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Thread ID: 122983 2012-01-25 22:15:00 Random restarting and blue screen of death- what piece of hardware is causing it? kjvchris (16658) Press F1
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1255857 2012-01-25 22:15:00 Hi there,

For the last few months I have been having problems with my custom built PC randomly restarting itself - sometimes with a BSOD, other times without one. Sometimes the display will show a random pattern of dark grey clours - almost like you get with a cracked LCD screen for about half a second, and then it will restart itself.

As far as I can tell, the crashes appear to be random - sometimes during games, others just browsing the net. They do appear to all happen within 4 hours of a fresh restart of windows.

I tried all the usual software fixes - things like antivirus scans, disk checks, cpu tests etc - including clean reinstalls of windows (at least twice now). Then I tried replacing the motherboard as it appeared to have faulty onboard sound. Then the same PC crashed again with the new motherboard!

I was told by a mate that SATA requires a pretty hefty power supply, so I just replaced the stock 320w with an Antec 620w one. But alas, it has crashed and restarted a couple of times now.

Before the new supply was installed, sometimes after crashing the PC would beep a few times - therefore indicating a hardware failure(?) and refuse to restart easily until removal of MB battery to reset bios. Haven't had this problem since replacing the PS, but it's still early.

I'm pretty much out of ideas. Checked and double checked everything is plugged in tight. Havent mucked around much with the bios (adjusting power supply etc) as I don't know much about that kind of stuff. I'm thinking the next step is to replace the graphics card?

IS there a way to narrow down diagnostics a bit in order to find out what hardware is causing the problem?

_____________

Specs are below:

Latest drivers for pretty much everything.
Disk check returning no errors.
CPU test returning no errors.

WIn 7 64bit SP1 - all updates installed.

From SPeccy - Temps included - don't think anything is overheating?

Operating System
MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1
CPU
AMD Athlon II X2 255 29 °C
Regor 45nm Technology
RAM
4.00 GB Single-Channel DDR3 @ 669MHz (9-9-9-24)
Motherboard
ASUSTeK Computer INC. M4A88TD-M EVO (AM3) 39 °C
Graphics
VX2233wm-3 (1920x1080@59Hz)
DELL IN1920 (1366x768@60Hz)
ATI Radeon HD 5450 (ASUStek Computer Inc) 60 °C
Hard Drives
488GB Western Digital WDC WD5000AVDS-63U7B0 ATA Device (SATA) 37 °C
Optical Drives
ATAPI iHAS324 B ATA Device
Audio
Realtek High Definition Audio

____________


SO, Any ideas? Muchly appreciated guys.

Thanks,

Chris 		kjvchris (16658)
1255858 2012-01-25 23:30:00 Get bluescreenview, install then run it. (www.nirsoft.net) What does it say is the cause? Speedy Gonzales (78)
1255859 2012-01-26 00:53:00 PC randomly restarting itself - sometimes with a BSOD, other times without one . Sometimes the display will show a random pattern of dark grey clours


You need to make a note of the STOP error .

Then I tried replacing the motherboard as it appeared to have faulty onboard sound .

Extreme!! What made you think it had a sound problem, even if it did, that wouldn't crash it like that .


I just replaced the stock 320w with an Antec 620w one .

Yep, seriously underpowered PSU before, this one is fine . 		pctek (84)
1255860 2012-01-26 07:33:00 Thanks for your help folks. Will see if I can get more info on the BSOD tomorow.

As for the motherboard - I think that was a separate issue. The audio was playing up (can't remember exactly what it was doing.) I found out that, if I disabled all the audio services under Win 7 it stopped the crashes. Or at least it did for about 2 months before they came back. Strange eh? Ascent went ahead and replaced it with a newer model so I presume they found an error with it.

Thanks for your comments about the PSU. Yes. When in doubt, check the PC User A-list. haha. Saves trawling through specs. 		kjvchris (16658)
1255861 2012-01-26 21:35:00 So, the verdict from Blue Screen Viewer is:

==================================================
Dump File : 011312-43118-01.dmp
Crash Time : 1/13/2012 10:00:54 AM
Bug Check String : SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION
Bug Check Code : 0x0000003b
Parameter 1 : 00000000`c0000005
Parameter 2 : fffff800`02fb747c
Parameter 3 : fffff880`0773ce20
Parameter 4 : 00000000`00000000
Caused By Driver : Unknown_Module_fffffa80`049698e0
Caused By Address : Unknown_Module_fffffa80`049698e0+9bfc70
File Description :
Product Name :
Company :
File Version :
Processor : x64
Crash Address : ntoskrnl.exe+705c0
Stack Address 1 :
Stack Address 2 :
Stack Address 3 :
Computer Name :
Full Path : C:\Windows\Minidump\011312-43118-01.dmp
Processors Count : 2
Major Version : 15
Minor Version : 7600
Dump File Size : 275,816
==================================================

This is a shot of the latest test.

BTW, I have posted this on other tech forums and someone suggested I run HDtune. It is showing that my HDD has errors - however, I suspect that these are simply bad sectors due to windows not shutting down properly due to repeat crashes. I noticed this a while back and was about to send the drive in for replacement, but I ran another disc-check from boot (after the drive was formatted) and it came up clean. Probably cause it fixed the bad sectors.

I have already tried replacing the cable and using a different SATA port btw.

Finally, I'm running the computer in safe mode (to run hdtune and other diagnostic software) and hasn't yet crashed! So perhaps I was wrong and it is not a hardware fault (as I previously thought, but rather a problem with one of the system services Windows runs under normal boot protocols?

I should mention that it doesn't always print a BSOD when it crashes - sometimes it just shows the aforementioned patterned screen before it restarts. 		kjvchris (16658)
1255862 2012-01-26 21:59:00 Have you updated chipset and video drivers at all? worth a crack if not. Get them directly from the manufacturers website not windows update.
It's also worth running memtest or similar to verify the RAM as it's one component that can cause this sort of problem.
It might not hurt also to default the BIOS just in case there's some odd setting in there somewhere.

Problems are not always easily proved, I once had a perfectly good motherboard and video card that behaved like that when used together but worked perfectly if used seperately with different hardware. 		dugimodo (138)
1255863 2012-01-26 22:08:00 Yep, all the drivers, updates etc are installed . For windows and hardware .

I've tried reseting the bios -no luck

I've run a memtest and cpu test in the past without any errors showing . Hope to get a chance to run them again today .

Thanks :) Any more ideas? 		kjvchris (16658)
1255864 2012-01-26 22:30:00 Whats the STOP error. pctek (84)
1255865 2012-01-26 22:59:00 That error code and problem listed can be caused by corrupted drivers. Since its completely random I wouldn't think it was hardware related - but then it may be as well.

See if windows is actually reporting the fault.

Click start, type in reli in the results, click "View Reliability history" When it opens there will be red circles or other error warnings, look through and see if any one thing is common as to when it crashes.

If there is, what does it say is causing the problem ( full report).

Failing that, try running Driver Verifier from windows, its a inbuilt program that Windows can check for rouge or damaged drivers and report back. Full instructions on how to run and use it From this web site (mikemstech.blogspot.com).



I used it this morning to track down a driver that was causing all sorts of problems on a customers Computer that nothing else would find. 		wainuitech (129)
1255866 2012-01-27 00:50:00 I took a look and it doesn't look like Windows is recording the crashes?! There are no entries in the log, despite the computer crashing about 6 or 7 times since the last time I reinstalled windows.

Interestingly enough, I've been running windows in safe mode all morning and it hasn't crashed just yet! So I guess this means you are correct in saying it looks to be software related. However, I have tried reinstalling Windows (a clean reinstall) and it doesn't fix the problem???

Perhaps I am reinstalling bad drivers over and over again? How can I tell which one is the problem (other than the reliability thing mentioned above which has not been recording errors?)?

Perhaps it is a service that is corrupted? I'm going to try a diagnostic startup (from MSconfig) to see if I can narrow it down.

Any further ideas / comments? 		kjvchris (16658)
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