Question BSOD - what are my next steps?

[Robert_B445]

Hi, just experienced a BSOD and wondering what, if anything, I should do next

Here’s what happened, in case it helps -

Making something quite high poly in Autodesk Maya and must’ve pushed my poor little machine a little too far…

The screen went blank

BSOD appears - I notice the stop code “Registry error”

PC restarts, performs an update successfully, I log back into windows

I check event viewer - notice a number of ID 4 events

Nothing else occurs. .I turn the PC off as a precaution

Is this a sign that a bunch of files are now corrupt, or just that I pushed my hardware a bit too far and the PC crashed?

 

[Lutfij]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

my poor little machine
Please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the age of the PSU apart from it's make and model. BIOS version for your motherboard at this moment of time.

 

[Robert_B445]

Welcome to the forums, newcomer!

my poor little machine
Please list the specs to your build like so:
CPU:
CPU cooler:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:
Monitor:
include the age of the PSU apart from it's make and model. BIOS version for your motherboard at this moment of time.

Can’t quite provide all the info you’re after (I’ve stopped using the PC in question while I figure out what I should do), but I’ll answer to the best of my abilities

Tis an old machine, bless it, but it’s suited my needs

CPU: Intel Core i7 4790 (3.6GHz)
CPU cooler: CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Evo
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H81M-H (I’d like to check the bios revision for you but can’t at the moment)
Ram: 12GB (4GB + 8GB Sticks - I’d like to check the brand but can’t at the moment)
SSD/HDD: Crucial MX500 1TB SSD
GPU: Zotac Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB (unsure on the exact driver I’m using)
PSU: EVGA 80+ 600 W1 600 watt (not quite 4 years old)
Chassis: Fractal Design Focus G
OS: Windows 10 Pro x64 (unsure on the exact version, before or after the update)
Monitor: Koorui 1080p curved monitor (honestly can’t tell you much more than that at the moment)

 

[Lutfij]

The specs look great(when it was released)...apart from it being an aged system but it should still be able to perform your tasks. If you're able to get back into OS GUI, try and tax the system again but with a low poly count on Autodesk Maya and see if the issue persists.

Ram: 12GB (4GB + 8GB Sticks - I’d like to check the brand but can’t at the moment)
Mixing and matching ram sticks are a no-no, as they are a cause for instability. Try and work with one stick of ram and see if the issue persists.

While you're in your OS, see if you can find any .dmp files and then pass on the info here. You'll need to host said .dmp files on a site akin to DropBox and then pass on a link for us here.

As stated prior, if you're able to power up and get into the OS, check on the OS version, your GPU's driver version and the BIOS version as well.

 

[Robert_B445]

The specs look great(when it was released)...apart from it being an aged system but it should still be able to perform your tasks. If you're able to get back into OS GUI, try and tax the system again but with a low poly count on Autodesk Maya and see if the issue persists.

Ram: 12GB (4GB + 8GB Sticks - I’d like to check the brand but can’t at the moment)
Mixing and matching ram sticks are a no-no, as they are a cause for instability. Try and work with one stick of ram and see if the issue persists.

While you're in your OS, see if you can find any .dmp files and then pass on the info here. You'll need to host said .dmp files on a site akin to DropBox and then pass on a link for us here.

As stated prior, if you're able to power up and get into the OS, check on the OS version, your GPU's driver version and the BIOS version as well.

Might be a while getting back to you on those details (currently away from the PC and expecting to be for a couple of days) but I’ll update the post with them ASAP

With the stop code being a registry error, I’m worried that my windows installation is now corrupted. Any thoughts on this?

 

[johnbl]

registry error can have a lot of causes.
(loss of proper access to a drive.)

I would just turn the machine on and try to let windows boot.
if you can get it to boot, then you would start cmd.exe as an admin then run
dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

(this repairs corrupted windows files)

then turn off the system virtual memory and turn it back on to delete the pagefile.sys and create a new one. This helps dump corruption that may have been saved to the pagefile.sys and reloaded at startup.

I would also, run crystaldiskinfo.exe to read the smart data from your drive to check the drive health. Your drive came out in 2018
SSD drives might need firmware updates and will appear to shrink in size over time as firmware marks blocks as bad. you want to make sure there is plenty of free drive space on the drive and that the firmware is not bogged down.

ie if you can boot, delete files from the drive, then boot into bios and leave system powered on with the bios screen. after 5 minutes the drive firmware will attempt to run its internal firmware garbage collection to do repairs. Often with older drives or ones that are pretty full, windows will put the drive to sleep before the firmware clean up routines have time to run.

there are other causes for this same problem so let us know if you can get the machine to boot at all.

 

[Robert_B445]

registry error can have a lot of causes.
(loss of proper access to a drive.)

I would just turn the machine on and try to let windows boot.
if you can get it to boot, then you would start cmd.exe as an admin then run
dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

(this repairs corrupted windows files)

then turn off the system virtual memory and turn it back on to delete the pagefile.sys and create a new one. This helps dump corruption that may have been saved to the pagefile.sys and reloaded at startup.

I would also, run crystaldiskinfo.exe to read the smart data from your drive to check the drive health. Your drive came out in 2018
SSD drives might need firmware updates and will appear to shrink in size over time as firmware marks blocks as bad. you want to make sure there is plenty of free drive space on the drive and that the firmware is not bogged down.

ie if you can boot, delete files from the drive, then boot into bios and leave system powered on with the bios screen. after 5 minutes the drive firmware will attempt to run its internal firmware garbage collection to do repairs. Often with older drives or ones that are pretty full, windows will put the drive to sleep before the firmware clean up routines have time to run.

there are other causes for this same problem so let us know if you can get the machine to boot at all.

This particular drive is actually about 2 years old, so I would’ve assumed it’s not on its way out. Something to consider though. Thanks for the advice

You mentioned the error could have many causes - do you think it’s POSSIBLE that pushing the hardware too far caused this? Is this likely to be a one-off or indicative of a serious issue?

 

[johnbl]

This particular drive is actually about 2 years old, so I would’ve assumed it’s not on its way out. Something to consider though. Thanks for the advice

You mentioned the error could have many causes - do you think it’s POSSIBLE that pushing the hardware too far caused this? Is this likely to be a one-off or indicative of a serious issue?

generally no, if you assume you do not overclock anything, then if you push the hardware too hard you would set functions backing up and maybe timeouts. But, pushing the hardware can expose bugs in drivers. it is one of the most generic fixes for a bugcheck.
Update the bios and install the motherboard vendors drivers updates. (many drivers depend on bios version/fixes)
Windows may do updates the can depend on bios versions, windows will even update bios versions now on some machines but it is generally expected that the user does the bios updates.

for a bugcheck in file access you would update the cpu chipset drivers and any 3rd party SATA drivers (in the case of RAID )

 

[johnbl]

generally no, if you assume you do not overclock anything, then if you push the hardware too hard you would set functions backing up and maybe timeouts. But, pushing the hardware can expose bugs in drivers. it is one of the most generic fixes for a bugcheck.
Update the bios and install the motherboard vendors drivers updates. (many drivers depend on bios version/fixes)
Windows may do updates the can depend on bios versions, windows will even update bios versions now on some machines but it is generally expected that the user does the bios updates.

for a bugcheck in file access you would update the cpu chipset drivers and any 3rd party SATA drivers (in the case of RAID )

if you have a mini dump I can take a quick look at it.
(for questionable drivers, or extra copies of overclock drivers)