Windows 7 Experiencing up to 3 BSOD a day apparently randomly.

[Hazelei]

No obvious pattern in this. Can go a week or two with no issues then I get BSODs every day sometimes 3 and 4 in a day. It has happened once while asleep overnight too.

Only just begun photographing the BSODs

UNABLE TO UPLOAD PHOTOS FORGET I ASKED.


No idea why this is happening, I've checked with Windows that all drivers are up to date. Don't know what to do. Today when it started up again if failed to find OS ... so I switched it off again. It found it second time around. This is the first time it has done that.

 

[Trouble]

Hello and welcome to the forums.
First make sure your machine is configured properly to facilitate the collection of .dmp files.

Go to Start and type in sysdm.cpl and press Enter
Click on the Advanced tab
Click on the Startup and Recovery Settings button
Ensure that Automatically restart is unchecked
Under the Write Debugging Information header select Small memory dump (256 kB) in the dropdown box
Ensure that the Small Dump Directory is listed as %systemroot%\Minidump << where your .dmp files can be
found later.
Click OK twice to exit the dialogs, then reboot for the changes to take effect.

Then……
Please read the first post in this sticky thread here http://windowsforum.com/threads/how-to-ask-for-help-with-a-bsod-problem.178480/
Do your best to accumulate the data required.
Run the SF Diagnostic tool (download and right click the executable and choose run as administrator)
Download and run CPUz. Use the Windows snipping tool to gather images from all tabs including all slots populated with memory under the SPD tab.
Likewise RAMMon. Export the html report, put everything into a desktop folder that you've created for this purpose, zip it up and attach it to your next post (right click it and choose send to, compressed (zipped) folder.

 

[Hazelei]

Thank you. I will have a bash at all you've told me ....

 

[kemical]

Thread moved to correct section. As Trouble kindly pointed out please post your information and we'll get right on it..

 

[Hazelei]

Thanks. Having upload issues. The internet service isn't the best here. The rest to follow.

 

[kemical]

Hi Hazelei,
I've had a quick look at the stuff already sent and your RAM does look a bit odd:

The stick in slot 2 is different and giving out some odd numbers. This could be down to the actual stick itself becoming faulty.
Windows does have it's own memory testing app but it can often miss errors and the best app for the job is Memtest86. The latest version of which can be found here:
http://www.memtest.org/

To run Memtest86 you need to either burn a copy of it to disk or use a USB stick. If you look down the page you'll eventually find the latest version and it's associated downloads. If your burning to disk choose the pre-compiled iso zip. If your using a USB method then the corresponding download is the auto installer for a USB stick.
Once you have Memtest86 on the media you selected you'll then need to enter your bios and change the boot order so that the machine will boot from either the disk or stick you have Memtest86 on.
Run the test for at least 12hrs if possible unless it becomes clear that there is a issue. If there is a problem with the RAM you'll see the errors pop up in red so you can't miss them.

If you don't have a spare disk or USB stick to run memtest86 from then you could try simply removing the stick in slot 2 and see how your machine runs. If you find everything runs fine then you've probably got the culprit.

Saying all this though I'd still like to see your dump files if you have any.

 

[Hazelei]

Thanks for your help so far.
Internet running at 8.1kbps at the moment - so getting nowhere with uploads. *Sigh*.
We did swap out the RAM the other day, but experienced a crash dump within 45 mins - so put originals back in after cleaning the slots.
I'll keep on trying to get the rest of the files uploaded - at this rate it might be tomorrow.

 

[Hazelei]

Hoping this uploaded in full.

 

[kemical]

Hi Hazelei,
if it helps any you could upload the files to something like DropBox:
https://www.dropbox.com/

Or whatever suits you best. In any case as soon as you have the dump files uploaded we'll take a look.

 

[Hazelei]

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?res...1103&authkey=!AJ88UWMyNlmwz_A&ithint=file,zip

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?res...1104&authkey=!AHVdwwnwnwNKyV4&ithint=file,zip

One Drive do?

 

[kemical]

Perfect.. I got them will have a look now..

 

[kemical]

*******************************************************************************
*                                                                             *
*                        Bugcheck Analysis                                    *
*                                                                             *
*******************************************************************************

Use !analyze -v to get detailed debugging information.

BugCheck D1, {fffffa452d4d4f66, 2, 1, fffff880045c9fbb}

*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for hssdrv6.sys
*** ERROR: Module load completed but symbols could not be loaded for hssdrv6.sys
Probably caused by : hssdrv6.sys ( hssdrv6+2fbb )

Followup: MachineOwner

Hi,
looking through the dump files sent I noticed that only 4 are actually from this year and indeed they stretch all the way back to 2011. Some refer to apps which are no longer installed (Zone alarm being one). As your system may have changed and had fixes applied (like service packs etc) I'll only concentrate on the most recent.

A number of dump files did blame the above probably cause:

hssdrv6.sys Sat May 17 03:34:57 2014: Hotspot Shield Routing Driver Possible BSOD cause. Try updating although if the bsod continues remove to test.:
http://www.hotspotshield.com/

Also regarding the above RAM, going by what you say you had already tried changing the RAM but changed back to the original sticks due the machine blue screening. If this the case then please run Memtest86 as outlined above.

To check on the state of corruption within Windows please run the system file checker. You can do this by finding command prompt in the start menu, right click on it, run as administrator and type:
sfc /scannow
Press enter and await results.

Laptop drivers are almost always supplied by the manufacturer and your support page should you need it is here:
http://support.toshiba.com/support/modelHome?freeText=2681250

BiosVersion = V2.60
BiosReleaseDate = 06/11/2010
SystemManufacturer = TOSHIBA
SystemProductName = Qosmio X505
You also have Bios updates available. Please double check i have the correct page for your device before completing any update.

 

[Hazelei]

This laptop has been crash-dumping since practically coming out of the box. It has, however become more frequent - and like I say, up to 3 per day, so why there are only 4 reports for this year - when I've had that many in the last week, I don't know.
I shall attempt the procedures you have outlined, and get back.

 

[Hazelei]

Here is scan result.

 

[Hazelei]

"Once you have Memtest86 on the media you selected you'll then need to enter your bios and change the boot order so that the machine will boot from either the disk or stick you have Memtest86 on."

You're assuming I actually know what this means and how to do it. I'm not that computer literate - or else I wouldn't be here

 

[kemical]

Well Windows looks ok at least.

Regarding the RAM, perhaps an easier way for you to test would be to run the machine on one stick of RAM at a time. Remember the bad stick I pointed out above? (slot 2) Try removing that and just running on the stick in slot one and see how you go. If worst comes to the worst we can always go down the memtest86 route another time.