Random BSODs

[bigshot]

Hello eveyone,

I installed Windows 7 Professional x64 on my Dell Inspiron n5110 and i'm getting random BSODs. The logs and perfmon are in the attachment.

System Specs:

Dell Inspiron n5110
Windows 7 Professional x64
Intel Core i7-2670QM CPU 2.20 GHz
8 GB RAM

I couldn't figure it out. BSODs appear random. Does anyone have any idea about the problem.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Vir Gnarus]

Nothing clearly defined by these crashes, but I see some problems.

First, I don't understand the need to have both the Intel onboard graphics drivers and the Nvidia graphics drivers both installed and enabled together. I can see them working together, but I can also see them not. It's unnecessary anyways. Make sure to uninstall the one you do not need.

Second, I see you have both Norton Firewall and Zone Alarm. Having these both on at the same time is a definite no-no, and will cause issues, most likely the ones you're experiencing now (I did see them in the raw stack for each faulting thread). While I do not recommend Norton products (they are unstable and use very invasive tactics), I definitely would not recommend Zone Alarm either, since it has a reputation for being buggy and unstable. If you were given the option to remove only one of them, I would go with Zone Alarm, as well as updating Norton Firewall. I also see McAfee drivers present. Exactly what AV/Firewall software do you have installed? You should have one dedicated AV software and one firewall software (preferably just one software with both). If there's any overlap, there will be problems.

Lastly, I notice a lot of your drivers got a bit of age to them, like your Realtek LAN drivers. Make sure to keep em all up to date. I understand Dell has a bad reputation for having their drivers stagnate, but make sure there's any updates just in case.

Otherwise, aside from all that, I can't see anything entirely definitive here. If you wish, you can turn on Driver Verifier and let your system crash a few more times. Do not select the following checks: IRP Logging, Force Pending I/O Requests, and Low Resource Sim. Follow the rest of the instructions in the article linked and make sure to read them all entirely.

 

[bigshot]

Hi Vir Gnarus;

Thanks for the quick response.

If I remove the intel graphics driver, the display is blackout. After that windows automatically installs the intel graphics driver and screen gets back to normal. I actually want to use nvidia driver.

I'm using McAfee. I didn't install Norton or Zone Alarm (at least intentionally). If they are installed how can I remove them?

I will try the Driver Verifier as you suggested. I will share the results afterwards.

Cheers,
ai

 

[usasma]

How do you enable the nVidia card? As I recall, the Intel card must be enabled for the entry into Windows - after that you'll be able to switch to the nVidia card (but I'm not real familiar with these dual video card systems). That "should" disable the Intel card at that point.

 

[Vir Gnarus]

Is your video output hooked up to the video card or the onboard? Also, you'll want to check your BIOS/UEFI settings to see if your video card (PCIE) takes priority over your onboard.

If you can't find either Norton or Zone Alarm in the list of programs under Programs & Features in your Control Panel, then you'll probably need to use something like Driver Sweeper to cleanly remove them. They may even still have an uninstall.exe in their subfolder in your Program Files directory.

 

[bigshot]

Hello eveyone,

@usasma
I actually didn't do anything about enabling nvidia card. But after a little search I found it can be configured by Nvidia Control Panel (please see attachement graphics.PNG). In these settings graphic processors can be choosed.

@Vir Gnarus
I couldn't find the BIOS settings you mentioned. I also used Driver Sweeper Program and it didn't find the drivers Norton or Zone Alarm drivers. I'm sending the screenshot of the Driver Sweeper (driver_sweeper.png).

Today another BSOD occured while watching a video on YouTube. The dump file is also in the attachment.

Thank you for the responses.
Cheers,
ai

 

[Vir Gnarus]

This one's blaming your Nvidia drivers. They are from Feb 29 and I have heard previously back then that people were having problems with Nvidia drivers around that time, most likely from a recent bug that was introduced.

I did notice that Driver Verifier was not on at the time of this crash. So make sure to turn it on if you haven't yet. Remember to follow what checks not to select as per my recommendation. In addition, you may wanna run MemtestCL a few times to check your Graphics Card. It will test primarily the VRAM, but there is GPU stuff involved.

 

[bigshot]

I ran MemtestCL as you suggested. But it crashed with a Windows notification which says something about my Nvidia driver is recovered.
I uninstalled my Nvidia driver and also cleaned it with Driver Sweeper. After this cleanup I installed the driver again and ran MemtestCL. It didn't give any error this time.
Maybe the problem was the Nvidia driver.

I will also turn on the Driver Verifier in case of new BSODs.

Cheers,
ai

 

[Vir Gnarus]

Make sure to stress your GPU with stuff like games with heavy graphics or a benchmark like Unigine's Heaven (it's free). That way we can confirm things are still ok.

 

[bigshot]

Hi Vir Gnarus,

I used the Heaven to stress my gpu but it didn't crashed this time.
I turned on the Driver Verifier and It gives a lot of BSODs when Windows is starting.
I'm sending dump files. I think they blame pgp driver. I use PGP Disk Enryption. May it casue the BSODs?

Cheers,
ai

 

[Vir Gnarus]

Yah, it's blaming the encryption driver twice for the same thing. It appears that it made a call that got returned with a c000009a error and it's not handling it responsibly. The error means that there were insufficient resources to complete the API. This doesn't necessarily mean physical resources like RAM and paging file, but you should make sure your system isn't running out of either. If it even gets close (like 75%) then the system will start changing things around and reacting differently to resource allocation requests. Other then that, I cannot tell without really gettin down n dirty with the code, which I think isn't worth it here.

Honestly, the driver is a little aged (Nov 22, 2011). You may wanna try to find an update for it or something. Or you may need to find another disk encryption solution.

 

[bigshot]

Hi Vir Gnarus,

Can PGP Disk Encryption Driver be the cause of the BSODs?
Today I get new two BSODs (please see the attachment). They are different from the previous ones.

Cheers,
ai

 

[Vir Gnarus]

That's what DV was blaming, yes, and it did show up in one of the newest crashdumps (which, btw, these two show DV was not active). I would definitely work on updating or getting rid of it first before anything else.

In addition, though, these newest crashes seem to point finger at your AV software (Norton/Symantec). It's dated from Feb, which isn't that old, but you want to make absolutely sure to update the AV engine whenever possible as there can be bugs (which it appears to be the case here). It may even be necessary to disable or temporarily remove it to test stability.

If you wish, I can try to debug this further, but I'm going to need you to turn on DV again (remember to not select those 3 checks I mentioned previously), then when it crashes, I'll need the kernel dump that comes from it. That's the big fat MEMORY.DMP file located in your Windows directory. Verify that it was created from that crash (timestamp should show it was made at bootup after the crash), zip it up and send it to a 3rd-part filesharing site, preferably a metaupload site like MirrorCreator.com.

 

[EncryptionDan]

I'm a Symantec PGP Encryption technician tasked with reviewing the web for mention of our product to see if we can help. What version of PGP Desktop do you have installed? Are you still getting the BSOD?