Hey all,
About two weeks ago my computer began behaving erratically while playing World of Warcraft and SW: Old Republic games where the games would crash to desktop, or where my computer would randomly reboot while in the middle of playing. Then this began to happen when not in the games and simply on my desktop screen with no programs running.
I built my computer and consider myself above average in tech savviness. My intuition was that I was having heat problems and indeed, I think my CPU was overheating. I replaced the stock fan with a new fan and reapplied thermal paste and my temperatures are now in the high 30s or low 40s celsius idle (a far cry from the 60+ celsius idle they were before).
However, this did not fix the system instablity and things began getting much worse. I would get random BSOD's more and more frequently with different errors being presented (or some not giving me errors at all and just rebooting). Sometimes the BSODs would read IRQ errors, some said "Memory_Management", sometimes I got an error about a "system clock not received in an expected interval", sometimes it was System_thread etc. Sometimes Windows would freeze when loading during boot, othertimes it blue screend before I got the login prompt, other times it would BSOD after I've logged in (immediately), and other times still would just be random when I thought things were okay.
I reformated my harddrives and put a fresh install of Windows in place to rule out any malware or errant drivers. I am running the bare-minimum now in Windows. I also ran Memtest+ using a Linux-based bootCD on my RAM and allowed it to do 6 full passes (about 7-8 hours worth) with no errors returned. But, since I noticed I was getting program "exception errors" in Windows that looked like memory read errors, I decided to replace the RAM which I did today but am still getting BSOD's and having instability -- again on a fresh install.
Safe mode has been stable for the most part, I've left it on for at least an hour or so with no issues whereas I struggle to get just 20 mins sometimes in Windows.
I used a program called bluescreenview to see what was causing the bsods (if it was a driver) but they all report ntoskernel as the point of failure which is simply Windows' way of saying it doesn't know what went wrong.
Enclosed is a zip of the minidumps I've managed to obtain (though there are many many more blue screens, hard lock-ups, and random reboots) that did not create a dump.
Also my specs are as follows:
ASUS P5N32-E SLI Mobo
Antec 1kW PSU
Intel Core2Quad Q6600 2.4GHz Prescott CPU
GSkill 4GB (2x2GB DDR2 PC2-6400) *NEW* RAM --- [previous 4GB (4x1GB DDR2)]
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra EVGA GPU
WD Raptor 160GB 10k RPM HD
Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Professional Series - Audio Card
----
Any ideas guys? I'm at a loss at this point
About two weeks ago my computer began behaving erratically while playing World of Warcraft and SW: Old Republic games where the games would crash to desktop, or where my computer would randomly reboot while in the middle of playing. Then this began to happen when not in the games and simply on my desktop screen with no programs running.
I built my computer and consider myself above average in tech savviness. My intuition was that I was having heat problems and indeed, I think my CPU was overheating. I replaced the stock fan with a new fan and reapplied thermal paste and my temperatures are now in the high 30s or low 40s celsius idle (a far cry from the 60+ celsius idle they were before).
However, this did not fix the system instablity and things began getting much worse. I would get random BSOD's more and more frequently with different errors being presented (or some not giving me errors at all and just rebooting). Sometimes the BSODs would read IRQ errors, some said "Memory_Management", sometimes I got an error about a "system clock not received in an expected interval", sometimes it was System_thread etc. Sometimes Windows would freeze when loading during boot, othertimes it blue screend before I got the login prompt, other times it would BSOD after I've logged in (immediately), and other times still would just be random when I thought things were okay.
I reformated my harddrives and put a fresh install of Windows in place to rule out any malware or errant drivers. I am running the bare-minimum now in Windows. I also ran Memtest+ using a Linux-based bootCD on my RAM and allowed it to do 6 full passes (about 7-8 hours worth) with no errors returned. But, since I noticed I was getting program "exception errors" in Windows that looked like memory read errors, I decided to replace the RAM which I did today but am still getting BSOD's and having instability -- again on a fresh install.
Safe mode has been stable for the most part, I've left it on for at least an hour or so with no issues whereas I struggle to get just 20 mins sometimes in Windows.
I used a program called bluescreenview to see what was causing the bsods (if it was a driver) but they all report ntoskernel as the point of failure which is simply Windows' way of saying it doesn't know what went wrong.
Enclosed is a zip of the minidumps I've managed to obtain (though there are many many more blue screens, hard lock-ups, and random reboots) that did not create a dump.
Also my specs are as follows:
ASUS P5N32-E SLI Mobo
Antec 1kW PSU
Intel Core2Quad Q6600 2.4GHz Prescott CPU
GSkill 4GB (2x2GB DDR2 PC2-6400) *NEW* RAM --- [previous 4GB (4x1GB DDR2)]
NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra EVGA GPU
WD Raptor 160GB 10k RPM HD
Creative X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Professional Series - Audio Card
----
Any ideas guys? I'm at a loss at this point
