Solved Seemingly random BSOD's.

[Mztic]

Hey all, I've got problems with reoccuring BSOD's so I hoped I could find some help here as I don't know what to do anymore.
I'll try to make this post as detailed and clear as possible.


The problem:
I've started getting BSOD's at seemingly random times and I do not know what's causing this.
BSOD's usually occur when I'm gaming but that could be a coincidence as I pretty much only game when my PC is on.
Most BSOD's happened while playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive but after tweaking some game settings it has no longer occured.
I've had a BSOD happen right when I clicked restart now as I wanted to fix a problem with Arma 2 (DayZ).


What I've tried:

• Uninstalled Hola, this was (one of?) the first BSOD's and I didn't need Hola anymore so I just removed it, sadly enough BSOD's kept coming.
• Used Driver Verifier which leaded to the multiple bluescreens (always pointing to HIDclass.sys) of which only 2 got a dump, at 26/07/2013.
  Using DV made me go into a constant loop of BSOD'ing at "Starting Windows" until I disabled DV in Safe Mode.
• Ran Memtest86+ 4.20, 3 passes, no errors.
• Ran chkdsk /f on both my HDD and SSD, no errors.

Useful(?) information:

• The day the first BSOD happened (19/7) I did not install anything but my Adobe Flash Player updated to 11.8.800.94
• The next 4 BSOD's all occured on 22/7, all of them happened while playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive in less than 15 minutes of gametime.
  I have since tried a lot of things as I thought the problem was only CS:GO related as that really triggered them fast.
  I had 3 (if I remember correctly) more bluescreens until the changes I made caused it to not occur while playing CS:GO anymore (or not yet).
• 4 more BSOD's occured after I (think I) fixed the ones that happen while playing CS:GO, these 4 times I was not playing CS:GO, though.
• The time I got a BSOD after clicking restart was at 21:12 (2/8), I had no games opened (which is when most BSOD's happened).
• At 5:09 (3/8) I had a BSOD while playing Smite, I alt-tabbed to Skype and back to Smite and right after tabbing back it tossed a BSOD.
• I don't remember having a BSOD before the ones in the minidumps, my last Windows install should be in January, when I bought my SSD.
  I bought my PC in october/november 2010 though, with no BSODs I can remember.
• I've 2 monitors, which I've been using since november 2010, without any problems other than a few game compatibility problems.

That's all I can think of now, I may have missed something/made silly mistakes as it's 7:55 AM without having slept.
I have the SF Diagnostic Tools grabs in the attachments.

I hope I gave enough information, if not, please feel free to ask and I shall try my best to supply more information.

Thanks in advance.

With kind regards,
Bert.

 

[koolkat77]

Is the firmware of your SSD, up to date?

Upload a screenshot using:

CrystalDiskInfo​

:tip: For how to upload a screenshot or file, read here

Test your Hard Drive by running:

Hard Drive Diagnostic Procedure​

Use the System File Checker tool and Run Disk Check:

Repair Windows 7 System Files with System File Checker

Run Disk Check in Windows 7 for Bad Sectors & Errors​

Make scans with -

TDSSKiller Rootkit Removal Utility Free Download | Kaspersky Lab US

Online Virus Scanner Eset​

Test and Diagnose RAM Issues with Memtest86+:

RAM - Test with Memtest86+​

:info: Pay close attention to part 3 of the tutorial "If you have errors"

   Tip

• :tip: Test the RAM with Memtest86+ for at least 7-10 passes. It may take up to 22 passes to find problems. Make sure to run it once after the system has been on for a few hours and is warm, and then also run it again when the system has been off for a few hours and is cold.

Monitor hardware temperature with system monitoring software like Speccy or HWMonitor:

Piriform - Speccy

CPUID - HWMonitor​

 

[Mztic]

Thanks for your fast answer.

Current version of my SSD is 5.03, newest version is 5.05, but it fails updating:

CrystalDiskInfo

Hard Drive Diagnostic Procedure

"Now that the sale of HDD division of Samsung Electronics to Seagate Technology Plc("Seagate") has been finalized, Seagate will provide all customer support including the warranty service of Samsung HDD."

SeaTools for Windows does not detect my HDD.

SFC and CHCKDSK

Both clean, no errors.

TDSSkiller and ESET

TDSSkiller noted a couple of potential threats, but I could recognise these files as being legit and safe, I also scanned these with Avast to make sure and they appeared clean.
ESET found a couple of false positives like TDSSkiller did, it even suggested CrystalDiskInfo was a trojan.

I guess you could say that there were no real threats.

Memtest86+

Did that earlier with 2 passes and it gave no errors, if need be I will run it overnight for more passes but I need my PC during the day.

System temperature

Nothing seems to go over the expected temperatures.
My GPU goes up to 75°C but found that the max temperature my card can handle is 105°C, the temperature that is still safe without problems is 90°C.

 

[essenbe]

Does your SSD offer any alternative ways to update the firmware? I would read the Corsair instructions carefully to make sure Everything was properly done. Corsair is surely going to ask you if you did. If I could not update the firmware otherwise, I would certainly contact Corsair about repair or replacement.

Seagate's site is a nightmare to find anything on. But I did find where they offer a "Patch" for the F3 Spinpoints. seatools not detecting it certainly raises questions. If you are fortunate and get the right person at Seagate, they can be very helpful.

I would run the memtest86+ (http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105647-ram-test-memtest86.html) for at least 8 Passes. Each pass constitutes 10 tests and each test tests something a little different.

Let us know how those tests look.

If you are concerned with the Video Card, you can test it with Furmark (http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/100356-video-card-stress-test-furmark.html). Unless you were stressing the card, 75 is a high temp. I would be concerned if it gets those temps at idle. What about your CPU temps, how high do they get. If you don't have another program, you can monitor the CPU temps with Core Temp.

EDIT: I'm not familar with your board. But, if you have Marvell ports, I would not connect the SSD to them. For some reason, Marvell ports do not get along well with SSDs of any make I know of. You would be much better off with the SSD connected to the first port supported by the chipset. You will usually get better performance that way also. I also assume your SSD is in AHCI mode.

 

[Mztic]

SSD

Just managed to install the new firmware for my SSD, I apparently only enabled the onboard AHCI and not the other one as well, rookie mistake that took a lot of time to find out, but it's fixed.
Went from version 5.03 to 5.05.

HDD

Thanks for that patch, however when I put it on my USB-stick and boot with it, it says bootmgr is missing, which is strange to me.

Memtest86+

Will do this overnight and I'll keep you updated!

GPU

The 75 °C was when playing CS:GO at high settings so I'm not concerned, should I be?

CPU

My CPU is sitting around 40 °C which I think is normal, I'm currently not gaming though, will edit it when it goes too high for my liking.

 

[essenbe]

The boot manager missing is usually how the file was burned to the USB stick. It has to be burned not copied. ImgBurn is probably the best, but not free, although you do get a 30 day free trial. You could use an iso burning program and burn it to a CD and boot from that.

As far as the GPU temp, it would be high for me. I have an EVGA 670 and an AMD 6950. I can play for hours and never break 55 on either of them. But, it is within the safe zone. It could depend on ambient temps and what case you have and how much air flow.

CPU temps, I'm not familar with that particular CPU, but it sounds well within the safe zone.

Make sure your SSD is connected to port 0 or 1 on your board. Those are the primary ports and controlled by the chipset.

Please do run the memtest 86+, not memtest86. There is a difference. Run it for a full 8 passes unless you get errors. If you get errors you can stop the test.

 

[Mztic]

You have to burn .exe files? Didn't know that, I thought you could just copy them on the USB-drive, my bad.

GPU temp, yeah it's been really hot these days, but it's never been a problem the past 2 years though.
The airflow isn't optimal but it's going to improve soon as I'm moving.

I'm not sure if the SSD is on those ports, however it'd be strange to me that it only starts to act up now after 6+ months.
I'll check that out anyway before I'll memtest and yep I know I need to run memtest86+.



I just bluescreened again while playing DayZ (Arma 2 mod), even after updating my SSD firmware.
I'll attach the dump to the main post.

 

[koolkat77]

Awaiting the results from memtest.

*******************************************************************************
*                                                                             *
*                        Bugcheck Analysis                                    *
*                                                                             *
*******************************************************************************

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (a)
An attempt was made to access a pageable (or completely invalid) address at an
interrupt request level (IRQL) that is too high.  This is usually
caused by drivers using improper addresses.
If a kernel debugger is available get the stack backtrace.
Arguments:
Arg1: 0000000000000000, memory referenced
Arg2: 0000000000000002, IRQL
Arg3: 0000000000000001, bitfield :
	bit 0 : value 0 = read operation, 1 = write operation
	bit 3 : value 0 = not an execute operation, 1 = execute operation (only on chips which support this level of status)
Arg4: fffff80002e8f49a, address which referenced memory

Debugging Details:
------------------

TRIAGER: Could not open triage file : e:\dump_analysis\program\triage\modclass.ini, error 2

WRITE_ADDRESS: GetPointerFromAddress: unable to read from fffff800030c1100
GetUlongFromAddress: unable to read from fffff800030c11c0
 0000000000000000 Nonpaged pool

CURRENT_IRQL:  2

FAULTING_IP: 
nt!KiDeferredReadyThread+59a
fffff800`02e8f49a 0100            add     dword ptr [rax],eax

CUSTOMER_CRASH_COUNT:  1

DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID:  CODE_CORRUPTION

BUGCHECK_STR:  0xA

PROCESS_NAME:  audiodg.exe

TRAP_FRAME:  fffff80004572600 -- (.trap 0xfffff80004572600)
NOTE: The trap frame does not contain all registers.
Some register values may be zeroed or incorrect.
rax=0000000000000000 rbx=0000000000000000 rcx=00000000ffffffff
rdx=0000000000000000 rsi=0000000000000000 rdi=0000000000000000
rip=fffff80002e8f49a rsp=fffff80004572790 rbp=fffffa8008e9e060
 r8=000000000000000f  r9=000000000000000d r10=fffff80002e14000
r11=fffff800045727e0 r12=0000000000000000 r13=0000000000000000
r14=0000000000000000 r15=0000000000000000
iopl=0         nv up ei ng nz na po nc
nt!KiDeferredReadyThread+0x59a:
fffff800`02e8f49a 0100            add     dword ptr [rax],eax ds:00000000`00000000=????????
Resetting default scope

LAST_CONTROL_TRANSFER:  from fffff80002e891a9 to fffff80002e89c00

STACK_COMMAND:  kb

MODULE_NAME: memory_corruption

IMAGE_NAME:  memory_corruption

FOLLOWUP_NAME:  memory_corruption

DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP:  0

MEMORY_CORRUPTOR:  ONE_BIT

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID:  X64_MEMORY_CORRUPTION_ONE_BIT

BUCKET_ID:  X64_MEMORY_CORRUPTION_ONE_BIT

Followup: memory_corruption
---------

Test and Diagnose RAM Issues with Memtest86+:

RAM - Test with Memtest86+​

:info: Pay close attention to part 3 of the tutorial "If you have errors"

   Tip

• :tip: Test the RAM with Memtest86+ for at least 7-10 passes. It may take up to 22 passes to find problems. Make sure to run it once after the system has been on for a few hours and is warm, and then also run it again when the system has been off for a few hours and is cold.

 

[essenbe]

I thought you had a .ISO file. What do the instructions say? Unless it's an exe file to install it on a USB drive, you can't boot from an exe file. Read the instructions, I don't know how the patch works.

 

[Mztic]

@Koolkat Damn, looks like it's my RAM, I'll try to get 10+ passes in.

@Essenbe, it's only 1 exe file with these instruction:

1. Please download the file.
2. Save the .exe file to a bootable media, like a CD/DVD, a USB drive, or a floppy diskette.
   Do not remove the bootable media once the file is copied to it.
3. Shut down the computer.
4. Connect the drive to the primary master position in the computer.
5. Boot your computer from the bootable media, which will launch the firmware flash program.
6. Run the .exe file.
7. When the system displays that the firmware flash has successfully completed, remove the bootable media.
8. Shut down the computer.

Did that but got the error.

 

[essenbe]

Mztic, that's a new one on me. I've booted from almost everything possible, but I've never known an exe file to be bootable. I think you found that out. So, I won't be much help there. Sorry I can't help.

 

[Mztic]

I did it once in a computer science class before, don't remember what it was though, it's been 5 years.
Also, it's what the instructions tell me to do, so I'm clueless.

Edit: Just got kicked from Arma 2, with corrupted memory error.
First time I have that so it's either a big coincidence or it pushes it to the RAM area for the most likely cause of the BSODs.

Edit 2: Too tired so I'm going to bed for at least 8 hours, I'll let Memtest run all the time.
If it keeps going like this I think it's going to give errors.

 

[Mztic]

Well, somehow last time I did the memtest it did a full pass without errors, this time it threw errors all around (5000+) within 10 minutes, 3 times straight.

I suspected the cheaper brand of RAM being the culprit (which unfortunately is half of my RAM), and I'm pretty sure was right, I started memtest, waited 15 minutes without errors.
I went to bed, woke up with 19 passes, no errors.
So it seems like the new cheaper brand stick died in half a year.
From 8 GB of RAM to 4 GB, I'm going to see if it bothers me too much or if I don't notice it before I re-order (a better brand now) another stick of RAM.

Thanks for the help and the suggestions, I'm going to wait about a week before I mark this as solved if it's fine for you guys, in the meantime I already +repped you guys for the help and time so far.

 

[essenbe]

You're very welcome and I hope it solves your problem. My suggestion would be to buy all new ram in a kit. Kits are made and tested by the major manufacturers to run together. Sometimes ram even from the same manufacturer and same specs can have the problem you are having now. They just don't play nice together. I would hate to see you in the same position you are in now.

 

[Mztic]

Thanks for the hint, I'll keep that in mind.