Windows 7 Windows 7 BSoD on Gears of War

[hiimchris]

So this happened yesterday. I was playing GoW for around 20 minutes, and then the game just froze. No sound, and a frozen picture. So I decide to open up task manager and end the process. Following this, I re-open the game, play another ~20 minutes, and then the same nonresponsive screen shows up yet again. So I decide to wait it out, hoping it was just a little glitch that will work itself out. After about 10 seconds, my system Blue Screens and restarts. Now I notice that whenever I shut down, my computer blue screens as well (I have to manually hold the power button for it to truly shut down). Mind you, Gears worked fine on XP SP3 32-bit and this is the only game that creates the problem. Also, when I opened up task manager, I saw that there is a notification in the taskbar from Catalyst saying that my driver family has recovered from a problem.

Here are my specs
E8400
ati 4850 updated 9.5 Catalyst drivers (W7 64-bit)
Gigabyte P45
650watt PSU
Windows 7 Build 7100 64-bit

Here are the error details I receive at startup:


Windows has recovered from an unexpected shutdown
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.1.7100.2.0.0.256.1
Locale ID: 1033

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: 100000ea
BCP1: FFFFFA8005D95060
BCP2: 0000000000000000
BCP3: 0000000000000000
BCP4: 0000000000000000
OS Version: 6_1_7100
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 256_1

Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\061109-19000-01.dmp
C:\Users\Chris\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-31153-0.sysdata.xml

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[TwinA]

Hello Hiimchris.

Make sure that you Windows is producing memory dumps (stored in C:\windows\minidump\). If you have any minidumps stored at this time, then please attatch one to your post, so that i can examine it, and maybe point out the flaw. The files in the minidump folder are named with time and date.

Also, update any software that you have for your sound card (including applications to manage the functionalities of the sound card), and see if that solves to problem. If it does NOT, then try to remove the software (not the driver itself). Also, modifying the sound settings helps in some cases, disabling EAX and surround ingame for instance. Do you have alchemy (application to manage creative soundcards) installed? That is known to produce BSOD in some cases.

Regards
TwinA

 

[hiimchris]

Hello Hiimchris.

Make sure that you Windows is producing memory dumps (stored in C:\windows\minidump\). If you have any minidumps stored at this time, then please attatch one to your post, so that i can examine it, and maybe point out the flaw. The files in the minidump folder are named with time and date.

Also, update any software that you have for your sound card (including applications to manage the functionalities of the sound card), and see if that solves to problem. If it does NOT, then try to remove the software (not the driver itself). Also, modifying the sound settings helps in some cases, disabling EAX and surround ingame for instance. Do you have alchemy (application to manage creative soundcards) installed? That is known to produce BSOD in some cases.

Regards
TwinA

Here are all three memory dumps that were logged. Thanks you for your time.
Also, I do not use Alchemy. My sound is being driven by my onboard Gigabyte sound card. I'll try your other suggestions soon.
Thanks again.

 

[TwinA]

Okay Will have a look at the minidumps a little later today, and get back to you.

EDIT:
The results:


-> 061009-18080-01.dmp & 061109-19000-01.dmp
Pointed to your graphics card - in particular the file dxgkrnl.sys.. The crash type was VISTA_DRIVER_FAULT, and your bug check string was 0xEA.

My advice - update video drivers and directx to latest version.

061109-19219-01.dmp
This one was a bit different.. The dumpfile states the following:

WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR (124)
A fatal hardware error has occurred. Parameter 1 identifies the type of error
source that reported the error. Parameter 2 holds the address of the
WHEA_ERROR_RECORD structure that describes the error conditon.
Arguments:
Arg1: 0000000000000000, Machine Check Exception
Arg2: fffffa80051e0038, Address of the WHEA_ERROR_RECORD structure.
Arg3: 00000000b2000040, High order 32-bits of the MCi_STATUS value.
Arg4: 0000000000000800, Low order 32-bits of the MCi_STATUS value.

BUGCHECK_STR: 0x124_GenuineIntel
CUSTOMER_CRASH_COUNT: 1
DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: VISTA_DRIVER_FAULT
FOLLOWUP_NAME: MachineOwner
MODULE_NAME: hardware
IMAGE_NAME: hardware

How old is your computer? The dumpfile suggests hardware failure..

Go for the first suggestion (Gfx & direct x) first, and leave the second one for now.. The last dumpfile was very different from the others, and that may have been an isolated incident. The first two dump files was identical.

 

[hiimchris]

Okay Will have a look at the minidumps a little later today, and get back to you.

EDIT:
The results:


-> 061009-18080-01.dmp & 061109-19000-01.dmp
Pointed to your graphics card - in particular the file dxgkrnl.sys.. The crash type was VISTA_DRIVER_FAULT, and your bug check string was 0xEA.

My advice - update video drivers and directx to latest version.

061109-19219-01.dmp
This one was a bit different.. The dumpfile states the following:



How old is your computer? The dumpfile suggests hardware failure..

Go for the first suggestion (Gfx & direct x) first, and leave the second one for now.. The last dumpfile was very different from the others, and that may have been an isolated incident. The first two dump files was identical.

My PC is fairly modern.
Gigabyte P45 Motherboard
Intel E8400
ATI HD4850

My drivers are 9.5 and they are the most recent. As for DirectX, I was under the impression that Windows came with DirectX 10... Oh well, I will try to update it anyway. I know for a fact that I have DX9 because it was installed when I installed Gears and COD4. Will get back to you.

Also, I remember checking the use DirectX 10 features in the GoW settings, will try to not use that setting to see if it solves the problem. Thank you for what you have done so far.

 

[TwinA]

You have an E8400 CPU, but you state that you have 3.6 Ghz? We have the same CPU, but you seem to have OC'ed yours.. Am i correct?

 

[hiimchris]

You have an E8400 CPU, but you state that you have 3.6 Ghz? We have the same CPU, but you seem to have OC'ed yours.. Am i correct?

That's right!

Also, tried disabling the dx10 functions of gow and it still crashes. Also, I updated my directx prior to that, so we can rule out directx as the problem. My drivers are already up to date (9.5 catalyst) and i doubt reinstalling them will solve the problem. =\

 

[TwinA]

Try removing the OC

 

[hiimchris]

Try removing the OC

Could that really be the problem? I thought E84s were made to OC...

 

[TwinA]

My CPU seems to support it, but just to be certain, you should disable it temporarily..

 

[hiimchris]

Hmm, I feel like such a noob. When I tried updating my DirectX, I downloaded a client that had 9.0c in it. How do I update to 10? (or 10.1 for that matter, since I have a 4850 which supports it)

When I try to download it off Microsoft, it gives me a package with 9.0c in it.

 

[TwinA]

You may have direct x 10 without knowing it (it sounds wierd, i know). Go to Run - type dxdiag and press enter. If you see a dialog, press either yes or no (doesnt matter right now). After a little while, a window should show. There you will have a line saying DirectX Version (the line is at the bottom) - what does it say there?

The latest official version is here -> Link Removed

And btw, direct x 10 does not seem available anywhere online, but i have it on my PC.. Maybe i got it via M$ update (running vista x86).

 

[hiimchris]

You may have direct x 10 without knowing it (it sounds wierd, i know). Go to Run - type dxdiag and press enter. If you see a dialog, press either yes or no (doesnt matter right now). After a little while, a window should show. There you will have a line saying DirectX Version (the line is at the bottom) - what does it say there?

The latest official version is here -> Link Removed

And btw, direct x 10 does not seem available anywhere online, but i have it on my PC.. Maybe i got it via M$ update (running vista x86).

Yes, I recall that when I run dxdiag on Windows 7, it states I have DirectX 11. The webpage you gave me was the one I used to download DirectX before, and like I said, it is only 9.0c... I also recently tried changing my processor speed to stock, will play GoW soon to see if that fixes the problems.
There is one thing I noticed after I changed my clock settings back to default...Windows booted up faster! Which is strange since I am actually "losing" speed. Maybe you are right. We will see.