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The Dreaded BSOD
captaink
TexasRegistered User regular
TexasRegistered User regular
I am starting to get BSODs with increasing frequency.
I can tell when one is coming, because my computer slows to an absolute crawl. When it happens in games, I get less than 1 FPS, sound is all distorted and skippy, mouse pointer jumps around. Today was the first time it happened while I was at my desktop, just starting KOTOR in Steam.
After ~30s of that, it bluescreens. I can't remember the whole error message, but it is something about kernel_stack. The rest of it talks about new hardware and disabling it (I don't have any new hardware). Is there a log of the bluescreen somewhere so I can get more info from it?
Then, when it reboots, it gives me a system disk error, like my hard drive isn't connected or doesn't have Windows installed. Sometimes restarting fixes it, sometimes it happens again on restart. Letting it sit for a few minutes and/or replugging the hard drive cable seems to help if restarting doesn't work. Hard drive is on a SATA cable.
Once I restart, everything appears normal until it happens again. It used to happen extremely sporadically, less than once a month. The past month or two, it has been increasing in frequency. Up to every few days now. I am worried some piece of hardware is dying, but I'm not sure which one it may be.
Running Vista, I can pull up hardware specs if need be.
I can tell when one is coming, because my computer slows to an absolute crawl. When it happens in games, I get less than 1 FPS, sound is all distorted and skippy, mouse pointer jumps around. Today was the first time it happened while I was at my desktop, just starting KOTOR in Steam.
After ~30s of that, it bluescreens. I can't remember the whole error message, but it is something about kernel_stack. The rest of it talks about new hardware and disabling it (I don't have any new hardware). Is there a log of the bluescreen somewhere so I can get more info from it?
Then, when it reboots, it gives me a system disk error, like my hard drive isn't connected or doesn't have Windows installed. Sometimes restarting fixes it, sometimes it happens again on restart. Letting it sit for a few minutes and/or replugging the hard drive cable seems to help if restarting doesn't work. Hard drive is on a SATA cable.
Once I restart, everything appears normal until it happens again. It used to happen extremely sporadically, less than once a month. The past month or two, it has been increasing in frequency. Up to every few days now. I am worried some piece of hardware is dying, but I'm not sure which one it may be.
Running Vista, I can pull up hardware specs if need be.
captaink on
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Try running all the standard defragging on it and see if that does anything.
It could be as simple as a bad SATA cable. Try replacing it.
In case it is your hard drive, you can try to do an error scan with a program like HD Tune. (Scroll down a bit for version 2.55, it's free.)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/228753
check out how much memory the game is using at the start, at 15 minutes and at 30 minutes.
if it's going up then what's happening most likely is that the game has a memory leak and is using up all of your system resources until everything is gone. then it tries to grab a value that isn't available and crashes. that would explain the lag from your mouse right before the crash.
I also came across some rather dated reports about a problem with the audio causing similar crashes and slowdowns.
A game's memory leak would not account for the system disk errors on startup. It also sounds like the bsods are happening outside of games.
I did replace the SATA cable, forgot to say. Still happens.
Going to run a scandisk overnight.
Yes, it's certainly not a specific game. I've had it happen in WoW, KOTOR, and STALKER recently.
I would also chalk up the laggy mouse to the CPU before memory. USB has a fair amount of CPU overhead, so if your CPU is getting clocked down due to heat, or is overloaded and too busy USB devices won't work as well.
You don't want to defrag a failing harddrive. It won't help and will just put more strain on an already failing device. What you'll want to do is clone it to a new one or otherwise extract your data before it gives up for good.
If the faulting module in the minidump file changes with each BSOD, it's sometimes a good indication that you've got bad RAM. Consistency in the faulting module can sometimes help track down what's going wrong. It's much more definitive for software, rather than hardware, issues, but it can still help.
The processor is an intel Core2 quad core 2.4 GHz
You haven't disabled your page file have you? It can't write dumps if the page file isn't present. That and some types of crashes prevent dumps from being written. Such as when the hard drive croaks.
No, never messed with the page file.
Does it crash if you do intensive processing?
How about if you sat and let it ding away at your HDD for a while?
If you ran Bart's Stuff Test , http://www.nu2.nu/bst/ , for HDD reading and writing, does/would that cause it to explode?
Are all the fans spinning on the inside of the case?
If you go into BIOS, how fast does it say your CPU fan is running?
I didn't see which video card you're using, but there are utilities that state how fast the fan is running and how hot the GPU is. You should download and install the correct one for your video card and see what it says.
Does it crash on every game? Or just on semi-graphically intense games? I.E. if you ran something like Ski-Free (lol), does it crash on that? What about if you ran it in KOTOR or WOW and turned the resolution and gfx down, just as a test?
What does the Event Viewer say? It should have something in there at the time when it crashed.
Not sure, I can try that application.
Yes.
Haven't checked.
I have a GTX 260, I have the EVGA precision app running. GPU temp is a 52 C right now. Same application can control fan speed. I have it set to auto, which is 40%. Doesn't give RPMs.
Crashes appear to be random. This most recent one occured as I was launching KOTOR, the steam launching window was up when everything went haywire. So I don't think it's just the GPU.
All it has is "The previous system shutdown at 7:32:03 PM on 1/26/2011 was unexpected." There are no events around 7:32, closest one is at 6:50.
Turn off the page file and run a defrag. Once done, run chkdsk /r and schedule for reboot. Reboot
Once booted, turn your page file back on, min size should be 1.5x physical RAM (if you have 2 GB, set it for 3072 min 4096 max)
PSN - MicroChrist
I'm too fuckin' poor to play
WordsWFriends - zeewoot
Go check to see how fast your main CPU fan speed is. It might be spinning, but not fast enough.
Your GPU looks like it's fine.
Do you have case fans? Are they running?
And by crashing at random, do you mean that there is absolutely no discernible pattern to it crashing, or you haven't paid attention to it other than the most recent time when it crashed on KOTOR?
The stuff test I will try.
ASUS AI suite shows CPU_FAN, CHA_FAN1, CHA_FAN2, and PWR.
They are 1660 RPM, 1700 RPM, 1695 RPM, and 0 RPM respectively. I think it's confusing chassis fan 2 and power fan, because I don't have a second chassis fan. The power fan is working, I can see it.
The crashes could have a pattern, but it's not something I can discern. They are only every few days, and it's not reproducible. The only pattern is that I always get the system disk error afterwards.
Its under boot and recovery options in the properties of my computer.
I took a picture with my phone
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v483/captainkeel/IMAG0016.jpg (linked for huge)
Googling that stuff right now.
Run a chkdsk C: /R from cmd. It will ask you if you want to run the scan on next boot, y/n?
Hit Y, then reboot.
After it starts again, you can review the results under application logs (it shows up as a Winlogon event I believe).
Have you tried this?
PSN - MicroChrist
I'm too fuckin' poor to play
WordsWFriends - zeewoot
PSN - MicroChrist
I'm too fuckin' poor to play
WordsWFriends - zeewoot
Looks clean
Error page/user story reads like whenever you do something memory intensive for a solid stretch, the OS is paging out some of it's functions (giving the game or whatev RAM priority) and then promptly loses its shit.
What's your page file usage like when you game? Heavy? May not be the HDD itself, but the ability of the OS to make proper use of it. You could try running a repair of the OS; if you can't find the wrinkle, sometimes its just easier to iron the whole damn shirt.