Bluescreen diagnosis and solution help

[Squidmaster]

I have been getting occasional reboots which I have since learned are blue screens once I changed the reboot settings on my computer. I have been unable to pin down an obvious cause. Sometimes they have happened when the computer is working hard. Other times, I have gotten one right as I am completing the boot process in Windows or when returning from sleep mode.

One symptom I believe to be related I have observed, and that is a metalic grinding sound that will come through my speakers, slightly tainting whatever sound is being played at the time. For instance, if I am communicating on a Ventrilo server, a person's voice may start with that metalic grindy edge to it, or end that way. At times this has been accompanied by a general slowdown of everything if I am pushing the computer, at other times not.

I have put my hand around the edges of the computer trying to see if there is extreme heat involved, but I have not observed that to be the case, nor would the computer be running super hot right at startup or after being in sleep mode, when it has crashed in each instance.

I am extremely chronically ill, so it is very difficult to imagine what I will be able to do if I have to send the computer out of the house for a week, as it is often my only tool for staying active in some way. Hopefully you guys can give me a hand and we can get to the bottom of this in a clear way. I have attached a zip file on my website that includes the two files that Windows tells me are relevant when it says I have recovered from a critical stop, as well as some windows event logs that might be helpful. I have also recorded the specific hex code of the error, but I believe this may be included in the files in the zip. If not, I can provide this information.

Thanks a bunch for your help!

 

[Ultralight]

As per your one minidump Your issue is with memory corruption. Therefore you’ll need to run Memtest on your RAM.

1. Go to www.memtest.org and download the latest ISO version which is 4.20. It is free and perfectly safe.

2. Burn ISO to a CD.

3. Place CD in your drive and reboot with CD in drive. (You might have to place your drive as first bootable in your BIOS) The test will take over.


Step A - Let it run for a LONG time. The rule is a minimum of 7 Passes (not hours; this test is not measured by hours); the more Passes after 7 so much the better. The only exception is if you start getting errors before 7 Passes then you can skip to Step 2.

There are 8 individual tests per Pass. Many people will start this test before going to bed and check it the next day.

If you have errors you have corrupted memory and it needs to be replaced.

Step B – Because of errors you need to run this test per stick of RAM. Take out one and run the test. Then take that one out and put the other in and run the test. If you start getting errors before 7 Passes you know that stick is corrupted and you don’t need to run the test any further on that stick.


* Get back to us with the results.

 

[Squidmaster]

I forgot to mention that! I have memtest86+ (created in 11/08) on a CD and I ran that for 14 passes over about the same amount of hours with no errors.

 

[Squidmaster]

I had another crash just now while in World of Warcraft. As is typical when I get a crash out of the game, I was given about 15 seconds warning by the audio problems I described. At that point everything went black. I had a blue screen error briefly but wasn't able to record it because it then went black completely. I turned the computer off and back on and I don't think the computer knows there was a blue screen, because I got none of the usual recovery/diagnosis messages.

 

[BoomerD]

http://www.resplendence.com/whocrashed

 

[Squidmaster]

Great program. It tells me that the crashes are likely software driver problems, but it doesn't tell me what driver at this time. Maybe if I get more crashes that part will be clearer. This makes sense though in a way, because my computer (Asus brand) has always had bad software support.

I updated my BIOS today. There have been a number of updates following the one I was using, all of which say that they improve stability. No details. After I updated, my computer woke itself up from sleep mode (it does this regularly at a set time of day even though nothing should) and became unresponsive. WhoCrashed didn't notice that particular crash apparently.

 

[Squidmaster]

I got another crash today, this time caused by two simultaneous DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL errors. One says the probable cause is ntoskrnl.exe, the other partmgr.sys. I have updated the zip file linked in my original post to include the minidump from this crash. I'm still no closer to an answer.

 

[Ultralight]

The only thing I could read was your minidump and that specifically cited memory corruption (bad RAM) as the cause of your system crashes. Have you ever run memtest before?

 

[Squidmaster]

Yes, I ran it for 14 hours a month or so ago with no bad results. Should I run it every night or something until I get a bad result?

 

[Squidmaster]

I've had 5 or 6 errors since the 14th, none of which have recorded any data in dump files. Two of them gave me an actual blue screen and I wrote down those codes.

0x000000D1
0x0000001E

The rest either just show on my monitor as completely black or freeze on the desktop, allowing no input response.

Is there a better forum to post this sort of information on? If this continues I will be out a computer, and if that happens I will have almost nothing I can do in my day to day life that won't completely exhaust me. This is getting scary.

 

[runsongas]

does your system pass cpu stress testing and a hard drive surface scan? If so, it sounds like you either have a corrupt driver or windows installation. (ntoskrnl.exe is the Windows kernel and partmgr.sys is the partition manager, both are important system files)

Probably will need to repair install unless you can find exactly which driver/dll/file is corrupt from a dump or log in order to replace with a correct copy.

 

[Squidmaster]

I haven't stress tested or done a surface scan. How can I do those things? Also, should I do more memory tests and/or update my memtest86+ version to do it?

 

[Ultralight]

Update to version 4.20. What OS are your running?

 

[Squidmaster]

Windows 7 64 bit.

 

[Squidmaster]

I updated memtest to 4.2 and ran another all night test last night. 6 passes, no errors. I will run one every night unless I'm running other tests that people suggest, of course.

Should I just let it run or change settings somehow?

 

[WoodButcher]

Are you running the memtest on just one stick of ram at a time?
Running memtest every night won't help you, if you have made it through 6 passes that stick should be fine, the more passes you run at one time the more certain you can be that that stick is good. You could run 6 passes every night for the next year and find nothing, then on the 366th day run into the 7th pass and fail immediately.

You could try PC Wizard, that may help you find some answers. It will give you voltages, temps as well as a buttload of other good info.

 

[Squidmaster]

I am just running it in general. I haven't opened the case to do anything because of my health. Wouldn't that make it run on everything?

Regardless, something isn't jiving. People here are saying I have a memory problem and memtest is saying I don't. Either memtest isn't that accurate or other problems are masquerading as memory errors.

Edit - I have now done a total of 25 passes over 3 or 4 days with no errors. It seems to be tested all the memory because the range shows as different (such as 2024-4048 or whatever) when I look at it from time to time.

*also - Nice Xzar image you're sporting there.

 

[WoodButcher]

Memtest is not cumulative, you can't run six passes one day then six more the next and get twelve. By running on more than one stick at a time you may or may not find an error and if you did you could not repeat it with any certainty so the testing is just wasting your electricity.

PC Wizard may give you a place to look, read every install screen, don't install yahoo, don't click on the banner ads at the top of the page.

I don't game but have had that avater for years. He looks like I feel after dealing with my kids and some clients. Tear my hair out frustration...

 

[Squidmaster]

So when people say to run memtest, they mean to run it on one stick per night? I really don't understand that. If I run 6 passes on one stick or 6 passes on 5 sticks, what is the difference?

Assuming I can manage to unplug and replug everything once a day, which I have to admit is a tall order with my health, how do I want to treat the memory in my Asus CG5290? I haven't done anything with memory in a while so I don't know if I need to leave in 2 sticks at a time or one or which ones.

My computer is crashing frequently throughout this whole process, but now there is no record of any crashes that I can find. I tried WhoCrashed, and the last recorded crash was from the 14th of August. I have had 10-20 crashes since then and I have no idea how to track them or how to diagnose them.

 

[WoodButcher]

One test, one stick, in the slot closest to the cpu to start. Your testing memory, not the system. Boot with the memtest disc, no operating system, just DOS and memory. If that stick passes 7 times it should be ok. Use a sharpie to mark each stick as good after it has passed. (I have not done this with the triple channel boards yet but it should be similar to dual) Do that with 3 sticks then install all 3 in the same colored slots, and then run the system. I used to run Prime 95 and load the test that runs memory as well, "torture test" is what you're after there are options to the test and one IIRC small FFTs was for the cpu only, but you want the "blend" as it will push the memory. If this runs through 3 or 4 hours w / no bluescreen your memory, those 3 sticks are not the problem.
See ultralight's post.

As per your one minidump Your issue is with memory corruption. Therefore you’ll need to run Memtest on your RAM.

1. Go to www.memtest.org and download the latest ISO version which is 4.20. It is free and perfectly safe.

2. Burn ISO to a CD.

3. Place CD in your drive and reboot with CD in drive. (You might have to place your drive as first bootable in your BIOS) The test will take over.


Step A - Let it run for a LONG time. The rule is a minimum of 7 Passes (not hours; this test is not measured by hours); the more Passes after 7 so much the better. The only exception is if you start getting errors before 7 Passes then you can skip to Step 2.

There are 8 individual tests per Pass. Many people will start this test before going to bed and check it the next day.

If you have errors you have corrupted memory and it needs to be replaced.

Step B – Because of errors you need to run this test per stick of RAM. Take out one and run the test. Then take that one out and put the other in and run the test. If you start getting errors before 7 Passes you know that stick is corrupted and you don’t need to run the test any further on that stick.


* Get back to us with the results.

 

[Squidmaster]

I was finally able to get a friend to move my system to a place where I can swap memory in and out. Last night I planned to test my first solo stick. Little did I expect that my video card would block my ability to move the bottom latch holding the memory. Even less did I expect that the memory card would be housed in a nonstandard case expansion area. I can't budge the thing. I *may* have figured out a way to remove it for tomorrow but I haven't tried it out yet.

Something odd happened almost undetected through this or some other process. When I booted up today, my memory is listed at 6 gigs instead of 9. I had messed with the latches around the 2nd stick of memory in my computer, and though it looks housed normally perhaps it is not. Is there any other reason that the memory report could change? I also ran the Windows memory diagnostic at boot today, though it didn't show me a report when I got all the way into my computer. Could that turn off faulty sticks or something? I am very confused, but I also have not yet had a crash today, so it could be a stroke of luck in narrowing things down. Time will tell I suppose.