Windows 7 Win7 box crashing/locking up - BSOD

[berryguru]

I'm looking for some guidance on an issue with my Windows 7 box. My system is crashing once a week or a few times a month. I can't exactly pinpoint why, as the logs only show the crash after.

Logs indicate the following:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Level: Critical
Source: Kernal Power
Event ID: 41
User: System

The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Level: Error
Source: Bug Check
Event ID: 1001
User: N/A

The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x0000007e (0xffffffffc0000005, 0xfffff80002a83324, 0xfffff880031c3e68, 0xfffff880031c36d0). A dump was saved in: C:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP. Report Id: 072710-17362-01.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was thinking maybe my video cards were overheating. But they run between 59C - 62C. I'm running 3 120mm fans (2 in the front and 1 in the rear)

When I return to my machine I find it locked up at the screensaver. So I reboot the machine but it returns with a BSOD and attempts to do a memory dump. I'll have to reboot the machine 3 to 4 times before it will boot fully into Windows.

Machine Specs:
Processor: Intel Quad Q6700 @ 2.66GHz
Memory: 8GB DDR2 Corsair XMS
Video: Dual Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT
Hard Drive: 1 - 150GB Raptor, 2 - 500GB Seagate
Power Supply: Antec 650Watt

Any thoughts?


~berry

 

[berryguru]

Alright TorrentG,

I've updated the drivers and both files you sent me. We are looking good! I'm glad we were able to pinpoint the issue again and I'm hoping this will make my box stable. That damn ftdi driver has been causing some serious problems, but like I said I really need it for my lab.

That was rather interesting that a guy from SerialStuff came across our thread.


ZiPPy

 

[berryguru]

@ TorrentG

Well my friend, I'm back in the hole. Is it because I said 'we are looking good!' and it came back to bite me in the arse? System is still not stable :/ So frustrating!

So here is what's going on now, the system is not BSODing, at least not from what I can see. I come home and I find the system locked up. Screens are just flashing and I can't even do anything ...simply frozen. I had the system BSOD on me a few days prior and pinpointed some issue with Chrome via the dumps. So I completely uninstalled Chrome. I also completely uninstalled the FTDI device(USB to Serial). Or at least I think I did, I uninstalled it from Device Manager.

My question is how am I to troubleshoot this issue now, when I don't get dumps anymore. When I come home and see the machine frozen, I'm forced to perform a hard reboot. Something is a miss here, because this machine should be 100% stable as it has very good specs. So its not like its a crappy machine or anything.

 

[TorrentG]

Chrome can not cause a bsod as it does not have drivers. It can create user-level dumps (as opposed to kernel level) which can be used to analyze the program crashes (which is not Windows itself.)

You can check the event logs for any helpful clues. Sort them by their level and look at anything red.

Let's see something else here. Download and run CPU-Z. Post a screenshot here of both the spd and memory tabs.

 

[berryguru]

The only reason why I said Chrome was at fault, was because I noticed it in the dumps that Chrome.exe was the fault. Maybe I read that wrong. I'll post the section of the dump where it states it.

I'll get CPU-Z information up as soon as I get home. As for the event viewer, I merely get a bunch of Kernal dumps which are caused by me hard rebooting the machine. It doesn't seem to catch anything prior to the lock up.

 

[TorrentG]

Right...Chrome can be mentioned because it was the process that either accessed a bad driver or bad memory address. It by itself was not at fault at all, if a bsod had happened. Meaning, uninstalling it would have no beneficial effect at all.

CPU-Z screen shots should prove helpful.

 

[berryguru]

View attachment CPU_Z.rar

I've attached a .rar of the screenshots of CPU-Z

 

[TorrentG]

Yeah, the bios is set well for everything so cool.

I would check on all the software running that you have when these freezes occur. One of them is the culprit.

If you can, name all the software that is running when they occur...I might be able to say something straight away about one or more of them.

If you have any remote control software, these freeze machines often.

 

[berryguru]

The time when it freezes is usually when I'm asleep, and come morning I hop on the computer and its frozen. I run 4 LCD's using Display Fusion Pro ver3.1.8. I have VMware Workstation running, Firefox, Digsby, RDP and that's about it usually when I leave the puter running at night. Maybe that Display Fusion Pro is the culprit? I run that so I can have multiple wallpapers on all 4 LCDs.

 

[TorrentG]

Display Fusion has 3.2 version available. It definitely is not an issue but go ahead and use the built-in function to update. I use it too and it's awesome.

VMWare is your culprit.

 

[berryguru]

Yes it is awesome! I love it! VMware you think so? Nooooooo! :/ I built this box around the idea of running VMware. I'm running VMware ver7.0.0

That is bad in two ways! 1. I have to buy another server to run my virtualization. 2.More money on gear.

 

[TorrentG]

Yep, if I was a betting man...

There's only one way to find out...

 

[berryguru]

uninstall? :X

 

[TorrentG]

Right on, yep.

I helped someone not too long ago with freezes. We disabled the services for it and the freezes stopped.

And then there's over half a million Google hits for "VMWare freeze":

vmware freeze - Google Search

 

[berryguru]

Yup! I don't even know why I'm surprised. I just need to dedicate a box to my VM's which really is the proper way to do it.

I'm going to go ahead and disable the services and see where we are with it.

 

[berryguru]

You know mate, something just hit me. I have VMware Fusion running on my MacBook Pro(primarily to run Visio on the go, and have Windows if I just so happen to need it on the go). And if I sleep the Mac when the Win7 vm is running, I have such a hard time getting OS X back up. When this happens I always have to hard reboot it. It's a real solid lock.