BSOD (rare) after replacing dual core with quad core

[peterh337]

I am new here but have been reading this excellent site for a long time.

I have read many threads on similar issues.

Background:
Built many PCs over many years
P5K-E MB, 4GB RAM, E8400 changed to QX9650
Windows XP SP3
High quality 650W PSU
Big CPU cooler, +50C max silicon temp
BIOS was reset to default values after changing the CPU
BIOS updated to the latest version, specifically required for the QX9650

The BSOD is highly random and appears for a fraction of a second so I can't capture it; then it reboots. It happens every 1-2 days; PC runs 24/7 and always has. It happens a lot more when I am doing something on the machine.

I suspected Firefox (which nowadays has many issues, esp. with massive memory usage) and set the affinity on firefox.exe to just 1 core and that seemed to help a little. Disabling Kaspersky AV doesn't help (but the PC runs a lot better ).

Previous system, E8400, ran for 2 years, 24/7. Also I do a lot of rendering in Vegas 11 and Handbrake and this uses all four cores to 99-100% and that never crashes it.

Curiously, changing the RAM and the QX9650 for a Q9550 (both quad core, one very slightly slower) makes no difference to the BSODs.

I know Windows rebuilds the hardware tree at every startup, so this should not happen.

Curiously, after the BSOD I do *not* get disk (SATA HD 1TB) corruption. So it never seems to happen while a file is being written. Normally, after a Windows crash you do get file system issues and the CHKDSK run when Windows restarts, but in this case never.

Is there some known issue which fits the above description?

The reason for running XP is due to specific (old, CAD/EDA) software, and is complicated.

My next action is to rebuild the PC with a GA-EX58-UD5 (the top spec MB which still has XP drivers for the chipset) and an i7-970 and new 8GB RAM and hope the problem magically goes away...

Many thanks for any pointers.

 

[peterh337]

Since all this started when I put in a quad core CPU, and changing the MB and RAM didn't fix it, I reckon it is a low level software issue somewhere. Or the PSU is dipping out... but it never does it under heavy load. Just bought a Radeon R7 240

 

[peterh337]

I have an update, with 2 days and no BSODs:

I updated the motherboard drivers, from the 2007 versions to the latest (2009) versions. I did the whole lot from the ASUS website - LAN, sound, chipset...

It looks like it has worked. So, it would appear that something in there had a bug which got exposed when the CPU went from 2 cores to 4. This is quite a common bug. Well it was very common when multi core CPUs first appeared.

No idea why I didn't think of this before.

I have not yet installed the Radeon R7-240 and won't unless the BSODs return. It may be faster than GTX750 but the GTX is fanless which is a big plus.

 

[GhislainG]

The GTX 750 should be quite a lot faster than the R7 240.

 

[peterh337]

That's funny... I googled on some comparative benchmarks. The internet is wrong?

 

[GhislainG]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r7-240-and-250,3717-4.html As you can see, the R7 240 is not that competitive with the GT 640; therefore it's no match for the GTX 750. In most games the GTX 750 is slightly faster than the R7 260.

 

[GhislainG]

That's funny... I googled on some comparative benchmarks. The internet is wrong?

The Internet isn't necessarily wrong, but you need to rely on trusted reviews, e.g., http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/gigabyte-geforce-gtx-750-gv-n750oc-1gi-video-card-review/ where you can compare a GTX 750 with the R7 260.

 

[peterh337]

My GTX750 is fanless
https://www.quietpc.com/pal-ne5x75t00941-1073h
I wonder if that might mean it runs at a slower clock?

 

[GhislainG]

The specs are identical to a GPU that isn't fanless. The link that you provided is a GTX 750 Ti which is approximately 15% faster than a GTX 750; the 750 Ti competes with the R7 260X which is a lot faster than the R7 240.

 

[peterh337]

4 days and still no BSOD.

 

[GhislainG]

That's good news.

 

[peterh337]

There is more to this, as it turns out...

After 5 days, the BSODs came back. The only change I did was to re-enable Kaspersky AV 2016. It had been disabled for a week or more (to isolate the problem).

We have two XP machines at work (running accounting software so staying on XP) which have also started doing BSODs. Removing Kaspersky fixed it on both.

All are different in hardware. One is i5, one is i7, different motherboards, video etc.

So I think KAV changed something in their low level drivers recently which they didn't test on XP.

We are dumping our KAV corporate license and going to AVG at 30 quid per PC

 

[GhislainG]

Good or bad, testing on XP rarely is performed; it no longer is a supported OS.

 

[peterh337]

There are, according to some reports, some 10M machines still running XP. I am in industrial electronics (process control) and that business is half XP and half win7. Win8+ has been avoided almost totally. Too many problems with apps which break and whose vendor is long gone but which might have cost 10k and the value of keeping the process going might be 100k per day etc.

Admittedly most of the industrial XP machines are not used for browsing p0rn and warez websites and don't receive emails so they don't need AV software

IMHO not testing on XP is arrogant because it takes very little time to do it, but hey this is life these days. People are starting to say the same about win7. Look at some forums... somebody asks a Q and is told that win10 is the only thing anybody wants to discuss! That wasn't the Q that was asked... If I ask a Q about running win3.1 I expect a reply about win3.1, not be told that it is obsolete

 

[GhislainG]

I also use XP because I don't want to spend days re-installing everything on a new system. Since it's now virtualized, I'm not too concerned by security; I can always go back to the last snapshot. In a production environment it's easy to perform a complete backup and restore if the system has been compromised.