as "Solved". I appreciate your time.

 

[Northernsoul55]

No problem, glad to help

 

[freixas]

I'm going to mark this as solved, although one is never sure...

I had a few more crashes and kept eliminating start-up items and service items. Finally, I learned about ghost drivers and got rid of a lot of those. My system has now been running for three days without a problem and I even had Driver Verifier on most of the time. I ran the ASUS PC Diagnostics and had one more crash from the Creative Live! Cam driver. This is a really old device and I can probably afford to spend $20 bucks to replace it with something more recent.

I'm not saying that the Creative driver was the cause of all my problems—I think there was a problem with some other driver that is not around any more. I'll slowly restore some items and see if the crash re-appears. If I learn anything interesting, I'll add it to this thread in case it helps anyone in the future.

 

[Northernsoul55]

Ok and thanks for the feedback