repeated variable bsods

[gregglee]

I keep getting irregular bsods.

One is in Photoshop CS5, which was the last before I generated the Windows_NT6_BSOD_jcgriff2 report. Only happens with certain adjustments such as image adjust exposure. Sometimes only hangs PS, others bsod. May also happen seemingly randomly like double clicking control panel shortcut to open, or browsing in firefox. Have also had hangs / bsod browsing adobe bridge and Bibble Pro. Other seemingly random and nothing under any heavy utilization.

Video card tech rep suggested I try uninstall of intellipoint 8 since I though PS issue might be due to video card. This fixed some display quirks, but did not cure the BSODs.

I have run sfc scannow already. nothing found.

Note the perfmon/reprt procedure didn't work (message nothing found), but I generated the same report from Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Performance Information and Tools\Advanced Tools\generate a system health report and saved it.

Also note that right click send to did not offer the compressed zio option so I used freeware 7-zip instead.

Is Windows 7 . . .
- x86 (32-bit) or x64 ? 64
- the original installed OS on the system? yes. note: I originally installed as a multiboot with 7rtm, xp and 7rc on different drives. xp and rc since removed and partitions reformatted. I had to run "repair my computer" from install disk to restore mbr after removing xp, but did not reinstall 7.
- an OEM or full retail version? retail
- What is the age of system (hardware)? mb, cpu dram and system drive 2 months. video card 5 months. one optical drive about one month. data hds and another optical drive various up to two years.
What is the age of OS installation (have you re-installed the OS?) one year. System drive contents transferred to new hard drive using western digital utility with no reported hitches. I changed mb and cpu two months ago but that did not require any type of reinstall, only re-validation. Various hw drivers installed with new hardware. The mbr repair was several months ago before the issue started.

 

[Jonathan_King]

Hello,

I would also suspect a graphics problem. Do you have another video card you can try? Perhaps you could purchase one from a store that would allow you to return it if you don't need it. You can also check with a friend to see if s/he will lend you one.

You can also try running Furmark: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/100356-video-card-stress-test-furmark.html

Finally, try running Prime95. Run both the Blend and Small FFTs tests.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/100352-cpu-stress-test-prime95.html

...Summary of the dumps:

[font=lucida console]
Built by: 7600.16617.amd64fre.win7_gdr.100618-1621
Debug session time: Thu Dec 16 12:32:47.222 2010 (UTC - 5:00)
System Uptime: 0 days 4:55:03.126
Probably caused by : hardware
BUGCHECK_STR:  0x124_AuthenticAMD
DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID:  VISTA_DRIVER_FAULT
PROCESS_NAME:  AvastSvc.exe
FAILURE_BUCKET_ID:  X64_0x124_AuthenticAMD_PROCESSOR_CACHE
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨``
  
[/font]

 

[gregglee]

Thanks. Which of the reports did your quote come from?

What in this suggests the video card?

I notice the process name says avastsvc.exe which is part my antivorus package. What do I make of that?

One other bit of history I forgot. I wondered if some of the old mb chipset drivers are is still around causing trouble. I am grasping at straws. I tried to remove all the drivers for the old mb chipset, but since they don't all show as installed programs, I'm not sure all the files are gone. The mb is same manufacturer ASUS and both have AMD chipset, uses the same catalyst installer program, and they share some sources for the onboard functions. After installing the new mb drivers I noticed some of the old ones were still listed in device manager in hidden devices non-plug and play. I uninstalled these drivers from device manager, but of course that doesn't mean all system files and registry entries are gone.

Have already run prime95 with no problems. System has also passed the stability tests in AMD OD and AIDA64. Also passed memtest and microsoft memory test.

Also no issues running 3DMark Vantage or Specviewperf11 GPU benchmarks.
I will try furmark assuming it supports Quadro.

Yes I have another card I can try which is also NVIDIA but a Geforce rather than a Quadro, so the driver will be different.

Separately I have recently installed W7 on a second drive as multiboot set up. Intended for NLE installation, but not done yet until I sort this issue. So this is a really bare installation right now and it didn't exist with the old mb. It did have identical display artifacts until I uninstalled ipoint 8. Of course there is no photoshop or other complex app to test with so not of much use unless I install more.

 

[gregglee]

Furmark has been running for 45 minutes and is still running smoothly at 1920x1080 (native res) on primary monitor as I type this into firefox on the secondary monitor. When nothing happened after gpu temp stabilized I opened a second instance of furmark on the secondary monitor at its native 1280x1024. This caused a little stuttering and raised temp a couple degrees but no crash. So I closed the second instance and started prime 95. I let it run for a few minutes after cpu temp stabilized. No problems. So I closed prime95 and let the original instance continue. Still running. gpu temp 76 degrees gpu fan auto speed control has never increased from min 25%.

Daily scheduled backup program just ran while furmark running.

BSOD's have never been under heavy load. Some were likely when cpu, gpu, memory and disk all processing going at once, like photoshop, but others most likely light load everywhere. Some occurred at a mouse click, but none of those since I took out ipoint 8.

I got one this morning when I turned on computer after bios boot but before windows got very far into boot. This has happened 2 or 3 times before, but only at restart after an install. Shut down, restarted, completely ordinary startup.

 

[Jonathan_King]

Just to clarify about Furmark: it is a video memory and GPU test, not a monitor test. Which monitor it is run on has no effect; the multiple Furmark processes might.

My dump report came from the only dump in the jcgriff2 report, 121610-22994-01.dmp.

There was nothing in the report that pointed to video card specifically, only a general hardware error. Here is an article on bugcheck 0x124, if you're interested: http://www.sevenforums.com/crash-lockup-debug-how/35349-stop-0x124-what-means-what-try.html

I put the hardware error together with the fact that removing Intellipoint fixed some display quicks, and took a guess that the video card might be the cause.

As for Avast running, I don't think that is the most likely cause. I did notice it, but decided given the circumstances the BSODs come in, Avast probably wasn't the cause. If future BSODs point to Avast or some networking component, then it will be time to try a different product.

 

[gregglee]

My dump report came from the only dump in the jcgriff2 report, 121610-22994-01.dmp.

How do you read a dmp file?

The date modified time on the 121610-22994-01.dmp file, 11:34, differs from the last bsod which was between 15:30 and 15:34 per restart on the event log. According to the event log, nothing happened at 11:34. No entries between 11:19 and 11:45. The c:\windows\memory.dmp file was also modified 11:34. !_kernal_dump_list.txt on the file I sent also records 11:34.

So I don't understand what does and does not trigger the dump.

 

[Jonathan_King]

Reading dump files requires a debugger. BlueScreenView is a good beginning program, though its accuracy is limited. The debugger of choice for most of us is Windbg, Microsoft's debugger.

Here's a good tutorial on using Windbg, if you're interested: http://www.sevenforums.com/crash-lockup-debug-how/26584-configuring-debugging-tools.html

I haven't figured out the timestamps of the dumps, either. Every stop error, also known as bugchecks and "blue screens of death (BSODs) is supposed to write a new dump, by default. That can be changed, but it rarely is.

We use the dump names and date modified only to get an idea of which dumps are from when.

 

[gregglee]

I put the hardware error together with the fact that removing Intellipoint fixed some display quicks, and took a guess that the video card might be the cause..

Can a driver problem cause windows to report a hardware error or is it definitely physical hardware?

 

[Jonathan_King]

I suppose it is possible, although the only driver I can think of, that has caused those bugchecks, is SPTD.sys, a component of Daemon Tools. Since I don't see that driver running on your system, I do suspect hardware is the cause.

Nevertheless, if you really suspect a driver problem, you can run driver verifier to try to flush it out. See this guide: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/101379-driver-verifier-enable-disable.html