Windows 7 Infrequent BSOD involving page fault in nonpaged area ntoskrnl.exe

[ChicagoPaul]

Hello, and thank you in advance for taking a look at my problem. I tried to research as much as I could on my own, but I've hit a wall and figured it'd be best to actually ask someone for advice. Please bear with me, as I want to be as thorough as possible, so I apologize in advance if I'm far too wordy.

I put together a new system recently and everything seems to be running smoothly for the most part. I ran benchmarks, played games, etc etc, and ran into very few problems at all; those few being the BSOD.

One of the patterns I've noticed is I only seem to get BSODs when running something that involves my videocard. For example, I've had 3 BSOD errors while running World of Warcraft, and once while running netflix.

When I say infrequent, I mean there is no common peak where I know I might get a BSOD (like overheating, which my card doesn't do). For example, i've played WoW for hours, running groups and doing things that would be a big load on my computer and have had no issues, but one BSOD involved me joining a group somewhere, and another BSOD involved me trying to exit the game.

With Netflix it only happened once, but the error occurred when netflix auto-loaded the next video to be played.

All of the crash dumps seem to point to the ntoskrnl.exe file as being the culprit (in 2 cases it pointed to 2 other files as well), but that doesn't seem to make much sense, so that's why i'm now asking you guys for advice.

My current system specs are (Everything is stock; no overclocking has been done):
Windows 7 X64 Ultimate
Intel i5 3750k
ASRock Z77 Extreme 4 motherboard
Sapphire 5750 HD 1gb videocard
Ballistix 8gb (2x4gb) DDR3 1600 ram
Samsung 830 series 128gb SSD as the OS drive

Things that I have done and tested thus far:
Ran chkdsk /f
Checked the SMART status using Defraggler
/scannow
Uninstalled and reinstalled videocard drivers
Updated the BIOS firmware
Ran memtest 4.0 for several hours (sometime during the night the screen became filled with a weird pattern of characters, but it stated that the memory had no errors)
Reseated memory in different slots and ran memtest 4.2 for 8 passes with no errors
and since the last BSOD (yesterday) I went into the bios and changed the setting that makes it so it recognizes my samsung drive as an SSD drive. Not sure if that would help, but I figured why not.

So now i'm at a loss for what to do. A part of me wants to say it's my videocard, but I can't find anything definitive, as i've also tried running Furmark which stressed my videocard to go up to I think it was 62 or 63C, but my card never gets anywhere near that hot when watching netflix or playing WoW, so that's why I don't believe it to be an overheating issue, especially since I didn't bluescreen during the test.

In the attachment is the W7 diagnostic tool upload, screenshots of the CPUID, and a copy of the RAMMon HTML report.

If I can think of anything else, than I will chime in, but I now leave this in your hands. Thank you.

 

[ChicagoPaul]

Another thing i'm doing now is running driver verifier and seeing how that goes. If anyone else has any other suggestions or ideas then I'm all ears!

 

[usasma]

Video card issues are suspected - and you have video issues running MemTest
Run Furmark (you have it installed already) and the other video tests in this link: Link Removed

ntoskrnl.exe is the kernel (core) of the operating system - and as such, it's a protected operating system file - so it's unlikely that it's the problem. We suspect (in cases like this) that it's something else that's causing ntoskrnl.exe to crash.

SP1 isn't installed, please do the following:

Installing Windows 7 Service Pack 1
1. Visit the PC manufacturer's website and update ALL drivers. DO NOT use Windows Update or the "Update drivers" function of Device Manager.
2. Check Device Manager for any unknown/disabled devices - if there are unknown/disabled devices, fix them with the latest drivers from the device manufacturer's website (not the PC Manufacturer)
3. Visit Windows Update and get all updates (may take repeated visits)
4. Visit Windows Update and get Service Pack 1 (usually under Important Updates). Read these notes for installing SP1: Steps to follow before you install Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 from the Microsoft Download Center
5. Visit Windows Update and get any other available updates. May take repeated visits, but keep it up until you get several "Windows is updated" results.
If you're having difficulties with installing a Service Pack, please use the SURTool from this link: What is the System Update Readiness Tool?
Also, check out this troubleshooting link from Microsoft: Troubleshoot problems installing Service Pack 1 (SP1) for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2

I have had limited success in installing updates/Service Packs when using a "clean boot". I suspect that I'm just bypassing the problem - and that it can come back to bite me in the butt later on.

We've seen a number of BSOD issues with SSD's. Here's the information that I've compiled so far:

There's not a whole bunch available to test SSD's. The "easiest" test is to remove the SSD, install a platter-based hard drive, install Windows and test for stability that way.

Here's some suggestions:
- Update the SSD's firmware to the latest available version (VERY IMPORTANT!!!)
- Update the motherboard controllers drivers to the latest available version from the controller manufacturer (NOT the mobo manufacturer unless you can't find any on the controller manufacturer's website)
- Slow the memory (RAM) down to the next slower speed (I've only seen one person who claimed that this worked for them).
- Use any manufacturer's utilities that you may have. If you don't have any, then try this free one (I haven't used it myself): Crystal Dew World
- Update chipset and storage controller drivers to the latest available from the manufacturer of the device (not the manufacturer of the motherboard). Be sure to update ALL controllers on the motherboard!
....NOTE: Recently (Nov 2011) we had BSOD issues with the Marvell 91xx controller and an SSD. You may have to switch controllers also.
- Replace the SSD with a platter based hard drive and see if that stops the BSOD's. If it does, then it's likely that there's a problem with the SSD OR an incompatibility with your system.
It's my opinion that SSD's aren't reliable enough (with current hardware) to be used on a system that needs to work reliably. Until I see reliability I will not recommend, nor will I use, SSD's for critical applications.
06 Dec 2011 - This post tends to confirm issues with certain SSD chipsets and certain controllers - [SOLVED] cant find the cause of BSOD F4 - Tech Support Forum
29 May 2012 - The frequency of BSOD's with SSD's seems to have been decreasing over the last several months. It may be approaching time to re-evaluate my stand on their suitability for use in production systems.

D: drive only has 10% free space. 15% is recommended for optimum performance.

Here are the listed problem devices:

RigKontrol3 USB\VID_17CC&PID_1940\SN-2GW2SCF3_____ The drivers for this device are not installed.

Not Available ACPI\INT33A0\0 The drivers for this device are not installed.

Universal Serial Bus (USB) Controller PCI\VEN_1B21&DEV_1042&SUBSYS_10421849&REV_00\4&37A73C8A&0&00E7 The drivers for this device are not installed.

Native Instruments RigKontrol3 must have drivers installed.
The ACPI\INT33A0 device is most likely an Intel Smart Connect Technology driver and must be installed
The USB controller is most likely your USB 3.0 controller and must have it's drivers installed.

Analysis:
The following is for information purposes only.

[font=lucida console]**************************Wed Sep 19 02:35:21.291 2012 (UTC - 4:00)**************************
Loading Dump File [C:\Users\John\_jcgriff2_\dbug\__Kernel__\091912-10467-01.dmp]
Windows 7 Kernel Version [B]7600 [/B]MP (4 procs) Free x64
Built by: [B]7600[/B].17017.amd64fre.win7_gdr.120503-2030
System Uptime:[B]2 days 11:11:51.181[/B]
BugCheck Code: [B]BugCheck 50, {ffffe8a022151cb0, 1, fffff880053e1ca1, 7}[/B]
*** WARNING: Unable to verify checksum for win32k.sys
Probably caused by :[B]dxgmms1.sys ( dxgmms1!VidMmInterface+203e1 )[/B]
BugCheck Info: [B]PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA (50)[/B]
DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID:  WIN7_DRIVER_FAULT
BUGCHECK_STR:  0x50
PROCESS_NAME: [B]System[/B]
FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: [B]X64_0x50_dxgmms1!VidMmInterface+203e1[/B]
CPUID:        "Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570K CPU @ 3.40GHz"
MaxSpeed:     3400
CurrentSpeed: [B]3400[/B]
  BIOS Version                  P2.10
  BIOS Release Date             09/10/2012
  Manufacturer                  To Be Filled By O.E.M.
  Product Name                  To Be Filled By O.E.M.
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨``
**************************Thu Sep 13 23:34:36.705 2012 (UTC - 4:00)**************************
Loading Dump File [C:\Users\John\_jcgriff2_\dbug\__Kernel__\091312-8876-01.dmp]
Windows 7 Kernel Version [B]7600 [/B]MP (4 procs) Free x64
Built by: [B]7600[/B].17017.amd64fre.win7_gdr.120503-2030
System Uptime:[B]0 days 2:23:53.985[/B]
BugCheck Code: [B]BugCheck 50, {ffffda80096f95b8, 1, fffff88004805eea, 7}[/B]
*** WARNING: Unable to verify checksum for win32k.sys
Probably caused by :[B]dxgmms1.sys ( dxgmms1+5eea )[/B]
BugCheck Info: [B]PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA (50)[/B]
DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID:  WIN7_DRIVER_FAULT
BUGCHECK_STR:  0x50
PROCESS_NAME: [B]System[/B]
FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: [B]X64_0x50_dxgmms1+5eea[/B]
CPUID:        "Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570K CPU @ 3.40GHz"
MaxSpeed:     3400
CurrentSpeed: [B]3405[/B]
  BIOS Version                  P1.40
  BIOS Release Date             05/14/2012
  Manufacturer                  To Be Filled By O.E.M.
  Product Name                  To Be Filled By O.E.M.
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨``
**************************Thu Sep 13 21:09:48.172 2012 (UTC - 4:00)**************************
Loading Dump File [C:\Users\John\_jcgriff2_\dbug\__Kernel__\091312-10046-01.dmp]
Windows 7 Kernel Version [B]7600 [/B]MP (4 procs) Free x64
Built by: [B]7600[/B].17017.amd64fre.win7_gdr.120503-2030
System Uptime:[B]3 days 6:34:23.436[/B]
BugCheck Code: [B]BugCheck 50, {ffffd8a00a3e4f58, 1, fffff880053aeb7d, 7}[/B]
Probably caused by :[B]dxgmms1.sys ( dxgmms1!VidMmInterface+f2bd )[/B]
BugCheck Info: [B]PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA (50)[/B]
DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID:  WIN7_DRIVER_FAULT
BUGCHECK_STR:  0x50
PROCESS_NAME: [B]Wow-64.exe[/B]
FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: [B]X64_0x50_dxgmms1!VidMmInterface+f2bd[/B]
CPUID:        "Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570K CPU @ 3.40GHz"
MaxSpeed:     3400
CurrentSpeed: [B]3400[/B]
  BIOS Version                  P1.40
  BIOS Release Date             05/14/2012
  Manufacturer                  To Be Filled By O.E.M.
  Product Name                  To Be Filled By O.E.M.
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨``
**************************Mon Sep 10 14:34:47.769 2012 (UTC - 4:00)**************************
Loading Dump File [C:\Users\John\_jcgriff2_\dbug\__Kernel__\091012-10467-01.dmp]
Windows 7 Kernel Version [B]7600 [/B]MP (4 procs) Free x64
Built by: [B]7600[/B].17017.amd64fre.win7_gdr.120503-2030
System Uptime:[B]2 days 9:34:23.049[/B]
BugCheck Code: [B]BugCheck 50, {ffffda800bd30158, 1, fffff80002c78144, 7}[/B]
Probably caused by :[B]ntkrnlmp.exe ( nt!ExAcquireResourceExclusiveLite+54 )[/B]
BugCheck Info: [B]PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA (50)[/B]
DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID:  WIN7_DRIVER_FAULT
BUGCHECK_STR:  0x50
PROCESS_NAME: [B]firefox.exe[/B]
FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: [B]X64_0x50_nt!ExAcquireResourceExclusiveLite+54[/B]
CPUID:        "Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570K CPU @ 3.40GHz"
MaxSpeed:     3400
CurrentSpeed: [B]3400[/B]
  BIOS Version                  P1.40
  BIOS Release Date             05/14/2012
  Manufacturer                  To Be Filled By O.E.M.
  Product Name                  To Be Filled By O.E.M.
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨``
[/font]

3rd Party Drivers:
The following is for information purposes only.
Any drivers in red should be updated or removed from your system. And should have been discussed in the body of my post.

[font=lucida console]**************************Wed Sep 19 02:35:21.291 2012 (UTC - 4:00)**************************
intelppm.sys                Mon Jul 13 19:19:25 2009 (4A5BC0FD)
MBfilt64.sys                Thu Jul 30 23:40:32 2009 (4A7267B0)
amdxata.sys                 Fri Mar 19 12:18:18 2010 (4BA3A3CA)
k57nd60a.sys                Tue May 10 00:42:30 2011 (4DC8C236)
HECIx64.sys                 Wed Nov  9 19:52:25 2011 (4EBB2049)
iusb3hub.sys                Fri Jan 27 04:35:25 2012 (4F226FDD)
iusb3xhc.sys                Fri Jan 27 04:35:28 2012 (4F226FE0)
iusb3hcs.sys                Fri Jan 27 04:37:23 2012 (4F227053)
RTKVHD64.sys                Tue Jan 31 05:55:06 2012 (4F27C88A)
MpFilter.sys                Fri Mar  9 06:05:26 2012 (4F59E3F6)
igdkmd64.sys                Mon Mar 19 19:31:54 2012 (4F67C1EA)
AtihdW76.sys                Fri May 11 04:25:40 2012 (4FACCD04)
atikmpag.sys                Fri Jul 27 21:14:47 2012 (50133D07)
atikmdag.sys                Fri Jul 27 21:48:09 2012 (501344D9)
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨``
**************************Thu Sep 13 23:34:36.705 2012 (UTC - 4:00)**************************
[COLOR=RED][B]amdxata.sys                 Tue May 19 13:56:59 2009 (4A12F2EB)[/B][/COLOR]
¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨¨``
**************************Mon Sep 10 14:34:47.769 2012 (UTC - 4:00)**************************
cpuz135_x64.sys             Wed Jan 19 11:42:06 2011 (4D37145E)
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[ChicagoPaul]

Sorry for the late reply; I want to thank you for your response, usasma.

I updated to SP1 and uninstalled my videocard drivers (completely using driversweeper) and installed an updated version. I'm going to clean out the storage drive soon enough. The 3 devices you listed; the rig kontrol thing I keep forgetting to unplug, but it's a guitar thing so that's not really an issue. I tried to install the intel smart connect driver but I'm not sure if it installed or not, and I could have sworn I installed my USB 3.0 drivers, but even so I have nothing plugged into them. Thank you for letting me know though.

Sometime soon I will ghost my drive and see if I can upgrade the firmware on my SSD. I don't believe it is the issue, but it couldn't hurt.

Regardless, i've had a couple of BSODs happen since then, all game related.

I'm 75% positive it's my videocard, but I won't know for sure until I can afford to buy a new one. If you don't mind I would like to keep this thread open and update it in a few weeks as to whether or not the new videocard solved my problem.

In case anyone is interested, the reason why I suspect the videocard is because of the issues being mostly video-related issues (be it games or netflix as opposed to just running programs).

I posted about the problem on another forum mentioning that my card apparently has a history of not playing nice with systems, yet it played well with my old one and they brought up a good point:

"You said you got lucky with your card as opposed to others.
Thats a PCI-E 2.0 card. I didnt look up the MB, but its probably a PCI-E 2, or 3 slot.

Its entirely possible your old MB had a PCI-E 1.1 slot, which would alter the way the card transmits data by just a bit, and that would be why you were the lucky one, and now youre not.
Now that card is trying to do its full potential which could have been a manufacturer saying...we built this around 1.1, but 2.0 is out...MAKE IT WORK!!! ...whoops".

If you or anyone else has any insight you could offer than I would greatly appreciate it, but I understand if the problem is a unique and annoying one. I'm fine with the rare BSOD's for now, and like I said once I finally get my new card, I'll update as to whether or not the problem keeps happening.

However if I forget to update than I guess it would be safe to assume that I forgot because the new card solved my problem and I was busy wasting my life away on videogames and watching LOST on netflix.

 

[usasma]

We've seen a lot of issues with musical devices being hooked up to computers.

As for the video card, run the free video tests listed at this page: Link Removed

Good luck!

 

[ChicagoPaul]

Just a small update; despite memtest not showing any issues with the RAM, I still decided it'd be best just to rule it out completely so after a couple more BSODS that didn't seem to fit in with the same conditions the others occurred in (the computer froze while loading a webpage, and I got a BSOD while looking at a forum), I exchanged the memory for some new sticks of the same kind.

I did this about a week ago, and though I'm still not 100% sure if the problem is fixed or not, the computer seems to be running well enough. I'll find out soon though; i've been playing games here and there (not WoW yet) and I haven't experienced any crashes.

I'm beginning to wonder if it was just memory that was bad in a way memtest couldn't detect. Again, thank you all for your help; i'm only updating this in case anyone else has a similar issue and they don't know what to do; I hate going into a thread with a similar issue, only to find out the TC left and stopped updating without giving anymore updates.

I'll update again if I remember as to whether or not I get another BSOD in the coming weeks, just for the sake of being thorough, and if I don't than most likely it was replacing the memory that fixed the problem.

 

[usasma]

I can't recall if I suggested running Prime95 - but it stresses your memory and can cause errors to show up that don't show up in MemTest. It's on the same page as the Video tests I suggested.

Good Luck! I hope that you've fixed the problem!

 

[ChicagoPaul]

Thank you for your suggestions! It's been a couple of weeks, many hours put in, especially WoW hours, and I think it's safe to say the issue ended up being the memory being bad, despite it not showing up on my memtests.

In short, the problem was my RAM. Thank you all! I think we can consider this matter closed. If I run into any other problems I'll make a new topic.

 

[GeneralHiningII]

Good Job then

I can't recall if I suggested running Prime95 - but it stresses your memory

Doesn't Prime95 test your CPU?