Blue Screens

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Peeg

Member
I bought a PC from PC Specialist about 4 months ago, everything's been running fine up until the last week or so. But since then I've seen about 5 blue screens of death. I can understand if the heat's causing it since it is a little hot in the room :p, but if it's not I just need some advice on this. Now I believe there's somewhere you can reach the crash reports which will tell you more-well-versed-in-IT than I am (Which probably isn't great since i work in IT support :p) what caused the crash, So if it's at all possible I'd like some advice on this :).

-Thanks, Peeg
 
ubuysa

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
On the BSOD there should be a Stop Error Code (something like 0x000000B3) if you can let us know what that is, and whether it's the same code every time, that will help.

Checking the Event Log as Yamikotai says is also a good idea, look for items in the Critical or Error categories.

First ensure it's not an external device problem (unlikely but you never know) so unplug everything that's connected to the PC and see if it still BSODs.

It's possible it is overheating, so open it up and clean all the fans, vents and coolers to be sure it's getting rid of the heat properly. Then you might want to get hold of a good temperature monitor (I use HWMonitor from http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html) and let us know what the temperatures are.

A very common cause of BSODs is flaky RAM, and it's easy to test. Get hold of Memtest from http://www.memtest.org/. Download the .iso version, burn it to a CD and then boot that CD. Memtest will start running immediately. It needs to run for many hours so that it can perform many iterations of the various tests, so overnight is the best way. If there are any errors shown at all in the morning then test each RAM card on it's own to locate the faulty one. If there are no errors it's unlikely to be RAM.

Let us know how you get on with those. The Stop Error Code will be very useful if you can make a note of it, as will your actual temperature readings.

:)
 
P

Peeg

Member
Thanks for that guys.

By the looks of things my temperatures are hovering around 30C for my CPU, 36C for the Video Card and 34C for the Hard Drive (according to razor game booster).

04/08/2013 06:10:45
1202 - Source : BugCheck
1203 - Description : The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x00000124 (0x0000000000000000, 0xfffffa800a411028, 0x00000000fe200000, 0x0000000000021136). A dump was saved in: C:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP. Report Id: 080313-20389-01.

Is also taken from razor game booster, 0xfffffa800a411028, appearing in the event viewer as well,with:

Log Name: System
Source: Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power
Date: 03/08/2013 23:09:54
Event ID: 41
Task Category: (63)
Level: Critical
Keywords: (2)
User: SYSTEM
Computer: Peeg-PC
Description:
The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power" Guid="{331C3B3A-2005-44C2-AC5E-77220C37D6B4}" />
<EventID>41</EventID>
<Version>2</Version>
<Level>1</Level>
<Task>63</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8000000000000002</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2013-08-03T22:09:54.172017000Z" />
<EventRecordID>103795</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="4" ThreadID="8" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>Peeg-PC</Computer>
<Security UserID="S-1-5-18" />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data Name="BugcheckCode">292</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter1">0x0</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter2">0xfffffa800a411028</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter3">0xfe200000</Data>
<Data Name="BugcheckParameter4">0x21136</Data>
<Data Name="SleepInProgress">false</Data>
<Data Name="PowerButtonTimestamp">0</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>

if that's what you need. But that BugCheckParameter2 is different in the other blue screens I've found in the event viewer, e.g., one for earlier that day was: 0xfffffa800a432028

I'll check the RAM too but I need to go get some CD's for that :p

But if it helps: This only started occurring when I started playing Payday 2 Beta, which caused the problem to occur in Smite as well (as I'd played many hours of Smite before I started with Payday 2 without this issue occuring), the 2 games I play considerably more than any others at this moment in time, not that that matters but if there's a connection here would be handy :p.

If this helps in any way or you need any information (like the genuine stop error code if those aren't them) please give me a shout, preferably telling me where I can find them in the event viewer or elsewhere :),

-Thanks, Peeg
 
ubuysa

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
Excellent info, that helps. Your temps are perfectly fine. :)

Stop Error Code 0x00000124 (292 decimal) is an Uncorrectable Error. Parameter1 (0x0) indicates a Machine Check and that means there has been a fatal hardware error. Parameter2 is the address of a data block containing debug info for this error, this address usually is different for each error.

So, you have some sort of hardware problem. This could of course still be driver related so I'd suggest you first check that you have the latest drivers for all your hardware. If you have an Intel CPU a good place to start is with the Intel Driver Update tool at http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/detect/, though that will only find new drivers for Intel products. For the others your safest option is to go to the manufacturer's website and look for the latest drivers there. If you're not sure of the manufacturer of your hardware or the exact model type, get hold of Speccy from Piriform at http://www.piriform.com/speccy, it will tell you exactly what hardware you have.

You could let Windows Update see whether there are any new drivers for your hardware, though I'm always a bit cautious about using Microsoft drivers, I've had minor issues with them before.

So, do the RAM test to eliminate (or prove) your RAM as the problem and check for updated drivers. Let's see whether that sorts it before going any further. :)
 
P

Peeg

Member
K, happened again when I was playing Smite. And from what I can see, all of my drivers are up to date.

I need some help with the memtest as well please, I downloaded the latest .iso file. Extracted the .zip file to where I downloaded it. Highlighted that .iso file, clicked burn to disc at the top of the window, then burned it the cd within my computer. Rebooted the machine, nothing happened. Rebooted the machine and, from what I could tell, told it to boot from CD drive, nothing happened, though admittedly I didn't try to log in when I reached the login screen (which I found a bit peculiar but what ever i don't play around with teh boot options at all :p), what do I need to do differently to make this work? :p

Also, given the information I've already provided, do you think it would be possible that physx would be causing this?
 
ubuysa

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
Peeg said:
K, happened again when I was playing Smite. And from what I can see, all of my drivers are up to date.

I need some help with the memtest as well please, I downloaded the latest .iso file. Extracted the .zip file to where I downloaded it. Highlighted that .iso file, clicked burn to disc at the top of the window, then burned it the cd within my computer. Rebooted the machine, nothing happened. Rebooted the machine and, from what I could tell, told it to boot from CD drive, nothing happened, though admittedly I didn't try to log in when I reached the login screen (which I found a bit peculiar but what ever i don't play around with teh boot options at all :p), what do I need to do differently to make this work? :p

Also, given the information I've already provided, do you think it would be possible that physx would be causing this?
Click to expand...

If you're certain your drivers are up to date then you have some sort of hardware problem. What makes you think it might be PhysX in particular?

If you are booting the CD you don't see any login screen. When you boot a Memtest CD you'll see a blue screen with white text and that's Memtest running. If you're seeing the Windows login screen you're not booting the CD.

There are two ways to boot the CD before the hard disk. On the very first screen you see when you boot at the bottom there should be a message telling you which function keys to press to enter the BIOS and to change the boot order. On My Optimus IV it's F2 to enter the BIOS and F7 to change the boot device.

So try F7 on your laptop to change the boot device, you should see a small menu in the middle of the screen listing all your bootable devices. The names may be the actual device names and not familiar names like CD or Hard Disk. It should be fairly easy to see which is your CD drive though, it will almost certainly have CDROM or DVDROM in the title somewhere. Scroll down to that device and press Enter, you should hear the CD power up and it will then boot into Memtest.

It is also possible to change the boot device permanently by modifying the boot order in the BIOS, but it might be wise not to mess with that if you're not 100% certain of what you're doing. :)

See how you get on changing the boot device. It would be very useful to run Memtest because RAM is your most likely culprit for a hardware problem like this one.
 
P

Peeg

Member
Aye, was just waiting for some more advice with Memtest before running that.

And as for physx, it was just because there were a few things in the event viewer relating to physx from the payday2 folder before the crash, usually a fair bit before, and that smite uses physx as well and some people I know have had a problem with physx and smite before, not quite like this but meh :p...I was just grasping at straws for that :p

But ill see what I can do about getting that memtest done tonight :)

-Thanks, Peeg
 
P

Peeg

Member
Managed to run that Memtest...came back with not a single error on the RAM :S

Any idea where to go from here?

-Thanks, Peeg
 
ubuysa

ubuysa

The BSOD Doctor
Peeg said:
Managed to run that Memtest...came back with not a single error on the RAM :S

Any idea where to go from here?

-Thanks, Peeg
Click to expand...

I think you'd be best advised to call PCS now, you appear to have some sort of hardware issue and rather than start advising you to pull components out to try and find out which one it is you'd be better talking to the experts.
 
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