help please: I am trying to solve the BSOD mystery! Getting lots of "random" BSOD's (multiple bug check strings)

[dazinger92]

Hi,

So I recently purchased a new motherboard, CPU, RAM, and a SSD and installed Windows 8.1 on it. Everything installed smoothly and there were no problems in the beginning.

That is, until yesterday at 1 AM (EST). I was about to fall asleep when I noticed that my PC rebooted. Went to check BlueScreenView and that's when I found the first crash dump.

Checked memory with memtest+ (4x4GB sticks) for 8 hours / for 5 passes and got no errors. I also tried increasing the voltage for the RAM by 0.05v to see if that might have been the issue, and no luck.

Also tried using Driver Verifier, but it crashed before I could log on so I had to use a system restore point.

There are four minidumps. The first BSOD happened while idling. The second and third BSOD happened while playing Dead Space. The fourth happened when I closed Minecraft.

I can't figure out how to upload the dump files here, so if you need them I can upload it using dropbox or something.


But I got the following bug check strings (in chronological order):

KERNEL_STACK_LOCKED_AT_EXIT (0x00000094, caused by address ntoskrnl.exe+14dca0)
SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION (0x0000003b, caused by address CL.dll+0)
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (0x0000000a, caused by address ntoskrnl.exe+14dca0)
DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (0x000000d1, caused by address hal.dll+27de9)


I'm stumped. Maybe someone else with more knowledge than me can put two and two together?

 

[JuX]

I've had a similar bsod and random driver crashes from the point I've got my PC - almost 4 years now, though I'm using w7. Seemed like all I had to do was to let the windows load and then turn the power on/off. And it never happened again as long as my computer was on or 3 hours from turning it on again. Yeah, I know it's strange but I've searched all of the internet for it and never found a solution.

 

[dazinger92]

I've had a similar bsod and random driver crashes from the point I've got my PC - almost 4 years now, though I'm using w7. Seemed like all I had to do was to let the windows load and then turn the power on/off. And it never happened again as long as my computer was on or 3 hours from turning it on again. Yeah, I know it's strange but I've searched all of the internet for it and never found a solution.

Hmm...

Well, I do think that I never tried forcing a shut down and then rebooting, as opposed to simply restarting the computer through Windows (which I don't think really shuts down the computer, right?)


So maybe I'll try playing games again and see what happens. Although I would predict that I would get another BSOD, perhaps IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL since that was my last two BSOD errors.

I remember having issues in high school with my Nvidia 9500 GT; for whatever reason, when I played games, there were driver issues and it caused BSOD's -- though, it was much easier to fix because with Blue Screen View I could tell that it was an Nvidia driver. The problem was that I switched from ATI to Nvidia on the same Windows configuration without uninstalling the ATI drivers. Woops!

But I don't think that's happening this time. This is a clean install. The SSD is brand hew, and I used SSDlife Pro to check it to make sure and I got no issues there.

Though, I did upgrade from 8 to 8.1, and I had the BSOD's since upgrading to 8.1. But, I reinstalled the drivers just to make sure this wouldn't happen! So I have no idea.

 

[JuX]

Well I've had driver and other system failures - like google chrome dying and really weird stuff. Replaced graphic card (from nvidia to ati), and I'm still having catalyst control center crash sometimes at first boot. But everything works perfectly on turning the power on/off - a simple restart never does the job, really weird. :S
And I've had my PC checked by a lot of people who know their stuff, but with no avail.

 

[dazinger92]

Well, I had another BSOD. Like I predicted, it threw an IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL again.

Here's what WhoCrashed said about the BSOD's:

Spoiler

Crash dump directory: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump

Crash dumps are enabled on your computer.

On Tue 12/17/2013 10:42:20 PM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\121713-10078-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x14DCA0)
Bugcheck code: 0xA (0xFFFFE0200B546198, 0x2, 0x0, 0xFFFFF800956B4F5B)
Error: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This indicates that Microsoft Windows or a kernel-mode driver accessed paged memory at DISPATCH_LEVEL or above.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be identified at this time.



On Tue 12/17/2013 10:42:20 PM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\memory.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: wow64cpu.sys (wow64cpu!TurboDispatchJumpAddressEnd+0x598)
Bugcheck code: 0xA (0xFFFFE0200B546198, 0x2, 0x0, 0xFFFFF800956B4F5B)
Error: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
Bug check description: This indicates that Microsoft Windows or a kernel-mode driver accessed paged memory at DISPATCH_LEVEL or above.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error. It is suggested you look for an update for the following driver: wow64cpu.sys .
Google query: wow64cpu.sys IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL



On Tue 12/17/2013 7:11:49 PM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\121713-7500-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: e22w8x64.sys (0xFFFFF80002FB405F)
Bugcheck code: 0xD1 (0xFFFFCF8006EC4DD0, 0x2, 0x0, 0xFFFFF80002FB405F)
Error: DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\e22w8x64.sys
product: Killer e2200 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller
company: Qualcomm Atheros, Inc.
description: Killer e2200 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller
Bug check description: This indicates that a kernel-mode driver attempted to access pageable memory at a process IRQL that was too high.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error. It is suggested you look for an update for the following driver: e22w8x64.sys (Killer e2200 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller, Qualcomm Atheros, Inc.).
Google query: Qualcomm Atheros, Inc. DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL



On Tue 12/17/2013 5:51:10 PM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\121713-10031-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x14DCA0)
Bugcheck code: 0xA (0x201000234, 0x2, 0x1, 0xFFFFF803114C66BA)
Error: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This indicates that Microsoft Windows or a kernel-mode driver accessed paged memory at DISPATCH_LEVEL or above.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be identified at this time.



On Tue 12/17/2013 1:02:22 AM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\121613-7562-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x14DCA0)
Bugcheck code: 0x3B (0xC0000005, 0xFFFFF80245D0614B, 0xFFFFD000282E56B0, 0x0)
Error: SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION
file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This indicates that an exception happened while executing a routine that transitions from non-privileged code to privileged code.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be identified at this time.



On Mon 12/16/2013 5:59:48 AM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\121613-10796-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x14DCA0)
Bugcheck code: 0x94 (0x0, 0xFFFFE00005666080, 0x0, 0x0)
Error: KERNEL_STACK_LOCKED_AT_EXIT
file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This bug check indicates that a thread exited while its kernel stack was marked as not swappable
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be identified at this time.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conclusion
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6 crash dumps have been found and analyzed. 2 third party drivers have been identified to be causing system crashes on your computer. It is strongly suggested that you check for updates for these drivers on their company websites. Click on the links below to search with Google for updates for these drivers:

e22w8x64.sys (Killer e2200 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller, Qualcomm Atheros, Inc.)
wow64cpu.sys

If no updates for these drivers are available, try searching with Google on the names of these drivers in combination the errors that have been reported for these drivers and include the brand and model name of your computer as well in the query. This often yields interesting results from discussions from users who have been experiencing similar problems.


Read the topic general suggestions for troubleshooting system crashes for more information.

Note that it's not always possible to state with certainty whether a reported driver is actually responsible for crashing your system or that the root cause is in another module. Nonetheless it's suggested you look for updates for the products that these drivers belong to and regularly visit Windows update or enable automatic updates for Windows. In case a piece of malfunctioning hardware is causing trouble, a search with Google on the bug check errors together with the model name and brand of your computer may help you investigate this further.

I'm starting to feel a little tired today. What could I be missing here? Any advice that will take me in the right direction would be really great!

 

[dazinger92]

Okay,

This is my final post for today. I am very tired and I need to get plenty of sleep as I will have to start packing for winter break.

There has been no other BSOD's since the one from a few hours ago as stated from my above post. I also set the voltage of the RAM back to 1.5v as that wasn't the issue at all.

Here are my system specs:

Gigabyte ga-g1 sniper m5 motherboard
i5 4670k haswell CPU (no OC)
4x4GB Ripjaws X DDR3-1600 memory (again, no OC)
Samsung SSD 840 Pro Series (with Windows 8.1 installed on it)
1TB HDD from my old build
Radeon HD 6570 (had for two years, got it for free)
Power supply is, I think, 500W (some Rosewill power supply), non-modular

I think that's it. I don't know what's wrong, but I'm going to leave my PC on overnight. I don't want to run memtest+ again because Haswell ran pretty hot last night while it was on, averaging between 80c-90c! I know it's built to withstand that kind of temperature, but I don't want to jump the gun here. I ran memtest+ for 5 passes yesterday and I got zero errors, so I am doubtful that it is actually a RAM issue. Although I could be wrong, but I want to hope that I am not.

So, again, if anybody out there reading this knows their stuff, or knows someone who might, I would appreciate any kind of help you can give!!!

 

[dazinger92]

So, today's a new day and I decided to solve a couple issues that I was having.

1.) First issue I fixed was with the excessive CPU heat coming from running memtest+. It was reaching ~85c on average! The problem was that the HSF was not put in all the way on one of the four pins (my fault) but now it runs at least 20c cooler.

2.) Second issue was that I couldn't boot into Windows while using Verifier because it would BSOD as soon as it reached the logon screen in Windows 8/8.1. I found out that it was happening because of my killer e2200 driver (e22w8x64.sys) being checked with Verifier, and as a result I got the DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (caused by e22w8x64.sys) not more than 30 seconds after booting up.

I don't know if that is enough to conclude that the problem I had was because of that driver specifically, or maybe Verifier just broke it by accident (why would it do that?) I'm running Verifier now, so I'll attempt to keep it running for as long as I need it to.