Sudden crashing; no BSOD

[Aweberman]

What kind of report are you looking for? The jcgriff one? I don't mean to be dense, but I thought that was only for BSOD.

 

[mgorman87]

http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-debugging/96879-blue-screen-death-bsod-posting-instructions.html

 

[Aweberman]

I ran these tests immediately after my latest crash, this one precipitated by running iTunes with the visualizer on and Chrome at the same time; after about 20 minutes, it abruptly crashed.

 

[mgorman87]

Please run all 3 tests of Prime95 for a couple hours each test
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/100352-cpu-stress-test-prime95.html

 

[Aweberman]

No problems running Prime95.

 

[mgorman87]

Have you experienced any more crashes?

Found this in your log. It appeared right after you did a startup repair

Event[1926]:
  Log Name: System
  Source: Microsoft-Windows-StartupRepair
  Date: 2011-03-25T18:50:59.001
  Event ID: 1121
  Task: N/A
  Level: Information
  Opcode: Info
  Keyword: N/A
  User: S-1-5-18
  User Name: NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
  Computer: Study2b
  Description: 
[COLOR="Red"]The following file necessary for Windows startup was corrupt[/COLOR]:

Event[30090]:
  Log Name: System
  Source: Ntfs
  Date: 2011-03-11T06:17:40.367
  Event ID: 55
  Task: N/A
  Level: Error
  Opcode: N/A
  Keyword: Classic
  User: N/A
  User Name: N/A
  Computer: Study2b
  Description: 
The file system structure on the disk is corrupt and unusable. Please run the chkdsk utility on the volume _.

Just as suspected from the beginning, it looks like you have some hard drive issues. As the error report says, please run a CHKDSK.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/433-disk-check.html

 

[Aweberman]

No, I haven't had any more crashes since the last one mentioned here. The way I've been avoiding them is by not taxing my video card (i.e., not using YouTube or playing games). I would not like this situation to continue indefinitely.

I mentioned it once before, but I'll mention it again: I have run the hard drive utility provided by the manufacturer (Seagate). It did discover 20-30 bad sectors and claimed to have repaired them.

I also ran Check Disk a few days ago. It did not, however, provide me with the longer readout shown in the screenshot in that link. It said something along the lines of "disk is clean" and continued right along with bootup.

I will attempt to run it now, though.

 

[mgorman87]

I would like for you to continue using your computer that caused the crashes. That way we can try and figure out what's causing it.

 

[Aweberman]

I ran Check Disk. I wasn't able to stay in the room the entire time, but at some point in phase 4 of 5, the computer crashed. On a reboot, I got to the Starting Windows screen, and it crashed. On the next two reboots, I attempted to start into Safe Mode; both times I crashed while trying to select the option. On the final reboot, I tried to go to Startup Repair and it crashed while loading files.

Is that it for this hard drive?

 

[paone84]

I have had crashs and it was because my power supply was too small after installing a 580 video card. Whats your PSU rated and have you installed any new hardware prior to the crash. My pc would only crash while running Mafia too so it may seem like it only happens everyonce in a while when you open a program which may push your psu over its rating

 

[Aweberman]

It's all OEM. I haven't installed any new hardware.

I've thought about this some more. It doesn't really seem like the hard drive itself is failing, only that some important files are in bad spots on the drive. Shouldn't it be possible to work around this somehow? Maybe boot from a CD or use this drive as a data-only drive? Something?

 

[Aweberman]

Also, even though I was clearly having problems, it didn't become unbootable until I ran Scandisk. Why should that be?

 

[mgorman87]

Please run a few more chkdsk. Make sure you are doing chkdsk /r in the command prompt.

After you have completed 2-3 chkdsk passes, you may attempt a startup repair.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/681-startup-repair.html

Please also use a can of air to blow out the dust from your fans/heatsinks. Make sure that when you blow into the fans that you hold the blades in place because allowing the blades to spin can damage the ball bearings.

 

[Aweberman]

Update: Since the hard drive failed both Seagate's SeaTools "short test" and HP's own diagnostic tools, I have contacted HP for a replacement unit, as it's still under warranty. I ought to have this within the next few days.

However, I am still not fully convinced that the problem is solely with the hard drive. I would like to reiterate comments that I've made previously about what prompts the crashing. In every case to this point, one of the following is being done: playing a game (Civ4 and Galactrix), watching YouTube, or running iTunes visualizer and browsing with Google Chrome.

After the last post by mgorman, I started up the PC with the intent of running chkdsk a couple more times. However, it started up completely with no problems and has been running fine for the last two days, so I didn't want to rock the boat. This morning, though, I was watching a YouTube video -- more or less as a test. At exactly 9 minutes 15 seconds, the computer stuttered to a stop and crashed.

I haven't mentioned it before in this thread, but I've noticed this 9 minute interval with previous crashes. That is to say, after about 9 minutes of one of the causes listed above (game, YouTube, iTunes+Chrome), the computer crashes. My concern is that this is not the hard drive, but some other component, such as the video card.

After the latest crash, I tried restarting the computer numerous times; each time it crashed before getting to the desktop. I let it sit for ~40 minutes . . . and it started up fine.

 

[Aweberman]

I did generate a couple of BSOD through all of this, so I've uploaded another report.

However, with my new HDD due to arrive today, I'd like to know if or how I should go about testing my video card.

 

[mgorman87]

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/100356-video-card-stress-test-furmark.html

If you want to test your video card. But I think a new hard drive should fix the problem

 

[Aweberman]

Whatever the ultimate problem with this machine is, the hard drive is not it (or at least, not primarily it).

I installed the new hard drive and began installing Windows with the restore discs. A few minutes in, I had to leave the room; when I came back, it had crashed. Clearly something is out of order.

I let the machine sit for about a half hour, then tried installing again. This time, I documented each stage of the process, noting the time. It was taking about five minutes between disc changes, and the installation went a lot farther than it had the first time, so I thought maybe I was imagining things. Then, 85% of the way into installation of programs -- crash.

The install disc was ejected at 5:04:48. The computer crashed at 5:14:00.

Nine minutes, twelve seconds.

So this is the common theme. The tasks I listed above all crashed a little over 9 minutes in.

What in the world?

 

[mgorman87]

So this is a fresh installation of windows on your hard drive? I'm not really sure what's going on here. Have you tried swapping out your memory with different sticks or try booting with only one stick? If the installation crashed on your new hard drive then its not hard drive related. Unless you got another defective drive.

What type of PSU do you have?

Make sure the computer is running bare essentials (hard drive, video, mouse, keyboard, dvd drive).

Im going to try and get a more experienced member take a look and see if they have any different suggestions.

 

[Aweberman]

The hard drive tested as going bad, so maybe it is, too. But I agree that the underlying problem is something else.

I haven't tried doing anything more exotic with the RAM than running each of them individually through Memtest and then as a group.

The power supply is HP model 460DB-3, if that means anything to you. As I mentioned earlier, though, I haven't installed any new hardware on this machine at all; it's about 17 months old and I don't really put it through its paces much.

When I tried the install on the new drive, I had it configured as recommended.

Worth pointing out again that I ran each of the Prime95 tests, maxing out the quad-core CPU with no problems.

The repeatable triggers are 9 minutes of activity in one of the following areas: YouTube videos, computer games (specifically Civilization IV and Puzzle Quest: Galactrix), iTunes with visualizer while browsing Google Chrome, and doing a restore on a different hard drive.

None of this ought to be too taxing for my machine. And it can run with no problems at all as long as I keep my activities relatively light: word processing, surfing the Internet, downloading podcasts with iTunes, running an old WYSIWYG editor.

 

[Jonathan_King]

This 9-minute crashing rule may very well turn out to be our best friend here. The key is predictability. The hardest part about BSODs is their randomness; if you can consistently reproduce a problem, it gets a lot easier to solve!

Pull out all but one stick of RAM; watch a Youtube vid and see what happens. If it crashes, try a different stick.

Also, test temps with Speedfan: SpeedFan - Access temperature sensor in your computer