Windows 7 A series of system freezes and BSODs

[MrCheeseUK]

I've been getting a series of system freezes (black screen, clock on my Logitech gaming keyboard freezing for ~20s before the system resets) and BSODs for about 5 and a half months. Looking through the Event Viewer the first seems to have been 19th Jan 2012 while the latest was today. There seems to be no pattern to when they happen - some as soon as the Windows desktop loads, others after the PC has been on and running fine for hours. Most of the time I get freezes but from time to time I get the blue screens with errors such as 0x4e, 0x19, 0xA, 0xC2 and 0x24. Various internet searches have told me it could be hardware-related (particularly memory) or something to do with the registry. I did install two new memory sticks (the Corsair ones) around the 15th Jan (4 days before the first crash) and I seem to remember the system crashing during a programme install at around the same time. Looking through the Event Viewer shows each crash (84 to date) is marked by "Critical 07/06/2012 18:07:51 Kernel-Power Event ID:41 Task Category63)" with a total of 17 different BugcheckCodes of which 78 is the most common, followed by 26.

I've attached all the SF Diagnostics, CPU-Z and RAMMon readouts in the following zip file:

Link Removed

Any help would be most appreciated, thanks

EDIT - forgot to say that I've tried the Windows chkdsk and memory diagnostic and both came back clean (though the system crashed when Windows had booted right after the most recent memory diagnostic).

 

[Trouble]

Hello and welcome to the forum.
Start by updating a few drivers.
[TABLE="width: 1571"]
[TR]
[TD]ASACPI.sys[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]3/27/2005[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD]Link Removed[/TD]
[TD]Expand utilities, 12th one down ATK0110 driver for WindowsXP/Vista/Win7 32&64-bit[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]ps6ah4nb.sys[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]7/19/2007[/TD]
[TD]DiRT Enironment Driver[/TD]
[TD]Upgrade or uninstall or rename[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]pe3ah4nb.sys[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]7/19/2007[/TD]
[TD]DiRT Sync Driver[/TD]
[TD]Upgrade or uninstall or rename[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]RimSerial_AMD64.sys[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]11/24/2008[/TD]
[TD]RIM Virutual Driver (Blackberry)[/TD]
[TD]Link Removed - Invalid URL[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]lirsgt.sys[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]5/17/2009[/TD]
[TD]Copy Protection Tages SA[/TD]
[TD]TAGES, the AAA Copy Protection System[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]atksgt.sys[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]5/17/2009[/TD]
[TD]Copy Protection Tages SA[/TD]
[TD]TAGES, the AAA Copy Protection System[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

If Blue Screens persist, then;

Download Memtest86+ from this location here. Burn the ISO to a CD and boot the computer from the CD from a cold boot after leaving it off for an hour or more.
Ideally let it run for at least 7 passes / 6-8 hours. If errors appear before that you can stop that particular test. Any time Memtest86+ reports errors, it can be either bad RAM or a bad Mobo slot. Perform the test RAM sticks individually as well as all possible combinations. When you find a good one then test it in all slots. Post back with the results.
See this Guide to using Memtest 86+

Good luck
Randy

 

[MrCheeseUK]

Thanks! I've updated/uninstalled those drivers (can't find the Blackberry one to get rid of it though) and run Memtest for several passes on all four sticks of RAM individually and together. Memtest came back clean for all sticks but I thought I'd found the problem after running the test on one and booting Windows with only that stick installed: the system reset after the welcome screen twice in a row. Unfortunately, after testing the remaining sticks, I tried replicating the problem with the first one but it all booted fine.

Aside from this, there have been no BSODs/crashes since doing your suggestions - I'll post back if anything/nothing happens...!

 

[Trouble]

Thanks for the update, keep us posted and as for the,
RimSerial_AMD64.sys
it should be located here
C:\Windows\System32\Drivers
you can rename it RimSerial_AMD64.OLD
that should break it and keep it from loading.
Regards
Randy

 

[MrCheeseUK]

Unfortunately the problem is not fixed

My PC has just rebooted after a 0x4e BSOD which happened while watching a video on YouTube. I think I also had a freeze/reset on the 13th though it must have been when I left the computer booting and it reset during Windows startup.

Any ideas?

 

[Trouble]

Any ideas, would likely have to come from additional information. Like attaching new dump files to your post.
I would be happy to take a look to see if I can spot anything.
Pulling ideas out of thin air is above my paygrade.
Sorry
Randy

 

[MrCheeseUK]

Oops! Sorry!

I've just run the Minidump feature of the SF Diagnostics Tool and the newest .dmp is dated 19th May. Am I looking in the right place? If not, where would I find the new dump file?

The Windows Even Viewer says it was a Kernel-Power critical event with the following details:

[TD="width: 130"] EventData [/TD]

78

[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 130"] BugcheckCode [/TD]

0x99

[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 130"] BugcheckParameter1 [/TD]

0x1e1249

[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 130"] BugcheckParameter2 [/TD]

0x2

[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 130"] BugcheckParameter3 [/TD]

0x1e1102

[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 130"] BugcheckParameter4 [/TD]

false

[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 130"] SleepInProgress [/TD]

0

[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 15"][/TD]
[TD="width: 130"] PowerButtonTimestamp [/TD]

Thanks for your help

 

[Trouble]

Sounds like the latest one that I already have 051912-231973-01.dmp
Generally speaking they are located in the C:\Windows\MiniDump or just C:\Windows. Depending on how you have it configured.
Just do a search of your drive(s) for *.dmp and see what comes up.

 

[MrCheeseUK]

Hm. Neither of those locations have any other dmp files and a search reveals nothing new either.

051912-231973-01.dmp is the latest in the MiniDump folder.

 

[Trouble]

Unfortunately the problem is not fixed

My PC has just rebooted after a 0x4e BSOD which happened while watching a video on YouTube. I think I also had a freeze/reset on the 13th though it must have been when I left the computer booting and it reset during Windows startup.

Any ideas?

If the above 4e crash did not produce a dump, but was or is similar to your previous 4 or 5 4e dump files, where the Bug Check String was (BUGCHECK_STR: 0x4E_99) which suggests that a Page Table Entry or Page Frame Number is corrupt, then maybe you might want to consider testing your hard drive.
You can begin by using the native Check Disk utility Check your hard disk for errors
And perhaps follow that up by the vendor specific diagnostic software from your hard drive manufacturer's website.
Microsoft's canned answer for this stop error

1. Download and install updates and device drivers for your computer from Windows Update.
2. Scan your computer for computer viruses.
3. Check your hard disk for errors.

And

This error is typically caused by a driver passing a bad memory descriptor list. For example, the driver might have called MmUnlockPages twice with the same list.

SOURCE: Bug Check 0x4E: PFN_LIST_CORRUPT
So if nothing turns up or seems to be remedied by an exhaustive diagnosis of your hard drive(s).
It may be time to run Driver Verifier and see if it can single out the culprit (that is assuming of course it is not actually a faulty memory module or slot.... you did have that one off experience when running memtest earlier).
Anyhow here's a link explaining DV Link Removed - Invalid URL
Read it, print it and do your best to make sure you understand how to start it, what to check, what not to check and how to stop it in the event of any unintended problems.
Keep us posted
Randy

 

[MrCheeseUK]

Thanks. My previous Check Disk scans haven't found anything so I'll try the Driver Verifier and report back when it's done.

 

[MrCheeseUK]

Ok. I think the verifier is complete (the “Display information about the currently verified drivers” option seems to indicate there were no problems, see below). I left it running overnight so couldn't observe any BSODs it might have caused but there are no new dmp and the Event Viewer reports that nothing happened between 01:17 and 08:49 and when I got up the PC was fully booted.

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