Bluescreen problem

[Hopeseeker]

Hello. I have this problem.
While I am doing something the PC crashes and the screen becomes blue:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/33/dscf0177jp.jpg/

It usually happens when I do stressful things like playing games in Hi-resolution graphics, but the bluescreen happened once even when I was simply surfing the internet (I was on youtube).
To sum up, the problem SEEMS to be related to the difficulty of the task (the harder the task, the highest the probability to get Bluescreen), but it's not impossible to get bluescreen while doing simple tasks (you can get Bluescreen while doing simple tasks too, but more rarely).

This is what usually happens, exactly: the sounds starts to go out and the speakers make weird noises, as if someone was moving in and out the green jack of the 2.1 audio speakers. I also loose control over the mouse pointer: the pointer twitches from one point to the other. In seconds, the twitches become more and more frequent, until I cannot move the pointer at all, the screen freezes and I hear a repeated loud noise from the speakers. The speakers emit the last noise they were producing before the screen freeze, over and over.
After 5-10 seconds of this, the screen becomes blue. here is a photo:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/33/dscf0177jp.jpg/

After the bluescreen, the PC automatically re-boots and windows tells me I had a critical error, etc.
Sometimes the Case FAN starts spinning at 100% while the PC re-boots, and then, in 10-20 seconds, it gradually goes back to its default speed. This happens about 25% of the times, not always. I once received a message saying the PC had reached critical temperature, together with the internal speaker emitting 3 acute quick noises. This has only happened once over the many times the PC has crashed.

Sometimes the PC freezes instantly, without the mouse twitches and strange sounds. But you usually get the twitches and noises before it happens, so you always know when it is going to happen.

If you are lucky, you can quickly quit the program you are running, and SOMETIMES the mouse pointer stops twitching, the noises stop, and you don't get the Bluescreen. But most of the times you can't stop the process, and the PC just freezes even if you stop the programs you are running.

I get the Bluescreen almost every day. I use the PC for 2-6 hours every day.
When I get the Bluescreen one day, I never get a Bluescreen the same day. It can happen the day after, though.

I have run the "mdsched.exe" program normal tests to test RAM memory, but Windows says there is no problem with memory.

My system:

OS Windows 7 Home Premium
CPU i7 960 @ 3.2. I don't overclock.
Mobo Asus Rampage II Gene
GPU GTX 470
RAM Corsair XMS 3 1333 x 6 Gb Memory
Disk SSD Samsung 128 Gb + secondary Hitachi HDD 1 Tb
Case Enermax Chakra
Can't remember the power supply I have

Description given by Windows:

Problem signature:
Name of problem event: BlueScreen
SO Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.768.3
Local ID setting: 1040

Further information:
BCCode: 101
BCP1: 0000000000000019
BCP2: 0000000000000000
BCP3: FFFFF880022CE180
BCP4: 0000000000000003
OS Version: 6_1_7601
Service Pack: 1_0
Product: 768_1

Also see files:
C:\Windows\Minidump\021213-11122-01.dmp
C:\Users\Giorgio\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-14211-0.sysdata.xml


Please help me I don't know why my PC behaves like this.

 

[Rustyy117]

Hi,

Run a program like Hardware monitor to check your temps whilst doing something stressful on the PC that usually causes the bluescreen.

Usually 0x101 relates to not enough Vcore, did you manually set a Vcore value in the BIOS or is it on AUTO?

 

[Hopeseeker]

Hi,

Run a program like Hardware monitor to check your temps whilst doing something stressful on the PC that usually causes the bluescreen.

Usually 0x101 relates to not enough Vcore, did you manually set a Vcore value in the BIOS or is it on AUTO?

Everything is on Auto in the BIOS.
I use a program called Asus Smartdoctor to control the Fan speed and with this program you can set the Vcore.
I never touched the Vcore value though... Do you think I should set a higher value? I have no idea what a Vcore is...help!

I have downloaded "Hardware Monitor" as you suggested. What must I pay attention to while it is running? What values for temperature and Voltage are to be considered bad and can possibly cause such frequent bluescreens?

 

[Rustyy117]

Everything is on Auto in the BIOS.
I use a program called Asus Smartdoctor to control the Fan speed and with this program you can set the Vcore.
I never touched the Vcore value though... Do you think I should set a higher value? I have no idea what a Vcore is...help!

I have downloaded "Hardware Monitor" as you suggested. What must I pay attention to while it is running? What values for temperature and Voltage are to be considered bad and can possibly cause such frequent bluescreens?

Keep an eye on the core temps.

In ASUS smartdoctor is the Vcore value set at AUTO or does it say something like 1.275V? (just an example).

 

[Hopeseeker]

Ok I will check the Core Temperatures.

Asus Smartdoctor actually lets you control the Vcore of the GPU. It is now set to "default", which is a little higher than 0,9V.

How can I change the voltage of the CPU? Do I need a program? Do I need a new power supply maybe? I am confused.
Is the GPU Vcore or the CPU Vcore I must change?

 

[Rustyy117]

0.9V sounds about right for idle, it's generally advised to change settings like Vcore in the BIOS as it's safer but before we get onto that check your core temps when doing something stressful.

EDIT: does smartdoc give you any info for your CPU, I've never used it before but it looks like it's just for the GPU?

 

[Hopeseeker]

0.9V sounds about right for idle, it's generally advised to change settings like Vcore in the BIOS as it's safer but before we get onto that check your core temps when doing something stressful.

EDIT: does smartdoc give you any info for your CPU, I've never used it before but it looks like it's just for the GPU?

Smartdoctor seems to control only GPU. This is how it looks like:
http://www.bjorn3d.com/Material/revimages/video/Asus%20HD6950%20OC%20edition/Photos%201440%20wide/asus%20smart%20doctor.jpg

As you can see there is a Vcore you can control. But I don't know if I must change this value to make things better, or it doesn't have anything to do with my problem.

I will check the temperatures during stress anyway.

 

[Rustyy117]

Smartdoctor seems to control only GPU. This is how it looks like:
http://www.bjorn3d.com/Material/revimages/video/Asus%20HD6950%20OC%20edition/Photos%201440%20wide/asus%20smart%20doctor.jpg

As you can see there is a Vcore you can control. But I don't know if I must change this value to make things better, or it doesn't have anything to do with my problem.

I will check the temperatures during stress anyway.

Ah ok thanks for the image, just ignore it as it's for your GPU.

 

[Hopeseeker]

x101 is generally an indication of not enough cpu voltage/instability/too high of a frequency.

Maybe your CPU has degraded.

Could also be registry errors, dll errors, driver errors, a million things. All we know is your system is unstable. Hopefully it's a software issue instead of hardware issue.

Try running a stress test program like Prime95 Blend for 24 hours. If that passes, then that'd be a clear indication of a software problem. If it fails, it just means instability exists and you gotta narrow it down.

Microsoft's memory program is useless. I've had some very unstable ram fail everything but that.

If you can't pass 24 hours prime95 on stock settings, I'd try to underclock the CPU and see if that fixes things (or slightly raise voltage). And if that doesn't work, I'd lower the ram speed/raise ram voltage.

Ok I have downloaded prime95. I'll run it for 24 hours and see what happens.
By the way how do you raise voltage? Is it in the BIOS?

 

[Rustyy117]

Yeah you can raise the voltage in the BIOS, but check your temps under load first.

 

[Hopeseeker]

Yeah you can raise the voltage in the BIOS, but check your temps under load first.

Hardware Monitor says CPU Voltage is 1,216 V. Temperature under stress (prime95) around 90°C.
What does this mean?

 

[Hopeseeker]

As for voltage, it doesn't mean much. Software is always off on vcore, but it should be in the general area. 1.216 sounds about stock for ivy bridge chips.

Temperature around 90*C is hot, but okay. What temperature you are okay with as a max varies depending on your preferences but 85-95*C is generally seen as a max temp due to stability (as opposed to damaging the cpu or something like that).

Are you using the stock heatsink? You shouldn't overclock or raise voltage on the stock heatsink. Just on stock settings alone, as you can see, you can get very high temps.

Just run prime95 for 24 hours on stock settings. We'll go from there based on what happens. If your hardware passes and seems fine, then we'll look into software being the issue.

I recommend you download a program called "WhoCrashed". You can also check windows logs to see errors and stuff (just google it). BlueScreenView is also a good program but whocrashed does the same thing and tells you what's up.

Given your other thread about upgrading and all, I would recommend you actually get a decent heatsink and overclock, since you play TERA online and having some issues with FPS. Like I said in that thread, any CPU will be hurt by an intensive scene in TERA, but the issues you had of being unplayable sound more like software issues than hardware.

And given the instability of your system... definitely sounds like a new computer is unnecessary, and that you either have faulty hardware that isn't running as it should, or a software issue.

@ Belial88: I have never bought a specific heatsink so I must have the heatsink that comes together with the CPU when you buy it.

What do you mean when you say "it might be a software issue"? Which software could be the problem? I am quite a newbie.

The issues I have with FPS have nothing to do with Bluescreens, as far as I know (and I don't know much). Bluescreens do become more frequent since I play Tera though.
If I managed to get a stable system (no Bluescreens)but still have FPS issues, it would be something already, I would be happy.

The PC is now running prime95, we shall see if something comes out.
I will state the results of the prime95 test when I have them.

@ omgitzfatal: the temperature under stress is around 90°C. You were asking for the temperature and here it is. What does this piece of information make you think? The Voltage stated by Hardware Monitor for CPU is 1,216 V

 

[Rustyy117]

@ omgitzfatal: the temperature under stress is around 90°C. You were asking for the temperature and here it is. What does this piece of information make you think? The Voltage stated by Hardware Monitor for CPU is 1,216 V

90C is quite hot but what I'd expect with prime95 and the stock intel cooler, I'm surprised it's running as before you said that it seems to be related to the difficulty of the task and prime95 put's maximum load on the CPU.
If it can run Prime and not BSOD then I don't think it's temp related.

As Belial88 mentioned previously it could be a registry/driver/software issue, if you're running W7 try this: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html

 

[Rustyy117]

To test to see if it is a problem with the CPU's stability you could lower the frequency rather than increase the Vcore, that way the temps won't be increased.

 

[Hopeseeker]

The prime95 tests are now at 70-80% completion already. Is this normal? They are running from only 15 hours. I said the program to run for 24 hours, but it looks like the testing is going to finish before.
I am testing using the max possible quantity of memory allowed (5500+ Mb of RAM), for "supposed" 24 hours, four (4)workers. The four workers test the PC separately, from what I understand. You can run 1-8 workers, according to your preference.

Am I running prime95 correctly?

The PC is now running at 90-93°C with stock fan at 100% rpm. Can this damage my CPU?

Anyway, no blue screen or anything for now, after 15 hours of testing.

 

[Rustyy117]

The prime95 tests are now at 70-80% completion already. Is this normal? They are running from only 15 hours. I said the program to run for 24 hours, but it looks like the testing is going to finish before.
I am testing using the max possible quantity of memory allowed (5500+ Mb of RAM), for "supposed" 24 hours, four (4)workers. The four workers test the PC separately, from what I understand. You can run 1-8 workers, according to your preference.

Am I running prime95 correctly?

The PC is now running at 90-93°C with stock fan at 100% rpm. Can this damage my CPU?

Anyway, no blue screen or anything for now, after 15 hours of testing.

Stop the test mate, 15 hours is long enough and your temps are really quite high.

 

[Hopeseeker]

I have seen a strange thing: Hardware Monitor says the temperature of the Processors is 89-93°C, BUT Asus AI Suite and Asus Fan Expert both say the temperature is 76-78°C. Now which one is the right piece of information...
Asus software was in the CD together with the Asus motherboard.
Hardware Monitor comes from the web.

The tests are now at 84-94% completion depending on the workers (1,2,3,4).
I decided to let the PC work until the tests are finished.

I don't know if prime95 is supposed to find errors before the tests are over, or after. Until now the program didn't notify any errors.
And until now no Bluescreen. It looks like I'm lucky today, as it's very unlikely I get no Bluescreens in 17 hours of activity.

 

[Rustyy117]

Prime95 will stop if there's a problem, a worker will stop or your PC will crash/bluescreen usually.

HW Monitor gives you the core temp readings, which are the temps from the cores within the CPU, where-as the ASUS software you have reads the CPU temp which is the temp of the IHS (top of the CPU where the cooler makes contact), the core temps are what matters so watch the core temps with HW Monitor.

I'm inclined to say your issue isn't with your CPU based on the length of time P95 has been running.

If it was my PC I'd uninstall all that ASUS software, run the scannow command I linked to earlier and run some anti-virus programs.

 

[Hopeseeker]

The tests are almost over. No errors noticed until now.
From the few things I have understood, this means my hardware SHOULD be ok, and therefore, the system instability is likely to be due to a software issue. It may be an error in the registry, or a virus, or dll wrong files.

If the registry is corrupt, can this be due to a degraded CPU? ---> cleaning registry would solve nothing because the CPU keeps writing corrupt data in the registry.

Omgitzfatal you have talked about other software and functions but I don't happen to see this "Scannow" program. What is it? Edit: after some research I have tried to write in the search bar "SFC / scannow" on my laptop (not the PC that has bluescreen issues). I see a DOS box appear for half a second, then it disappears and nothing else happens. Is this supposed to fix the registry? A process that lasts half a second? I am newbie so I don't know.

If removing Asus software could be a good idea due to the values it may have modified, can you please suggest me a program to easily control the fan on the side of my case, and the fan over the CPU? Because I used to control these 2 fans using Asus Smartdoctor and Asus Fan expert. If I uninstall these 2 programs, the fans will go in default values (I think), which is not going to be enaugh when I play Aion or Tera. Let alore if I decide overclock, when this bluescreen problem is, hopefully, solved.

 

[Rustyy117]

The tests are almost over. No errors noticed until now.
From the few things I have understood, this means my hardware SHOULD be ok, and therefore, the system instability is likely to be due to a software issue. It may be an error in the registry, or a virus, or dll wrong files.

If the registry is corrupt, can this be due to a degraded CPU? ---> cleaning registry would solve nothing because the CPU keeps writing corrupt data in the registry.

Omgitzfatal you have talked about other software and functions but I don't happen to see this "Scannow" program. What is it? Edit: after some research I have tried to write in the search bar "SFC / scannow" on my laptop (not the PC that has bluescreen issues). I see a DOS box appear for half a second, then it disappears and nothing else happens. Is this supposed to fix the registry? A process that lasts half a second? I am newbie so I don't know.

If removing Asus software could be a good idea due to the values it may have modified, can you please suggest me a program to easily control the fan on the side of my case, and the fan over the CPU? Because I used to control these 2 fans using Asus Smartdoctor and Asus Fan expert. If I uninstall these 2 programs, the fans will go in default values (I think), which is not going to be enaugh when I play Aion or Tera. Let alore if I decide overclock, when this bluescreen problem is, hopefully, solved.

Well from the test you ran it looks like your CPU is fine and so shouldn't be making any errors.

Just type: "cmd" into the search bar and then right click the cmd program and choose "Run as administrator", the cmd box should stay open, then type: "sfc /scannow"...It's all in the tutorial I linked too.

If your CPU fan is connected to the CPU fan header on your mobo (which I assume it is) then the motherboard will adjust the fan speed based on the CPU's temps.
If you ever decide to overclock you'll need to replace that stock intel cooler.

 

[Hopeseeker]

I have seen you have not talked about the possibility of "not enaugh Vcore" anymore. Have you abandoned the idea because of the PC not crashing under prime95 after 20 hours?

The PC is now running phase 2 of the prime95 tests, still no errors or bluescreens. The Temperature went down when phase 2 has started. The CPUs are now working with 86-90°C temperatures, with 100% stock fan speed on the CPUS and 65% stock case fan, in a room with around 22°C.

I have run the Scannow function on my laptop and then on my Desktop PC (the one with the bluescreen issues).
Scannow found nothing wrong in my laptop, but did find hundreds of corrupt files on my other PC, the one with BSOD issues. I have no idea where all those corrupt files originated from. I don't know if the corrupt files were the cause of the bluescreens, but running the Scannow function sure wasn't a bad idea, as far as I can understand.

What do you think I should do now?

 

[Rustyy117]

I have seen you have not talked about the possibility of "not enaugh Vcore" anymore. Have you abandoned the idea because of the PC not crashing under prime95 after 20 hours?

The PC is now running phase 2 of the prime95 tests, still no errors or bluescreens. The Temperature went down when phase 2 has started. The CPUs are now working with 86-90°C temperatures, with 100% stock fan speed on the CPUS and 65% stock case fan, in a room with around 22°C.

I have run the Scannow function on my laptop and then on my Desktop PC (the one with the bluescreen issues).
Scannow found nothing wrong in my laptop, but did find hundreds of corrupt files on my other PC, the one with BSOD issues. I have no idea where all those corrupt files originated from. I don't know if the corrupt files were the cause of the bluescreens, but running the Scannow function sure wasn't a bad idea, as far as I can understand.

What do you think I should do now?

Yeah because your CPU seems to be stable (from what we can tell) there seems little point upping the voltage, also your temps are really high so even if your CPU was unstable and needed more Vcore it would be best to instead reduce the frequency to regain stability.

Yeah I was getting 0x124 BSOD's recently which also usually relate to a lack of Voltage but it turned out to be corrupt files that were the cause and scannow fixed it.

Only time will tell if your problem has now been resolved.

 

[Hopeseeker]

Prime95 is still running, no fail until now. I was going to stop it but sure, I'll let it work for 30 hours just to be sure. It's unlikely the PC will die in this precise test. The temperatures went slightly down also, and I opened the window just to be sure it wouldn't melt.
Edit: you said prime95 with 4 workers is not useful, so I will stop it and run it with 8 workers.

I've done some research.
Many people in the forum board I will link at the end of the post seem to have had my same problem.
Some of these people have solved it, some didn't. From what I have understood the problem seems to be in certain types of ASUS motherboards, including my Rampage II Gene, being unstable.

Apparently, if the PC re-boots or boots after going in the BIOS, saving and booting("Warm Boot"), the system remains stable forever, whereas if you fresh boot your system from the PC turned off("Cold Boot"), the system will crash 90% of the times in a random period of time (10 minutes - several hours).
Is there a reason why a "warm boot" solved the problems of these people? I don't understand.

Sure I will try it myself but can already say it may work. As you can see in my first post, I was stating "when you get one Bluescreen one day, you know you are safe for the day, but it can happen the day after". This is because the PC re-boots after the Bluescreen of Death, and this seems to protect against Bluescreens indefinitely.

If it does work, can you tell me if there is a way to make the system stable even on a cold boot? The answer to this question is only possible if you know why a warm boot would be different from a cold boot.
Of course having a stable PC even on cold boots would be better because it would save me time (1 x boot instead of boot + re-boot), so if you come up with a way to do this, let me know.

Here is the forum link:
http://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=70751&start=0

To help you help me I'll tell you some things I've seen in the forum:

Some of the people report good results if they disable the HPET in the BIOS.

Other people in the forum say to reset the CMOS (change position or remove and put it back. Rampage 2 Gene may have a button to do this more simply)and then reset certain values in the BIOS.

I am very confused can you help me, also by looking at the forum I linked? I don't want to screw up anything.

( Forum: http://techreport.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=70751&start=0 )

The help of all of you is very precious to me.

 

[Hopeseeker]

After more research, I found out the problem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNShaHCF3sE&feature=youtu.be

As stated by the uploader of the video, "The Rampage II & III GENE for a subset of users suffers from an issue where the machine cannot be put into sleep, hibernate, or powered off completely. A cold boot or a resume from sleep/hibernate eventually leads to some sort of deep hardware flaw that causes the machine to spiral out of control and into a clock interrupt BSOD. It's not an OS bug, it's not a driver bug, it is a firmware or hardware flaw. This shows a system after having resumed from sleep and just finished running an intensive game, which triggers the flaw. You can see that the OS kernel simply is no longer able to manage the system. This spirals into ever longer CPU response times to hardware requests as seen through the ISR and DPC latency. This flaw is many years old and I don't expect it to ever be fixed. For those curious getting an RMA is not a fix. This is not an issue with a singularly damaged board it is a flaw with the entire series of boards."

So to sum up, there is no known real fix to this problem, as far as I have come to know. Only the workaround that consists of re-booting the PC after turn-off / sleep / hybernate.

Asus never recalled the series of motherboard because this seems to happen only to a minority of people.
I did make some research, though, and found people who received a replacement mobo from ASUS, but had the same problem even with the new motherboard.

So if you have a Rampage II Gene or III Gene, use this workaround or change the motherboard to "solve" the problem.
I hope this helps Asus Rampage II and III Gene users that have the same problem.

 

[Hopeseeker]

I'm assuming Tera is a very badly written game, with so many exceptions in the code, and it would be probably hard to render even if it was well written because of the complexity of such a game (action combat with physics elements in a MMO game). My CPU seems fine (but I'm still running prime95 under the new settings that include 8 workers)so if the game is not playable, it's the game's fault, not my PC's. I'll give it a try after prime95 is over, but I'm not expecting to see a big difference only because I fixed the registry with the Scannow command and used CCleaner (by the way thank you so much for suggesting me these programs).
If one wants to play Tera, he or she is probably supposed to have a very very good PC and/or just overclock, or live with low-res graphics when you want to do things with a group. I'll check the temperatures while playing the game but they will probably be too high to allow a frequency boost. I would need a new heatsink, as people here have kindly pointed out.
I suspect even by overclocking I wouldn't completely solve my fps isseus (I would probably still see some drops and occasional freezes), because it is made of very badly written code. So I have basically 2 options: change PC, or change game. Right now I'm resorting to changing the game: I'm playing some Aion now, because I still don't have enaugh money for a real upgrade, and the market doesn't offer any dramatic increase of performance from my system right now anyway, unless you want to spend absurd amounts of money on a PC that will become obsolete in two years or three anyway.

Anyway, it's going to be difficult but if someone can find a surefire way to make my system stable even on cold boots, please let me know. It's a known issue:
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20100115022559953&board_id=1&model=Rampage+II+Gene&page=1&SLanguage=en-us
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20091212041438359&board_id=1&model=Rampage+II+Gene&page=1&SLanguage=en-us
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20100302005047875&board_id=1&model=P6T+SE&page=1&SLanguage=en-us
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id=20100223194140765&board_id=1&model=P6T+SE&page=1&SLanguage=en-us
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNShaHCF3sE&feature=youtu.be

But some people do claim to have solved it. Unfortunately, those people all state different solutions. For example one says to disable HPET in the BIOS. Another one says to reset the CMOD and then change some parameters in the BIOS. Maybe it's a very simple thing... The things work like this with PCs from time to time. I'll check some of these weird solutions when I have time, maybe I'm lucky.