Random BSOD's...hal.dll to blame?

[coldcrankcase]

Ok, so I bought this laptop about two years ago for college (and gaming) and it worked well for a while. Then I start getting all of these BSOD's. Sometimes, they happen when I'm gaming, sometimes not. Sometimes they happen when I'm watching Netflix, sometimes when just cruising the internets, sometimes completely at random. Occasionally, they happen immediately after startup, causing another startup...which is ridiculous. After recently installing BlueScreenView, I noticed a pretty clear pattern in the "caused by driver" section...almost all of them (with the exception of the one where I dropped the laptop on the floor) were hal.dll with a bug check code of 0x00000124. I had the problem fixed, or so I thought, for about two months, but apparently not. I have all the Windows updates that Windows can find, I've checked all the drivers and they appear to be up to date. I ran SFC and it came up clean. I'm not sure what to do next. Thoughts and/or questions?
Oh yeah, I've uploaded the SF Debug file with this post.

Thanks!

 

[carwiz]

There's video TDRs mixed with L2 cache errors so something is walking over memory. Your Nvida drivers don't match Windows Quality Assurance versions so I'm not sure where you got them. I also notice there's parts of Microsoft Security Essentials but I don't see it in your startup list. What is your AV?

Which brings us to another potential problem. On one of the dumps, it showed Smanager.exe running which could be a trojan downloader causing the problem.

For starters, boot into safe mode with networking and download/run AdwCleaner. Report back if it found anything.

If there was nothing found, run SFC /scannow using Option Two while still in safe mode.
Report back the results of the scan.

 

[coldcrankcase]

Ok, I uninstalled my graphics driver and all the stuff that came with it, went to nvidia.com and downloaded a new driver install file, installed that, no problem. I installed AVG antivirus and ran a scan that came up with a mild piece of adware that AVG cleaned. I then booted to safe mode, ran AdwCleaner which found and quarantined something else. I've attached the logs from the AdwCleaner folder. I ran SFC in safe mode as administrator five times and nothing came up, it just said it didn't find any integrity violations. I've gone through all of my drivers one by one and tried to find any that weren't up to date, but they all appear to be. I also ran the SFDebug thingy again, mostly because Bluescreenview is showing ntoskrnl to be the problem instead of hal. i'm not sure if that's significant but hopefully there will be something useful here. Thank you for your help!

 

[coldcrankcase]

some issue with uploading the attachments....

 

[carwiz]

Do any BSODs occur in safe mode?

If you're overclocking hardware, STOP and set to default values.

Uninstall any third party Fixit, Cleaners, Speed Enhancers and Driver Updaters except for those instructed here. You still have some type of backdoor loader agent and perhaps a root kit. I'll see if one of our malware guys can look in at this thread and advise on where to go from here. In the mean time, gather your data backup and Windows disc--It may involve a clean install. If you've saved backups on an external disk, that will need to be scanned too.

 

[Golden]

To check for rootkits, use this:

https://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/disinfection/5350

 

[gregrocker]

Is this factory preinstalled Win7 which is the worst possible install one can have of Win7, larded with bloatware and useless duplicate utilities which interfere with better versions built into Win7?

That's why most tech enthusiasts will not run such an install but instead Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7. Everything is provided in the blue link tutorial.

At the minimum I'd Clean Up Factory Bloatware.

If this doesn't resolve performance problems, work through these Troubleshooting Steps for Windows 7.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

My 2 cents run one of these the Kaspersky is quite good
5 Bootable AntiVirus Rescue CD for Windows: Free Download