Windows 7 BSOD NO Dump File

[Joe S]

I've had trouble with BSODS and screen freezes on and of for a couple of weeks. Sometimes there is no dumpfile and sometimes there is nothing in event viewer. I uninstalled Avast free and the problem was gone for 4 days. I've tried almost everything. Cleaning out dust updating drivers sfc scannow/ diskcheck. I also reinstalled an image from before the problems started I had another this morning but no log I attacked what I've found relating to it. This is a Windows 7 64 bit with 8 gig ram and a NVIDIA GT 9800 video card. It's a HP dt500.
Joe

 

[Trouble]

Rapidly running out of ideas.

[B]BugCheck A[/B], {100000101, 2, 1, fffff800046c8b36}
Probably caused by : ntkrnlmp.exe ( nt!KiDeliverApc+126 )
Followup: MachineOwner
[B]IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (a)[/B]
An attempt was made to access a pageable (or completely invalid) address at an
interrupt request level (IRQL) that is too high.  [U][I][B]This is usually
caused by drivers using improper addresses[/B][/I][/U].

Suggesting a driver issue, and you have a few old ones that could use some attention
[TABLE="width: 1225"]
[TR]
[TD]PxHlpa64.sys
[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]3/12/2008
[/TD]
[TD]Could be Sonic or any of a number of CD/DVD software products[/TD]
[TD]Update / Upgrade, uninstall or rename file extension to .OLD[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]vstor2-p2v30.sys[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]4/29/2008[/TD]
[TD]Looks like part of Vmware Software product[/TD]
[TD]Update / Upgrade wondering why it is so old.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]RxFilter.sys[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]8/11/2008[/TD]
[TD]Another maybe Roxio maybe Sonic[/TD]
[TD]Update / upgrade uninstall or rename file extension to .OLD[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]t3.sys[/TD]
[TD="align: right"]5/5/2009[/TD]
[TD]Sound Blaster Audio Driver[/TD]
[TD]Update / upgrade uninstall or rename file extension to .OLD[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
Not actually seeing any third party drivers in the stack trace, so assuming it is a driver issue we may want to resort to Driver Verifier. John (usama) Carrona has an excellent page here Link Removed explaining the ins and outs. It involves some risk so read it carefully and make sure you understand the good, the bad and the ugly.
Regards
Randy

 

[Joe S]

One thing I've noticed when there is a BSOD with Firefox open is that after reboot when you open it it is completely blank and appears like it's not doing anything. I it close it and reopen it then it loads fine. I'll try and see if there are any updates for the programs you mentioned and look at Driver Verifier settings. It seems like I had to add or copy a filter file for Roxio when I switched to Windows 7. One problem with updates is they don't always remove all of the old items. Thanks for the help.
Joe

 

[Joe S]

PxHlpa64.sys and RxFilter.sys Are part of Sonic in properties vstor2-p2v30.sys is part of VMware Converter and it is old software I can uninstall it if needed. I updated Sound Blaster . Then I tried renaming the Sonic and Sound Blaster files you postd and rebooted and there was no audio and this in event log Log Name: System
Source: Service Control Manager
Date: 8/31/2012 1:06:36 AM
Event ID: 7026
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: N/A
Computer: JoeS-PC
Description:
The following boot-start or system-start driver(s) failed to load:
PxHlpa64
RxFilter
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
<System>
<Provider Name="Service Control Manager" Guid="{555908d1-a6d7-4695-8e1e-26931d2012f4}" EventSourceName="Service Control Manager" />
<EventID Qualifiers="49152">7026</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x8080000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2012-08-31T05:06:36.375650700Z" />
<EventRecordID>655944</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="824" ThreadID="828" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>JoeS-PC</Computer>
<Security />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data Name="param1">
PxHlpa64
RxFilter</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>
It's frustrating It almost seems like the common thing in most of the crashes is Firefox which would include Adobe Flash and probably audio components. I may try uninstalling Firefox and Abobe Flash and reinstalling, Sometimes the updating instead of a clean install causes problems. I'll look at Driver Verifier when I have time to study it. Another frustration is that companies have been acquired and finding newer drivers is next to impossible. Thanks alot
Joe

 

[Trouble]

That would be an expected event viewer conditions after having renamed PxHlpa64 and RxFilter assuming something (a startup condition launching the dependent program, a registry entry, a related service) is still calling them and you renamed the extension to .OLD and subsequently broke them. That is not surprising and not actually even a concern. The idea, was, to break them and see if the computer stabilized.
The fact that you don't have sound is a concern and likely more related to the Sound Blaster update than the renaming of the other two drivers. I know it's difficult to get some Creative products working reliably if at all with Windows 7 as I myself gave away a perfectly good and not cheap Audigy2 zs a couple years ago, because I could never get it to work dependably with Windows 7 and I finally gave up. Still don't know if Creative got the drivers sorted out for that particular model but the guy running Windows XP was happy to have it.

 

[Joe S]

This last BSOD was slightly different than the others. This time there was a buzzing and there wasn't in any of the others. This is also the first time it happened watching a video. It seems all was fine until about a month or so ago when this started. The only real changes have been Firefox and Adobe Flash updates. Sometimes I wonder if Firefox is going down the drain like a lot of other good software that got to bloated up with constant change. So many software companies have merged or the version is no longer supported it's frequently difficult to find drivers if one gets corrupt. I'll do some more searching lather.
Joe

 

[Joe S]

Randy
Last night I decided to uninstall Abobe Flash and it's plugin for Firefox and Firefox itself. I used Revo uninstaller to uninstall the plugin and the Adobe uninstaller ran then during the cleanup portion there was a BSOD. Blue Screen View indicated a driver from Acronis snapman.sys . I did some searching and have noticed there seems to be an and off problems with Firefox Adobe Flash and Soundblaster. I've got Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme audio now. Can you suggest a good replacement? These BSODS seem to come shortly after updates to Firefox and the Flash. I didn'treinstall Firefox and am just using IE 9 now
Thanks for the help
Joe

 

[Trouble]

then during the cleanup portion there was a BSOD. Blue Screen View indicated a driver from Acronis snapman.sys . I did some searching and have noticed there seems to be an and off problems with Firefox Adobe Flash and Soundblaster. I've got Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme audio now. Can you suggest a good replacement?

What exactly are you asking, what are you looking to replace?
If you are asking about Acronis, then I would just recommend upgrading if your version is getting a little too old. I've seen snapman.sys mentioned in a few instances but it was usually a very old version. As far as a replacement, I've heard some people swear by Link Removed but personally I've always used Acronis.
As far as the sound card, if that is what you are asking about, I've pretty much been sticking with the integrated RealTek chips that come on most new boards now, since I got rid of my SB Audigy. Most of the new chips do a pretty good job. Not being an obsessive audiophile, all the bangs and booms in games sound fine to me and being a Dead Head, well the better you can here them, the worse they sound, so in short I haven't shopped lately for an upscale audio card and don't have a recommendation but perhaps someone else will.
Firefox, I use everyday as my default browser. But I stay on the Release Channel and away from Betas. So version 15.0 currently.
As far as Flash, I hate it, but what are you going to do. Seems they are in a race with Google to see who can have the most annoying updater.

 

[Joe S]

I was thinking about replacing the sound card if things stay stable without Firefox. It's frustrating that things were fine no new hardware or software installed and suddenly this mess. I've thought I had it a few times go for a week or so with no problems then another crash. It gets hard to rember updating minor things but the crashes seemed to be with a couple days of a Firefox or Flash update. I suspect the Firefox because most of the BSODs happen while using firefox. With all of the crashes something may also have got corrupt now. I may try an inplace upgrade and see if that helps. I'll get the pool closed next week and have more time then. I really appreciate the help and time you've taken.
Joe

 

[Joe S]

Randy
Looks like it's time for Memtest now. I got another BSOD today mentioning snapman I rebooted into safe mode and got another before I could even save the file. I booted from a UCB disk and the desktop loaded and had BSOD before I could get to dump files it mentioned hardware problem. I booted from Windows install disk and ran the memory test and it showed a problem at about 12% on the first pass. It's strange in the past week I have it used at over 7.5 G ram usage for about 15 min. Yesterday I used the virtual machine quite a bit and the load was over 4 G for almost 4 hours. It's definitely frustrating since the BDODs keep changing. I'll let you know what I find.
Joe

 

[Trouble]

Sounds like a plan.
Have you had an opportunity to eyeball the motherboard and just generally look it over for any sign of swollen or leaking capacitors? I am still a little concerned that the issue seems to be time linked to the power issues from the storms and or the rolling brown-outs.

 

[Joe S]

I ran 8 passes on the first stick with default setting and It passed. The second is on pass 6. From what I can see I don't see anything out of the ordinary in the mother board. I'll take a better look when I'm done testing ram and can lay the case down.
Joe

 

[Joe S]

Randy
The final stick is about half finished and the first 3 were OK. Is it possible that the surge protector might have something to do with this? Over at WD forum a lot of people have problems when they plug into a surge strip but it's OK when they go straight to the outlet. I've got everything plugged into one strip. I may try plugging the tower into a separate surge protector alone. I didn't see anything unusual looking on the mother board. I wonder if with all of the crashes there may be a general corruption problem now.I'll double check and make sure the other boards and plugs are tight before I close the case back up. Thanks for the help.
Joe

 

[Joe S]

Randy
All of the memory tested OK. I didn't have much luck with the HD test utilities. They are either propiertary or for x86 chips. I did download Crystal Disk I'll attach a snip. I'm going to get a voltmeter and check my surge protector voltage and see if that is part of the problem. Right now I have the tower only plugged into a different one. After the drives have been on for an hour or more they seems to settle in about 42 and 38.
Joe

 

[Joe S]

Randy
We had a a lot of scattered thunder storms over the weekend so I didn't get anything done. Tonight I used Revo Uninstaller and removed all of the Sound Blaster stuff. Also I removed Acronis TI 2010 and companion Snapapi. Now I'm running the in place upgrade. I'll ;et you know how things turn out. I don't think there is a simple way to cleanup all of the leftover Acronis stuff Thanks for all the help.
Joe

 

[Trouble]

Thanks for the followup and keep us posted as to how things are progressing.
Randy

 

[Joe S]

Well the in place upgrade was a waste of time. It finished the upgrade and a screen popped up saying it was repairing .Net 4 and Windows Update was running. Then another box popped up from Comodo about an unsigned driver and I selected do not install. Apparently automatic updated started there in background. I was left with the old and new Comodo firewall and neither would uninstall I found out later. Also my NVIDIA setting would not load even after updating the driver. I ran theWindows updated and updated some other drivers like Intel. Soundblaster wanted to update. When all of that was done I found out that there was no way to unistall either of the Comodo firewalls. So I went back to my image I created just before I started the upgrade. The time I wasted I could have probably done a clean install! I think XP repair install was better than this. I think I'll try Firefox again and if there are problems do a clean install of Windows. I'll let you know if I have more problems. I thought you'd like to know about the mess with Comodo for future reference. Maybe the install option was hidden behind the repair .net box but the only thing I saw about Comodo was the box about the driver. Thanks for all of your help.
Joe