Constant blue screens. Event viewer is blaming realtek audio

[shadowferix]

Build:
CPU: Intel i5 6500 3.2 GHz
GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 970 4gb
SSD: Samsung 750 EVO 500gb SSD
RAM: HyperX FURY Black 16GB Kit (2x8GB) 2133MHz DDR4
PSU: Coolermaster G550M Bronze Certified
MOBO: Asus Z170 Pro Gaming'
OS: Windows 10 64 bit
Cooling: Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO


I've been having blue screens on my computer for the past few months. I took it to a PC repair shop and they ran stress tests on my GPU and could not replicate the crashes. They went through my event viewer and saw that realtek hd audio was causing the crashes every single time. I tried disabling realtek and upgrading to the newest drivers for it but I'm still having the same issue. The blue screens stopped for a while and I thought it fixed itself but I was wrong. They pretty much come and go as they please. I think it started after the Fall Creators Update.

Yesterday I had a lot of blue screens. Not all the minidumps were saved though. I think this is because I got one blue screen and then it would attempt to restart and get another. I got about 3 blue screens before I was actually able to get back onto my computer.

1: System Service Exception What Failed: afd.sys
2: Kmode Exception Not Handled What Failed: NTFS.sys
3: System Service Exception (Nothing stated for what failed)

I've ran memtest86 about 4-5 times and my ram passed every time. I don't know if that's the issue but that's what my real life friends keep telling me. I'm already on my 3rd and 4th sticks and I don't even know if the others were bad or not because I didn't memtest them.

I have minidump files here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2qejfoqitf8uz63/022118-3359-01.dmp?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lyqbryzex1jbfui/022118-3375-01.dmp?dl=0

Like I said I'm completely lost and don't know what to do. I just want to be able to play video games in peace again without worrying about a random crash happening.

 

[Sedivy]

Er don't know about audio drivers. One of your dumps is blaming network drivers https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-hardware/tcpipsys-0x000000d1-driverirqlnotlessorequal/9382b38f-32a2-4527-820c-e79f902f41f1 and the other is a generic driver warning I think:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/insider_wintp-insider_perf/systemserviceexception-on-windows-10/86bef8fa-a29b-4b17-aa65-d44a961ee122
I would run driver check as well as memory check as instructed and if that doesn't help, try the /scannow : https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/insider_wintp-insider_install/how-to-repair-your-system-files-using-dism-and-sfc/1021b42a-09ff-41a0-a95a-48f3ee3ae699

 

[shadowferix]

Er don't know about audio drivers. One of your dumps is blaming network drivers https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-hardware/tcpipsys-0x000000d1-driverirqlnotlessorequal/9382b38f-32a2-4527-820c-e79f902f41f1 and the other is a generic driver warning I think:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/insider_wintp-insider_perf/systemserviceexception-on-windows-10/86bef8fa-a29b-4b17-aa65-d44a961ee122
I would run driver check as well as memory check as instructed and if that doesn't help, try the /scannow : https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/insider/forum/insider_wintp-insider_install/how-to-repair-your-system-files-using-dism-and-sfc/1021b42a-09ff-41a0-a95a-48f3ee3ae699

I did the driver verifier and it found something. I bluescreened on boot multiple times and had to start up in safe mode and disable the verifier to get back into my computer.

Here's the minidump it made:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/i8xb30qbewvnchd/022218-3515-01.dmp?dl=0

 

[Sedivy]

Huh. Ok well still a driver issue.
Try doing https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/929833/use-the-system-file-checker-tool-to-repair-missing-or-corrupted-system
Also go to your mobo support page here:
https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/Z170-PRO-GAMING/HelpDesk_Download/
and install all of the latest driver except for vga ones. Especially usb drivers as asmtxhci.sys from your latest dump implies usb controller. Or maybe something else plugged into a usb 3 port blaming the usb. Skip bios update.
If you have any extra hardware like sound cards, gaming keyboard/mice/headphones and such, go to manufacturer websites for each and download latest drivers and install.

 

[Karadjgne]

Realtek has had issues with Win10 since the Creators Edition was released. It has to do with how the drivers are written, they were closed ended and wouldn't accept usage of 64bit stuff/processing. Newer releases from vendors were supposed to fix all that with patches, but can still remain buggy. Happens Alot with audio, but just as often with lan and USB. Vendors (on the other hand) can be a little lax about updating mobo drivers, so best bet for Realtek is to go to the Realtek website and get drivers directly from them instead of via the vendors website. You'll need the chipset number to get the correct driver.

 

[shadowferix]

Huh. Ok well still a driver issue.
Try doing https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/929833/use-the-system-file-checker-tool-to-repair-missing-or-corrupted-system
Also go to your mobo support page here:
https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/Z170-PRO-GAMING/HelpDesk_Download/
and install all of the latest driver except for vga ones. Especially usb drivers as asmtxhci.sys from your latest dump implies usb controller. Or maybe something else plugged into a usb 3 port blaming the usb. Skip bios update.
If you have any extra hardware like sound cards, gaming keyboard/mice/headphones and such, go to manufacturer websites for each and download latest drivers and install.

I updated everything like you said. I ran the /scannow and it came back with no integrity violations. I decided to do another driver verifier and I crashed again immediately and had to boot into safe mode again. Maybe this dump will give more insight? I hope 🙁

https://www.dropbox.com/s/8q5p08tzv1gz08o/022218-2843-01.dmp?dl=0

 

[Sedivy]

https://community.logitech.com/s/feed/0D53100005J6mOLCAZ

Logitech driver that time. Read above link. Or uninstall logitech game panel software from the list of programs.
If still issues after this, might want to run a chkdsk /r and also an antivirus/malware scan.

 

[shadowferix]

https://community.logitech.com/s/feed/0D53100005J6mOLCAZ

Logitech driver that time. Read above link. Or uninstall logitech game panel software from the list of programs.
If still issues after this, might want to run a chkdsk /r and also an antivirus/malware scan.

I went with the uninstall logitech route. Did another verifier and crashed immediately again.

Dump is here :https://www.dropbox.com/s/32wabnrxaigo5hi/022218-3296-02.dmp?dl=0

Malwarebytes came back with no issues. I usually scan every week. I've also been told in the past I'm not supposed to do chkdsk on my SSD. Just wanted to be sure you want me to still do that if needed.

 

[Sedivy]

Well maybe not to do it obsessively on an ssd but certainly if you're worried about integrity of it (you could also use instead the tool that your disk comes with, or that can be downloaded from the ssd manufacturer's website, just to check its health) and at this point, I'm worried because this is turning into a whack-a-mole and that's suspicious. Usually indicated something else going wrong besides just a few drivers.
This time it's Virtual Multiple HID Driver (multitouch, mouse, digitizer, keyboard, joystick)
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-performance/constant-bsod-mostly-ntoskrnlexe/9a50e00d-2063-4358-994a-01a2d58f2cf8
but I wonder why so many drivers.
If the above solution doesn't help you might want to consider re-installing fall creators update or just uninstalling it until it's a little more stable on your system.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_install-winpc/how-to-use-the-rollback-function-in-windows-10/3e9e5c2d-239f-488c-9f48-64a226302657

 

[Karadjgne]

Run the Samsung Magician program, just make really sure you get the right version for that 7 series, the newer versions (I think it's 5+) don't play well with the older firmware. With all these different issues (you did run malwarebytes with root kit?) I'm starting to wonder if you aren't seeing an SSD failure. Malwarebytes is pretty good, but no av/malware software is perfect, they can only catch what the public reports and they write fixes for. I'd also run Hitman Pro or Spybot-Search and Destroy, just to be safe. But you said nothing about running AV. Malware and viruses are 2 totally different beasties, you'll need to run both as malwarebytes will not catch a virus attack, and few if any AV will stop malware. Root kit search should always be enabled, takes a little longer, but it's a must thing.

 

[johnbl]

the verifier bugcheck was in Virtual Joystick Driver
vmulti.sys Tue Sep 16 19:47:48 2014

https://sourceforge.net/projects/vjoystick/

looks like the stack got corrupted, I would remove the 2014 driver or see if there is a update.

 

[smorizio]

make sure your mb has all of the bios updates. check your gpu the evga line of gpu are known to have bad vrm and there been posting of them going up it flames. with a pc crashing and dropping bad files and drivers point to power issue and not hardware on the mb. start with pulling the gpu and using onboard video see if the pc more stable. download hardware info set it to logging and sensor see if the power supply is holding withing atx spec.

 

[doolittle]

dang, yea I am thinking a fresh install of 1709 is just what you need.

A good idea may be, to head over to ubuntu downloads and grab the latest 17.10.1 desktop ISO and get it on a USB then run it in live mode and just use the desktop normally - surf around using firefox, open up some dox in openoffice or libreoffice and most important do some Audio Capture testing and playback. Would be a very good hardware sanity check. Let it run over night and see if it's stable.

If all good under ubuntu, grab the latest MS Win10 1709 and do a fresh install.

 

[shadowferix]

Well maybe not to do it obsessively on an ssd but certainly if you're worried about integrity of it (you could also use instead the tool that your disk comes with, or that can be downloaded from the ssd manufacturer's website, just to check its health) and at this point, I'm worried because this is turning into a whack-a-mole and that's suspicious. Usually indicated something else going wrong besides just a few drivers.
This time it's Virtual Multiple HID Driver (multitouch, mouse, digitizer, keyboard, joystick)
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-performance/constant-bsod-mostly-ntoskrnlexe/9a50e00d-2063-4358-994a-01a2d58f2cf8
but I wonder why so many drivers.
If the above solution doesn't help you might want to consider re-installing fall creators update or just uninstalling it until it's a little more stable on your system.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_install-winpc/how-to-use-the-rollback-function-in-windows-10/3e9e5c2d-239f-488c-9f48-64a226302657

I tried to use the media creation tool provided in the article but I got an error every single time I tried to create a bootable flashdrive. Is there some other way I can do this? I've never had to burn a disk before to do an update I've always done everything using usb.

 

[shadowferix]

Run the Samsung Magician program, just make really sure you get the right version for that 7 series, the newer versions (I think it's 5+) don't play well with the older firmware. With all these different issues (you did run malwarebytes with root kit?) I'm starting to wonder if you aren't seeing an SSD failure. Malwarebytes is pretty good, but no av/malware software is perfect, they can only catch what the public reports and they write fixes for. I'd also run Hitman Pro or Spybot-Search and Destroy, just to be safe. But you said nothing about running AV. Malware and viruses are 2 totally different beasties, you'll need to run both as malwarebytes will not catch a virus attack, and few if any AV will stop malware. Root kit search should always be enabled, takes a little longer, but it's a must thing.

I ran the Magician for the SSD it says its good. I also ran an antivirus scan and another malwarebytes scan (enabling root kit search both times) and both came back clean. I also ran hitman pro and it came back with one threat. A tracking cookie. I doubt that was the cause of all this right?

 

[shadowferix]

the verifier bugcheck was in Virtual Joystick Driver
vmulti.sys Tue Sep 16 19:47:48 2014

https://sourceforge.net/projects/vjoystick/

looks like the stack got corrupted, I would remove the 2014 driver or see if there is a update.

I updated it but I don't know what this joystick driver is for. Do I even need this? Why is it on my computer? Is it part of something my mobo or a game I play installed?

 

[shadowferix]

make sure your mb has all of the bios updates. check your gpu the evga line of gpu are known to have bad vrm and there been posting of them going up it flames. with a pc crashing and dropping bad files and drivers point to power issue and not hardware on the mb. start with pulling the gpu and using onboard video see if the pc more stable. download hardware info set it to logging and sensor see if the power supply is holding withing atx spec.

I have no idea how to do the bios update for my mobo and I don't have any irl friends that are good enough with computers that could help me. There is a video tutorial on youtube for my specific board but I wasn't sure what files from the zipped folder I downloaded needed to be put on the flashdrive for the bios update. I just ended up leaving it alone because I really don't want to brick my mobo. I've considered getting a new graphics card but it's really costly and so far everything has pointed to drivers so I'd rather go that route first before shelling out money again for a graphics card. I can buy a new power supply if needed too I guess. I downloaded and am currently running hardware info but I'm not exactly sure where I should be looking.

 

[smorizio]

there three voltages the 5v rail the 3.3 and 12v rail.

 

[doolittle]

...I tried to use the media creation tool provided in the article but I got an error every single time I tried to create a bootable flashdrive. Is there some other way I can do this? I've never had to burn a disk before to do an update I've always done everything using usb.

There is a better way than the creation tool (has never worked for me), get the windows 10 ISO file then use the rufus utility to make the USB. Good guide on that here which clearly shows there are 2 ways to make it - for older PCs use MBR partition and NTFS filesystem. For newer PCs use GPT partition and FAT32 filesystem (which is probably what you want).

 

[Sedivy]

Yes sorry for joining in late. I would have used Rufus as well or gone manual to make it bootable: https://fossbytes.com/create-bootable-usb-without-software-windows-10-using-command-prompt/
Do not get new components if this only started with fall creators update. As was suggested, if you're worried at all about your hardware you can always go live usb ubuntu that won't install anything but will let you test your hardware. That way since no windows drivers are involved, if you don't have issues, you know it's a software problem. In either case, rolling back the 1709 should help some.

 

[shadowferix]

Yes sorry for joining in late. I would have used Rufus as well or gone manual to make it bootable: https://fossbytes.com/create-bootable-usb-without-software-windows-10-using-command-prompt/
Do not get new components if this only started with fall creators update. As was suggested, if you're worried at all about your hardware you can always go live usb ubuntu that won't install anything but will let you test your hardware. That way since no windows drivers are involved, if you don't have issues, you know it's a software problem. In either case, rolling back the 1709 should help some.

So I was able to make the bootable drive and I am now on 1703. I installed a few things I use (graphics card drivers, all mobo drivers like you mentioned before, along with discord and a game client I use) and ran driver verifier. Everything literally went to hell when I started it. Well not immediately. I restarted my comp and it didn't blue screen immediately like before so I thought, "awesome it works!", so I went to disable driver verifier and restart my comp and it blue screened after I clicked restart (it went too fast I don't know what the problem was) then I got back onto my computer and it was super laggy for everything. It took me at least 30 seconds to type verifier /reset in cmd because the blue screen prevented to reset last time I did it. I did this about 3 times before I booted into safe mode and was finally able to not lag on my computer anymore.

Anyway no more rambling. Sorry. I was able to take a picture of one blue screen. It said:
Driver verifier detected violation
What failed: e1d65x64.sys

Minidumps I got:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/al3gdnukmop9o1p/022318-1921-01.dmp?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rgyqi3hpu66k0uu/022318-14140-01.dmp?dl=0

 

[Sedivy]

Ok so one clarification on driver verifier. It's supposed to be stressing your drivers and making you crash. The idea is to see what's crashing you first. if you're stable, it should take a while to crash you (ideally this should take hours if you're not doing anything on the computer). That doesn't mean you should run it if you're not certain you're still having issues. Once you roll back, go into safe mode, turn off driver verifier, and then check how you're doing. You're not supposed to be running windows normally with it on because it'll be super laggy as you've seen:
https://superuser.com/questions/1006441/how-to-disable-driver-verifier-on-windows-10#1006537
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/5470-enable-disable-driver-verifier-windows-10-a.html
If it blue screened when you tried to disable, try the second link, and disabling from within command prompt on boot from windows usb/dvd or just from safe mode should be ok since it isn't loading most drivers in safe mode.
If you've already managed to actually disable it, then don't worry about it. Try your system for a while, see if you have issues.
From this last one you had a gigabit adapter network driver crash but I'm uncertain if it would truly happen if you just leave your system be for a while now. Just make sure you disable auto update to 1709 just so you don't end up back where you've started. See if you have issues now with driver verifier off and just on 1703.

 

[shadowferix]

Ok so one clarification on driver verifier. It's supposed to be stressing your drivers and making you crash. The idea is to see what's crashing you first. if you're stable, it should take a while to crash you (ideally this should take hours if you're not doing anything on the computer). That doesn't mean you should run it if you're not certain you're still having issues. Once you roll back, go into safe mode, turn off driver verifier, and then check how you're doing. You're not supposed to be running windows normally with it on because it'll be super laggy as you've seen:
https://superuser.com/questions/1006441/how-to-disable-driver-verifier-on-windows-10#1006537
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/5470-enable-disable-driver-verifier-windows-10-a.html
If it blue screened when you tried to disable, try the second link, and disabling from within command prompt on boot from windows usb/dvd or just from safe mode should be ok since it isn't loading most drivers in safe mode.
If you've already managed to actually disable it, then don't worry about it. Try your system for a while, see if you have issues.
From this last one you had a gigabit adapter network driver crash but I'm uncertain if it would truly happen if you just leave your system be for a while now. Just make sure you disable auto update to 1709 just so you don't end up back where you've started. See if you have issues now with driver verifier off and just on 1703.

So am I good now? I don't really know how to tell because like I said before it comes and goes. Do I need to set up my system so it won't ask me to update windows? If so for how long?

 

[doolittle]

Thinking 1703 was a step backwards - now you are in the same boat since you will eventually have to update at some point. MS is forcing 1709 because of spectre and meltdown - oh well just wait it out for the next 18xx release then upgrade to that.

 

[shadowferix]

Thinking 1703 was a step backwards - now you are in the same boat since you will eventually have to update at some point. MS is forcing 1709 because of spectre and meltdown - oh well just wait it out for the next 18xx release then upgrade to that.

I was on 1709 though and having these issues. Would redownloading the same version have done anything productive here? I know I didn't have any problems on 1703 when I was using it. Everything seemed to start as soon as I installed 1709.