Somebody please Help me and ill forever be in your debt! Before i go any further

[BSODVictim1]

Hey guys,

Apologies if this is posted in wrong forum.

A friend recommended i throw a post on here. As im having no luck anywhere else and even with tech who comes to my studio. Please bear with me as i try my best to explain my nightmare.

System is about 2 years old custom built. Here is the exact system except for the RAM which i recently replaced with 2 8gb sticks of ballistix. I added a firewire port also and a front hot swap bay for backups. Win 7 64bit.

4GB-Kit DDR3 Crucial Ballistix PC1600 CL8

ASUS EAH5550/DI/1GD3 (LP), ATI Radeon HD 5550, 1GB, PCI-Express

Corsair TX750W 750 Watt

Gigabyte GA-PH67A-UD3-B3, Intel H67, ATX

Intel Core i7-2600K Box, LGA1155

Pioneer DVR-219LBK SATA BULK

WD Caviar Black 1TB SATA 3 8,9cm(3,5")

Western Digital VelociRaptor 150GB 8,9 cm (3,5) SATA II (Rückwandplatinen)
No HV13WV31DE

So i use this machine for audio. I have a firewire interface. I have a powered usb hub connected and some controller peripherals which all have up to date drivers. I had been using the system fine when one day it just powered off. And tried re booting it self a few times and couldn't. Then I was getting BSOD each time a different message. I had a Tech come out we tried swapping out the ram nothing, then it done a windows repair which it had done previously and failed. But this time worked. Tech gone, computer ran beautifully for 3 weeks.

Then one night without doing ANYTHING out of the norm, nothing new installed or connected BSOD came back. Every time a different message. This time a reboot would have it working again and for a week it worked flawlessly for HOURS ONLY then bam blue screen every night... Every singly night. After few hours of working fine.... Eventually after a week. It crashed, wouldnt get passed the windows repair screen. Tech comes back out we go trough all the options try to install new windows over it fails. So. The dreaded reformat. New version of windows 7 64 ultimate (previously was professional)

Boots up works like a dream again new computer yay (I make the most of it and enjoy starting from clean fresh installs haven't installed anything yet except winRAR and adobe reader.) downloaded some of my software updates. Updated windows. Installed some drivers i need. No problems everything is working fine. perfecto so far!

I done some tweaks based around these guides here ( Music tweak guide 1 , music Tweak guide2, Vipers MS services tweaks)

Now i did most of all in the first 2. But only what i knew in the safe category of vipers. And i only knew what a handful were. Very basic ones. - Still after these tweaks. System running beautifully.


So today before i prepare to start doing my installs I remember somone telling me to run memtest, when i couldn't get computer past repair screen. So i decided i should still give it a try before i do any installs and see. I ran 4 instances at 2047 for over 2 hours all reach over 200% finding 0 error. Great! Then I click stop test on all instances and BOOM big FUZZY screen computer CRASH.

So i email the guy from memtest. Says its new to him try running it for a minute to see. Before he wrote back i already had one instance running for over 15 mins. 150% 0 error Stop it seems fine for few seconds then BANG BSOD with the message NTFS.sys. Something about writing to a read only.. ... Then i tried what he suggested ran it for 1 minute just to test, it reached 3.8% and the computer crashed. It tried to reboot itself a couple times by itself but couldn't.

I rebooted it and now my computer is sitting there idle and fine. I went to Event Viewer to find out whats going (truth is i don't really know what im looking at in there.) But there's a couple of Kernal errors and kernel in critical too.

Im trying to determine now if that issue tonight was just memtest being a pain in the A$$ or if there is a underlying issue in my system before going any further with installs and getting set up again to go back down this road. Im reading could be RAM setting in bios which i never updated when putting new ram i wouldn't know how (should i have?) Or could be PSU? these are just things ive read so far only happened with memtest tonight. Any suggestions to keep trying ?



For a better idea of what going on and see the progression of my issues since the first started you could have a quick look at this thread here.

Ive tried explaining things best i can. i really truly appreciate any help at all sorry for this long message!!

Thanks guys!!

D :thumb:

 

[BSODVictim1]

[quote name="EVILNOK" url="/t/1428512/somebody-please-help-me-and-ill-forever-be-in-your-debt-before-i-go-any-further-please#post_20844273"]Have you tried testing your hard drives? If not try running something like Seatools to check for hard drive errors.
http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/item/seatools-win-master/[/quote]


UPDATE:


Everything in SEATools passed until i done the long test. I left it and came back and this is how my screens looked. Problem is i was testing all 4 of my drives because i couldnt identify the C Drive (seatools doesnt make it that easy) I knew it was 1 of 2.

Anyways this is exactly what happened the first time i ended the memtest tonight. exact same thing. ONLY this time the machine wont boot at all. I reset and the tower keeps coming on and off. Then unplugged it held down power. Plugged it back in turned it on and the tower is on but nothing showing on the screens. Any ideas guys..

Im starting to feel it has to be hardware now.

 

[Automata]

Everything that you've explained sounds like a stability issue, and these are sometimes not very fun to locate. At this point, I would say it is either the RAM (most likely), CPU, or power supply -- or settings in the BIOS. What you need to do is systematically narrow down the fault and work from there. Change one thing at a time, so that if the issue resolves, you know exactly what fixed it.

The tests you've run give some hints as to what is going wrong:
1) The system can run for long periods of time without crashing
2) The system seems to crash reliably while stopping a load test
3) The BSOD errors differ

This points to the RAM being the issue. For the RAM you have, locate the specifications on the manufacturer's website and manually set the timing, speed, and voltage in the BIOS. Some memory does not get detected correctly, which means that the motherboard's "guess" at the settings runs it slightly out of spec and slightly unstable.

It sounds like you are running memtest within Windows. Get the ISO download, burn it to a disk, and boot to it. That is a completely standalone version of the program, which means there is nothing else running but memtest. If you run it in Windows, then you have other programs running in the background, interfering with your test.

 

[keny]

Have you cleared the CMOS to get it up and running again? You can do this by shorting the jumpers on the motherboard, if it won't boot after that then remove the battery for 15 mins and try again if it still fails to boot then it is a hardware problem.

 

[BSODVictim1]

Everything that you've explained sounds like a stability issue, and these are sometimes not very fun to locate. At this point, I would say it is either the RAM (most likely), CPU, or power supply -- or settings in the BIOS. What you need to do is systematically narrow down the fault and work from there. Change one thing at a time, so that if the issue resolves, you know exactly what fixed it.

The tests you've run give some hints as to what is going wrong:
1) The system can run for long periods of time without crashing
2) The system seems to crash reliably while stopping a load test
3) The BSOD errors differ

This points to the RAM being the issue. For the RAM you have, locate the specifications on the manufacturer's website and manually set the timing, speed, and voltage in the BIOS. Some memory does not get detected correctly, which means that the motherboard's "guess" at the settings runs it slightly out of spec and slightly unstable.

It sounds like you are running memtest within Windows. Get the ISO download, burn it to a disk, and boot to it. That is a completely standalone version of the program, which means there is nothing else running but memtest. If you run it in Windows, then you have other programs running in the background, interfering with your test.

Thank for this. RAM is suspect. Altough when it first start happening we tried swapping the ram. But the tech guy never went near the bios. Would you be able to help me locate the name and model of the ram I have or do i have to pull it out and see that way?

Also I will need some help with BIOS ive never really adjusted anything in there before.

Would a PSU issue, cause the blue screens? Usually the crash comes first then system has trouble booting? CPU is the chip right? how do we test that? Thanks.

Have you cleared the CMOS to get it up and running again? You can do this by shorting the jumpers on the motherboard, if it won't boot after that then remove the battery for 15 mins and try again if it still fails to boot then it is a hardware problem.

No I left it for couple of hours and came back it powered on all looks fine at the moment. I just need to get it to a reliable state though. if such thing exists lol.


Thanks guys!

 

[Soulcatcher668]

5. Disable Windows Firewall, anti-virus and spyware software

These should all be disabled to ensure that no interferences occur during audio recording or playback and to ensure that maximum resources are available. To remain secure while your firewall and antivirus disabled, it is advisable to temporarily disconnect from any internet connections when working with audio.

Please tell me you did not do this. It is from your optimizing guide.

Music tweak guide 1

 

[BSODVictim1]

Please tell me you did not do this. It is from your optimizing guide.

Music tweak guide 1

Haha no this is one of the only things i havent done yet. That and the ram edit found in guide 2.

The idea is to usually keep your studio computer offline. So what i would do normally is disable network connection. Then disable those while working recording sessions. The only time its online is for updates.

 

[c627627]

Do not run Memtest from within Windows!

Make sure you run it from a bootable USB stick or CD.
USB download here: http://www.memtest.org/download/4.20/memtest86+-4.20.usb.installer.zip
http://www.memtest.org/download/4.20/memtest86+-4.20.iso.zip

 

[BSODVictim1]

Do not run Memtest from within Windows!

Make sure you run it from a bootable USB stick or CD.
USB download here: http://www.memtest.org/download/4.20/memtest86+-4.20.usb.installer.zip
http://www.memtest.org/download/4.20/memtest86+-4.20.iso.zip

Ok thank you. What are the specific steps to do that, like run from usb ?. sorry

But are you saying that memtest may have caused this issue because i ran inside windows? Is that possible. Because since i reformatted it was running fine until memtest.

Or does it still look like hardware issue. thanks!

 

[c627627]

Unzip both downloaded files.
Run Memtest86+ 4.20 USB Installer.exe which will use mt420.iso to create a bootable USB stick.


The purpose of memtest is to test your RAM stability. When you run Memtest inside Windows, you cannot conclude whether RAM is the cause of your problems, or perhaps if something else, not RAM, crashed your system.


If RAM passes Memtest which you run by booting from a USB stick or CD or floppy, then you move on to other things - then RAM is not your problem. Make sure you are NOT overclocked.


If you don't have a USB stick, make a bootable CD.
You can use a CD burning program like Nero:
File > Burn Image... > browse to mt420.iso > Open

 

[c627627]

Ultimately, the best approach here is to partition your hard drive, install Windows onto a relatively small partition, install large apps/prgrams onto another partition and don't keep personal files on the OS partition. Image the small OS partition onto another hard drive.

Those images can then be restored in a couple of minutes.


Perhaps those "tweaks" you do are the cause. If you can crash your system reliably, does it crash under safe mode? Does it crash before you install certain drivers/tweaks?

 

[BSODVictim1]

Unzip both downloaded files.
Run Memtest86+ 4.20 USB Installer.exe which will use mt420.iso to create a bootable USB stick.


The purpose of memtest is to test your RAM stability. When you run Memtest inside Windows, you cannot conclude whether RAM is the cause of your problems, or perhaps if something else, not RAM, crashed your system.


If RAM passes Memtest which you run by booting from a USB stick or CD or floppy, then you move on to other things - then RAM is not your problem. Make sure you are NOT overclocked.


If you don't have a USB stick, make a bootable CD.
You can use a CD burning program like Nero:
File > Burn Image... > browse to mt420.iso > Open

Thank you!

Ultimately, the best approach here is to partition your hard drive, install Windows onto a relatively small partition, install large apps/prgrams onto another partition and don't keep personal files on the OS partition. Image the small OS partition onto another hard drive.

Those images can then be restored in a couple of minutes.


Perhaps those "tweaks" you do are the cause. If you can crash your system reliably, does it crash under safe mode? Does it crash before you install certain drivers/tweaks?

My C drive is 150GB velociraptor. Right now has nothing installed. Maybe i should reformat again and try see if memtest will crash same way?

Not sure if you had time to look over the tweakes but do you see anything that would cause it in there? for the most part its just turning off the fancy effects and stuff. The viper services one probably does have some scary tweaks but i followed the safe list and went even safer by only disabling what i know. Which was just a handful.

This is one i use to do in past bit did not do this time round. Because i dont fully understand it. see below

Same place as above but under Virtual Memory click on "Change..." This depends on how much RAM you have. If you have 4GB or less i'd leave Windows to manage your memory. If you 8GB or more then Windows will routinely use 1.5 times that amount for a swap file that's hardly used. If you have 16GB of RAM then 24GB is being totally wasted by Windows. In which case untick the "Auto..." button, select "Custom size" and set to 4048 (4GB) in both initial and maximum - that's plenty.

 

[Mr.Scott]

This is one i use to do in past bit did not do this time round. Because i dont fully understand it. see below

That's just for the page file. You have more than enough ram to cover that. I set mine for a min and max of 512.

 

[BSODVictim1]

My RAM is Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB kit (8GBx2) DDR3-1600 1.5V 240-Pin UDIMM BLS2CP8G3D1609DS1S00 just in case that matters lol

 

[Mr.Scott]

More than enough ram. You could even turn off the page file if you wanted.
The Black Viper tips are not whats causing your BSOD's.

 

[BSODVictim1]

More than enough ram. You could even turn off the page file if you wanted.

My question is does this ram have any conflicting differences than my original ram quoted in the OP? Because after putting this ram in the bios was never adjusted? So not sure if it had to be or not? I dont kno how to adjust bios ;-/

Quick update. I ran the seatools test again for the long generic on the drives went to bed and got up this time every passed ok. Turned of the computer. Came back few hours later booted computer. Was sitting idle while i had a coffee. Then the computer shut itself off. Trying to reboot. The tower kept going on and off but nothing on screen.

 

[c627627]

Maybe i should reformat again and try see if memtest will crash same way?

Do not run memtest under windows. I suppose the only time it's ok to run memtest under windows is maybe if nothing goes wrong, then you know it's good but if it does crash - and it did crash - then how do you know if RAM caused it or if Windows caused it? Think about that. Run Memtest from bootable media.

Maybe i should reformat again and try see if memtest will crash same way?

Not sure if you had time to look over the tweakes but do you see anything that would cause it in there?

When I install windows, it's a complicated and long process and I make 4-5 drive image backups. This allows me to go back and pinpoint the problem like yours.

i heavily edit my Windows install but know exactly what the tweak is doing. Do not blindly implement a tweak you don't understand.


Regarding your last question about adjusting memory usage, I have experimented with that A LOT and have concluded not to mess with that, leave page files, etc. alone at default because if (i am saying if) any of that caused your problem then any gains were not worth the BIG trouble you are in now and time you spent reinstalling. As a general rule, I leave RAM alone, other than if overclocking in BIOS.


Confirm that your system is NOT overclocked. People post problems and all the while their overclock was unstable, if you said that it wasn't sorry if I missed it but make sure you are running at stock until your problem is resolved.


Make sure your cables are properly connected.


We should not be all over the place with your question when there are basic things that need to be esablished.

1. Does memtest pass when you run it from USB or CD?

2. Can you reliably crash your system under Windows?


If you can reliably crash your system then reinstall windows and periodically try to crash it in the same way during reinstall, that way you can get the idea about possible software culprit.

 

[BSODVictim1]

Thanks guys.

UPDATE; after reading reviews of my motherboard seems a pretty common complaint is BsOd and boot loops. So I've ordered the asus P8Z77 LE plus. Seems to have plenty of good reviews anyone here got one?

I am going to upgrade the system drive to a ssd also. Put a better CPU cooler on. If there is an issue after that I'll replace PSU.

 

[BSODVictim1]

UPDATE:

--

I had the new mobo installed today and new ssd system drive with win764bit all looking good. I just been updating windows now and got to the SP1 update. It got a very brief BSOD during step 2 of 3 of the update. Restarted pretty quickly and continued onto 3 of 3 where I THINK it restarted itself once again then finished at step 3 of 3 and then booted up saying Service pack 1 is now installed. Also with the error message windows has recovered from an unexpected shutdown.

Any ideas guys?

---

OK NEWSFLASH!!!! Memtest has found 250112 errors. It was running lovely for sum time this is my screen right now. check it out! Big question below though!

Now can we be SURE its the ram? With the old Mobo, we had swapped out the ram couple time with friends ram and still had bsod. When i ran memtest in windows it ran for awhile but bsod when i clicked stopped test. Who here can read this images? How do i tell which stick is bad? Also It ran smooth for a while. (Dont think it did a full pass) But when the errors came they came FAST!!

Please i hope this is the answer.

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EDIT: also download "bluescreenview" and lauch it to see the error code + the driver which caused the crash easily and post back with that info.[/quote]

I was trying to figure that out today I am pretty sure its version 1 it didn't say v2 anywhere that was visible to me..



Here is the Bluescreenview. The first one usbport that happened during the SP1 update the update resumed very quickly the other 2 seemed more serious. What are they pointing to guys? Is that one of my external hubs or internal cant seem to find it in device manager.

---

[quote name="KenLautner" url="/t/1428512/updated-new-mobo-same-problem-possible-psu-issue/50#post_20873541"]Actually inedenimadam is correct

Go to start > run
and run these two one by one:
"chkdsk /f"
"sfc /scannow"

Dxgkrnl.sys is directx file and could be corrupt or mean a corrupt memory..If its corrupt then sfc /scannow should do it. But it cannot just be the Ram but Video card memory as well. But I doubt that's the case here coz you're not getting it while just gaming but doing normal work right?

The top 2 errors are indeed pointing to corrupt ram.
On bluescreen view click the bottom on with error code 0x00000044 and see what driver is mentioned in red.. I guess it will be oz776.sys or Srv2.sys or just ntoskrnl.exe.

Also download Prime and test your CPU stability.

You can tell if your PSU is V1 or V2 from the sticker on it. Post a pic of it where it says TX750.[/quote]

Getting it while doing nothing lol leaving computer idle will do it!! What exactly is prime , im going to run these 2 things and report back. I will also now do a memtest for each RAM in each ram slot. see where it gets me.

The tx750 i can post a pic in awhile is there somewhere where i can see version 1 and 2 and i could tell you right now which is the one i got.


[quote name="Flames21891" url="/t/1428512/updated-new-mobo-same-problem-possible-psu-issue/50#post_20874065"]
The thing that bothers me is that in his original post, he mentioned that he started having problems, swapped out for new RAM, and was still having problems.

I have to ask OP, are you still getting boot loops and the like? Your luck really sucks if it's true, but it's possible that not only was your old mobo bad, but your new RAM as well.

If you still have your old RAM kit, try using that and see what happens.

Lastly, we still can't rule out the PSU. Even if it's a good model, there's always the chance that it was just defective and is giving out. It happens even with the best of parts.[/quote]

Well at one point last night i got where the tower was powering on and off, nothing showing on screen, is that a boot loop lol? Judging by first memtest result it is looking like ram. But im not ruling anything out right now! Windows mem test found no error. Memtest found over 250 thousand lol.

--

"chkdsk /f" - seemed fine.


"sfc /scannow" - just finished and went away so how do i know if it actually had to do anything is there a way to find out?

Thanks

----

Thank you. Guys im in the middle of doing memtest on the individual sticks. its not looking good at all. .Can anyone reccomend a ram. for this new mobo. Asus P877 -V LE PLUS . Im looking trough the certified ones and none say more than 8. I need a minimum of 16. Why choose certain frequencies and voltages its supports multiple but looks like ill be getting new RAM tonight so what should i go with?


Thanks


EDIT: Update. I took out 1 ram stick. Began Memtest leaving other stick in the slot it was already in, one of the blue ones. like the manual suggests i think.. Found 1700 error in seconds and froze. Now i am slot 2 same stick. Its taking its time 62% trough first pass no errors yet. strange.

---

Thank you.. Im still testing the first stick of RAM. In slot 1 (BLUE SLOT) where it was originally it found errors pretty quickly. In slot 2 ran for LONG time (3.5 passes i think.) 0 errors. Its now in slot 3 another BLUE SLOT. And wow. over 1 million errors. Remember this is a new mobo. Is this weird i have a feeling that when i try next slot will be no errors, but i hope there is that way i can know its RAM.

--

Ok well turns out first stick has failed (errors) in ALL SLOTS except 1 slot. Now ill try the other 1. Not sure if it matters but errors are the hundred thousands and millions range....

--

Sorry long post, just hope someone can help out. But yea looks like bad ram.

 

[keny]

I know this is a long shot but do you have a different CPU that you can test the ram with, as you are getting fails in random slots of the board, or even a different board (amd) that supports ddr3 as the ram should fail in all slots if it was faulty, I'm leaning towards a faulty imc or psu as these faults are as random as it gets, memtest usually fails straight away if the ram is faulty,and if its not failing in every slot that in itself is strange, the best option would be to use your mates pc and run memtest via cd on boot up on his pc and see if it fails then.