SOLVED: Windows 8 BSOD - Kernel Data Inpage Error & Critical Process Died

[VenanceWindows]

Hello!

A couple of months ago I build a custom PC with the following specs:

• 
  ■ Windows 8 (Upgraded to 8.1)
  ■ 2 x 4GB RAM
  ■ 2 x 1TB HDD
  ■ Intel i5 CPU
  ■ ASRock Z87 Pro3 Motherboard
  ■ AMD Radeon HD 7900 GPU

Since the build, I have been getting a lot of BSODs with either ERNEL_DATA_INPAGE ERROR (volmgrx.sys) or CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED as the given term. Today alone, I have had 5 of these and they are driving me mad!

The downloads don't seem to be happening at any particular point, although perhaps when I am downloading large files. Before a crash, a lot of programs slow down and become Non-Responsive before going to the BSOD page. Sometimes, once the PC has reset itself, the HDD priority in the BIOS has switched around resulting in it looking on the 2nd HD for the OS (which isn't installed on it). From here I have to sort out the priorities in the BIOS and then Windows will load again.

To try to sort this out, I have done:

• 
  ■Upgraded to the latest BIOS from the ASRock website.
  ■Run a ChkDsk C: /f /r /x (which took several hours, lingering around 11% for most of it)
  ■Run 'SeaTools' on the main HDD (C: drive) which is a Seagate drive. (The shorter tests suggested everything was working fine).

This is all starting to worry me a lot so any help at all would be massively appreciated!

Thank you.

SOLUTION: So I found out the solution, and just wanted to post it so that if anyone has a similar problem, they know what could be causing it.

I tried to uninstall Steam (software for video games) and tried to redownload the games as this was where the main problem was. I thought perhaps it was a slightly corrupt version of steam. No luck; I kept getting Blue Screens.

Next, I got the minidumps analysed and found that there was a file in my antivirus which kept crashing - so I thought "Aha! I need to get a different Anti-virus". Unforunately, the blue screens kept on coming.

After all the different hardware pieces were tested that I could do (HDDs being fine (used SeaTools to test this), RAM being fine (used MemTest86 to test this)), and the odd symptoms of the BIOS settings changed around (such as HDD boot priority), I thought that it must be the motherboard (or the processor?). I edged my bets on it being the motherboard, so contacted the supplier and explained the situation. They sent over a new motherboard and asked for me to send the old one back. As soon as I changed things over, it all worked perfectly. Redownloaded all my games and some more software (over 300GB in total) without a single freeze or blue screen. Hope this helps somebody!

 

[johnbl]

post a mindump to a cloud service like skydrive and I will take a quick look at it with a debugger

 

[VenanceWindows]

post a mindump to a cloud service like skydrive and I will take a quick look at it with a debugger

Could you explain where to find the minidump? I think from looking before that not all BSODs managed to produce one (although occasionally it does!)

 

[johnbl]

the location depends on the OS version or OEM version, and can be a user specified location.
generally they will be in c:\windows\system32\minidump
look for files with extention of .dmp

here is info on how to change the location:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/204214-dump-file-change-default-location.html

post a mindump to a cloud service like skydrive and I will take a quick look at it with a debugger

Could you explain where to find the minidump? I think from looking before that not all BSODs managed to produce one (although occasionally it does!)

 

[VenanceWindows]

the location depends on the OS version or OEM version, and can be a user specified location.
generally they will be in c:\windows\system32\minidump
look for files with extention of .dmp

here is info on how to change the location:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/204214-dump-file-change-default-location.html

post a mindump to a cloud service like skydrive and I will take a quick look at it with a debugger

Could you explain where to find the minidump? I think from looking before that not all BSODs managed to produce one (although occasionally it does!)

That's great - thanks for the information! I'm just finishing running MemTest86 on it at the mo, then I'll have a look at it.

As I'm not to aware of what is in a minidump file, can you tell me what info it would contain (i.e. any personal info., or just a reference to what caused the crash)?

 

[VenanceWindows]

the location depends on the OS version or OEM version, and can be a user specified location.
generally they will be in c:\windows\system32\minidump
look for files with extention of .dmp

here is info on how to change the location:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/204214-dump-file-change-default-location.html

post a mindump to a cloud service like skydrive and I will take a quick look at it with a debugger

Could you explain where to find the minidump? I think from looking before that not all BSODs managed to produce one (although occasionally it does!)

Ok the Memtest86 came back with no errors and everything working fine.

I've run the minidumps through WhoCrashed and it suggests looking for updates to "ntdll.sys". I normally experience these crashes when downloading a game through Steam (although oddly not when running a game itself). Does this help at all?

 

[johnbl]

I will look at the minidump with a windows debugger. whocrashed will only detect a small fraction of the errors.
in this case it pointed to a system file but you need to know what program made the call to the system file.
(the system file is not the cause of the failure)

the location depends on the OS version or OEM version, and can be a user specified location.
generally they will be in c:\windows\system32\minidump
look for files with extention of .dmp

here is info on how to change the location:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/204214-dump-file-change-default-location.html

post a mindump to a cloud service like skydrive and I will take a quick look at it with a debugger

Could you explain where to find the minidump? I think from looking before that not all BSODs managed to produce one (although occasionally it does!)

Ok the Memtest86 came back with no errors and everything working fine.

I've run the minidumps through WhoCrashed and it suggests looking for updates to "ntdll.sys". I normally experience these crashes when downloading a game through Steam (although oddly not when running a game itself). Does this help at all?

 

[VenanceWindows]

I will look at the minidump with a windows debugger. whocrashed will only detect a small fraction of the errors.
in this case it pointed to a system file but you need to know what program made the call to the system file.
(the system file is not the cause of the failure)

the location depends on the OS version or OEM version, and can be a user specified location.
generally they will be in c:\windows\system32\minidump
look for files with extention of .dmp

here is info on how to change the location:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/204214-dump-file-change-default-location.html

post a mindump to a cloud service like skydrive and I will take a quick look at it with a debugger

Could you explain where to find the minidump? I think from looking before that not all BSODs managed to produce one (although occasionally it does!)

Ok the Memtest86 came back with no errors and everything working fine.

I've run the minidumps through WhoCrashed and it suggests looking for updates to "ntdll.sys". I normally experience these crashes when downloading a game through Steam (although oddly not when running a game itself). Does this help at all?

Hi again

I was just wondering, is there a chance that a minidump will contain any identifiable information at all (such as usernames, passwords, personal details)? As you can tell, I'm not used to this

 

[VenanceWindows]

So I found out the solution, and just wanted to post it so that if anyone has a similar problem, they know what could be causing it.

I tried to uninstall Steam (software for video games) and tried to redownload the games as this was where the main problem was. I thought perhaps it was a slightly corrupt version of steam. No luck; I kept getting Blue Screens.

Next, I got the minidumps analysed and found that there was a file in my antivirus which kept crashing - so I thought "Aha! I need to get a different Anti-virus". Unforunately, the blue screens kept on coming.

After all the different hardware pieces were tested that I could do (HDDs being fine (used SeaTools to test this), RAM being fine (used MemTest86 to test this)), and the odd symptoms of the BIOS settings changed around (such as HDD boot priority), I thought that it must be the motherboard (or the processor?). I edged my bets on it being the motherboard, so contacted the supplier and explained the situation. They sent over a new motherboard and asked for me to send the old one back. As soon as I changed things over, it all worked perfectly. Redownloaded all my games and some more software (over 300GB in total) without a single freeze or blue screen. Hope this helps somebody!

 

[johnbl]

Sounds like the vendor knew of a hardware issue with your particular version of motherboard. Cool that they replaced it without any fuss. Basically a kernel data inpage error is a disconnected drive that cannot auto reconnect. (no hotswap enabled) Also, results in no error logs or memory dump being stored on the disk.

So I found out the solution, and just wanted to post it so that if anyone has a similar problem, they know what could be causing it.

I tried to uninstall Steam (software for video games) and tried to redownload the games as this was where the main problem was. I thought perhaps it was a slightly corrupt version of steam. No luck; I kept getting Blue Screens.

Next, I got the minidumps analysed and found that there was a file in my antivirus which kept crashing - so I thought "Aha! I need to get a different Anti-virus". Unforunately, the blue screens kept on coming.

After all the different hardware pieces were tested that I could do (HDDs being fine (used SeaTools to test this), RAM being fine (used MemTest86 to test this)), and the odd symptoms of the BIOS settings changed around (such as HDD boot priority), I thought that it must be the motherboard (or the processor?). I edged my bets on it being the motherboard, so contacted the supplier and explained the situation. They sent over a new motherboard and asked for me to send the old one back. As soon as I changed things over, it all worked perfectly. Redownloaded all my games and some more software (over 300GB in total) without a single freeze or blue screen. Hope this helps somebody!

 

[VenanceWindows]

I actually got this from Amazon - I think they just have an amazing returns policy. I made sure to explain that I didn't really know what was going on when I spoke to them, but they seemed happy to do so anyway! The motherboard had actually had some minor tweaks to it to improve Intel compatability (according to the front of the box) so maybe this had something to do with it? Ah well - I'm just glad I have a working computer

Sounds like the vendor knew of a hardware issue with your particular version of motherboard. Cool that they replaced it without any fuss. Basically a kernel data inpage error is a disconnected drive that cannot auto reconnect. (no hotswap enabled)

So I found out the solution, and just wanted to post it so that if anyone has a similar problem, they know what could be causing it.

I tried to uninstall Steam (software for video games) and tried to redownload the games as this was where the main problem was. I thought perhaps it was a slightly corrupt version of steam. No luck; I kept getting Blue Screens.

Next, I got the minidumps analysed and found that there was a file in my antivirus which kept crashing - so I thought "Aha! I need to get a different Anti-virus". Unforunately, the blue screens kept on coming.

After all the different hardware pieces were tested that I could do (HDDs being fine (used SeaTools to test this), RAM being fine (used MemTest86 to test this)), and the odd symptoms of the BIOS settings changed around (such as HDD boot priority), I thought that it must be the motherboard (or the processor?). I edged my bets on it being the motherboard, so contacted the supplier and explained the situation. They sent over a new motherboard and asked for me to send the old one back. As soon as I changed things over, it all worked perfectly. Redownloaded all my games and some more software (over 300GB in total) without a single freeze or blue screen. Hope this helps somebody!