Random BSOD while playing Black Ops 2

[matrodriguez]

I recently have received a BSOD while playing Black Ops 2 (information in the picture below), and I'm not sure why. It's not an actual BSOD, but more of a system hang with a white, or a black screen. This has happened to me a few times. When I restart I get a windows error message indicating that the system has just recovered from a BSOD and the dump file information is as depicted below.

My first assumption is that this is a driver issue. I can play GW2, WoW, Crysis, Far Cry 3, and other GPU intensive games in Ultra settings without getting a BSOD or a hangup. During one play session of Black Ops, I had a system hang and the sound began to loop/play continuously. I thought I was going to have to restart, but the system came back, and Black Ops was not responding. When the system hangs, it has either a white screen, or a black screen, and the music I'm listening to plays as if it is never going to stop. (I have no better way of describing that ;p). I can't do anything during this hang and every time, except once, I've had to restart it.

In order to aid you guys in helping me, I did a few diagnostics beforehand to try to figure out what is causing this BSOD. I ran Furmark bench software to see if my GPU wasn't getting sufficient power, or maybe it was causing the system to BSOD because of heat or instability issues. I ran that for about 5 - 10 minutes, and the GPU stayed at 75 degrees celsius under max load, and the system didn't crash. Also, I have recently run Prime95 to test my overclock on my CPU. I ran the overclock while I was at work, and for 8 hours the CPU was under max load, and it stayed at a cool 60 degrees celsius.

As a gift, I received the Sandisk 32GB readycache, and this is where things get interesting. When I have to restart, the systems starts up tremendously slow, and the ready cache is not enabled. I hear a few "da dings" (the noise that plays when new hardware is detected) and then the ready cache software begins to load. It's entirely possible that playing video games while having this ready cache software enabled is causing the system to BSOD, but I would now know. It's just me guessing.

I'm thinking it's a driver issue with Black Ops 2. The reason why I think this is because of that one time when the system recovered, but Black Ops wasn't responding.

I am desperately hoping I don't have a bad GPU. I just bought this GPU, and I don't want to have to deal with an RMA. The stress test has indicated to me that it's highly unlikely that the GPU is faulty, but you guys would know much better than I would.

I appreciate the help, and if there is anything I can do to aid you in helping me, let me know. I can get anything you need.

Thanks,

Mat

AMD Phenom 965 Deneb Black Edition Overclocked to 4.0 GHZ
Undervolted to 1.48
Corsair Vengeance 16GB Ram
EVGA GTX660ti
32GB Sandisk Ready Cache SSD
Very Old 250GB Hitachi Drive (7200 rpm)
Western Digital Caviar Blue 320GB Drive (7200 rpm)
Coolermaster Hyper 212 PLUS
Asus M5A99X EVO Motherboard

Whocached Information

On Mon 2/18/2013 12:24:06 AM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\021713-20857-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x75C40)
Bugcheck code: 0x119 (0x1, 0x63E9BB, 0x63E9DA, 0x63E9D9)
Error: VIDEO_SCHEDULER_INTERNAL_ERROR
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 the video scheduler has detected a fatal violation.
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 2/18/2013 12:24:06 AM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\memory.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntkrnlmp.exe (nt!KeBugCheckEx+0x0)
Bugcheck code: 0x119 (0x1, 0x63E9BB, 0x63E9DA, 0x63E9D9)
Error: VIDEO_SCHEDULER_INTERNAL_ERROR
Bug check description: This indicates that the video scheduler has detected a fatal violation.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be identified at this time.

 

[locomoco321]

It's a driver issue, the same one I was having before, at least that's what I'm getting from the screenshot you posted. This happens if remnants of old drivers are still on your computer. So, have you recently updated any of your drivers? For some reason, ntoskrnl.exe crashes if your drivers were not properly cleaned when updating. And for some reason, from what I've noticed, this only happens to Kepler-based cards.

Follow these steps, and report back if anything happens:

Start>Control Panel>[Right Click] Computer>Manage>Device Manager>Display Adapters>[Double Click] (Primary Graphics Card)>Driver>Uninstall (Be sure to check the box that says something like "Delete Driver Software"

After, download this: http://www.techspot.com/downloads/4266-driver-sweeper.html It's just a driver sweeper that does a great job. Make sure you analyze BOTH AMD and nVidia drivers, and clean. Reboot your computer, then repeat the process with the driver sweeper, as some driver files don't get deleted the first time around.

From there, download the latest WHQL or Beta drivers from the GeForce website (http://www.geforce.com/) and install, selecting the custom install, so you can select clean install.

 

[matrodriguez]

I had a feeling that's what it was. It only happens with Black Ops 2. I'm going to do this then update you with what happens. Thanks a lot for your help and I'm glad I'm not the only one who has experienced this problem.

 

[matrodriguez]

Just recently was playing (literally 5 minutes ago) and the problem happened again.

I reinstalled the drivers, and had been playing for about 2 hours, and then randomly in the middle of a game the screen went dead black. The music I was playing in the background stopped and a loud noise that sounds a lot like a robot just played continuously, the music wasn't looping. I waited a bit, but the system didn't recover, so I hit my reset button.

When I logged back into Windows I expected there to be some kind of crash dump file for me to look at, but there wasn't one. Also, my cache drive and the software for the cache drive didn't start up when windows started. I heard a few "da dings" again (indicating something was being installed) and then the cache drive with the software was back up.

If I've reinstalled my GPU drivers there are only a few more things I can do to get this problem resolved. Either I have to RMA (which I seriously hope isn't the case) or I have to uninstall that Sandisk drive because it's causing instability with my system.

I don't know much about ram issues, but could it be possible that the ram is causing these issues? I'm going to re seat everything and wait on a response from one of you guys. Thanks

Edit#1 3:42

I went to take a shower and ran Furmark while I was in the shower. For the entire 20 minutes I was able to capture how my card was doing under what settings. I also took a screenshot of what it looks like. I figure if this software can hammer my GPU for 20 minutes hotter than Black Ops 2 ever reaches, then it should be fine. I have come to the conclusion that my GPU isn't bad, somethings up with another part of my computer.

My GPU ended the 20 minutes at 75 celsius, with no frames dropped, and everything was stable. Next, I am going to remove that cache drive and play for a few hours to see how things hold up.

 

[locomoco321]

Just recently was playing (literally 5 minutes ago) and the problem happened again.

I reinstalled the drivers, and had been playing for about 2 hours, and then randomly in the middle of a game the screen went dead black. The music I was playing in the background stopped and a loud noise that sounds a lot like a robot just played continuously, the music wasn't looping. I waited a bit, but the system didn't recover, so I hit my reset button.

When I logged back into Windows I expected there to be some kind of crash dump file for me to look at, but there wasn't one. Also, my cache drive and the software for the cache drive didn't start up when windows started. I heard a few "da dings" again (indicating something was being installed) and then the cache drive with the software was back up.

If I've reinstalled my GPU drivers there are only a few more things I can do to get this problem resolved. Either I have to RMA (which I seriously hope isn't the case) or I have to uninstall that Sandisk drive because it's causing instability with my system.

I don't know much about ram issues, but could it be possible that the ram is causing these issues? I'm going to re seat everything and wait on a response from one of you guys. Thanks

Edit#1 3:42

I went to take a shower and ran Furmark while I was in the shower. For the entire 20 minutes I was able to capture how my card was doing under what settings. I also took a screenshot of what it looks like. I figure if this software can hammer my GPU for 20 minutes hotter than Black Ops 2 ever reaches, then it should be fine. I have come to the conclusion that my GPU isn't bad, somethings up with another part of my computer.

http://i50.tinypic.com/20gmion.png
My GPU ended the 20 minutes at 75 celsius, with no frames dropped, and everything was stable. Next, I am going to remove that cache drive and play for a few hours to see how things hold up.

I forgot to mention that if you are using a cache drive, you need to disable caching when updating the drivers, because what is left on the cache drive is different than what is actually in your registry on your main drive. Try repeating what I wrote above, but this time, disable the cache drive and see what happens. I would also recommend downloading Prime95 (http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft/) and running a Small FFT test, as this will test both your processor and memory. Also, if you don't mind, could you list your complete system specs. This is just to test for any incompatibilities.