Multiple BSOD and random freezes - can't figure out if it's hardware or software

gymnor · Apr 29, 2014

Hi all,

I experience quite some BSODs of different nature. It started with random freezes of my computer, mostly within an hour after start up. Resetting the computer allowed me to work on for the rest of the day.

Since a few weeks, I start getting BSODs with different messages. PFN list corrupt, IRQL not less or equal, ...

Memtest gave nothing, I tried that for more than 24 hours about 5 times the last month, and no errors.
Both disks seem to be OK, although I'm not 100% sure about my SSD. But I can't find errors with the tools I have here (standard Windows set, speccy and HDDiag)

perfmon gives a missing anti virus, but Microsoft Security Essentials is running and indicates it's running fine. Some BSODs could point to an MSE problem, so I've reinstalled that twice by now, following the instructions for clean removal from Microsoft itself. Still doesn't work as it should (why am I not surprised...).

New BSODs appeared, pointing in the direction of a driver issue. Ran verifier, did stress tests, updated all drivers, did a driver check, and the problem disappeared for a day or two. Then again new BSODs appeared.

The problem accumulated and today I wasn't able to get past the BIOS. After a few attempts also the BIOS didn't fire up anymore. I've managed to get the computer running again by resetting the bios (take out the battery, wait 15 minutes, and off we go). I got a warning that overclocking failed (never attempted to overclock and all BIOS settings are the default). It also failed to recognize my third slot of 2Gb DDR3.

Unplugged computer, waited 15 minutes, took out all 3 DDR3-2Gb RAM slots, waited a minute, reinstalled in sockets A0-B0-C0, resetted the CMOS manually with the button on the motherboard, restarted, and all seemed well.

Still, I lost confidence in my computer and I have no clue if this is hardware wearing out or still a software problem. If I'm sure it's a software problem, I might just do a complete fresh install of Windows 7. But I don't want to go through all that hassle if it's really my hardware suffering from heavy use.

I should mention I work at the university in the statistics department, so my comp runs 8-10 hours a day with heavy calculations.

Can you guys take a look and see if you could pinpoint the problem? Output from verifier, perfmon and the minidumps of the last 10 crashes are in the zip file attached.

Configuration:
Motherboard: MSI X58 Pro-E (model no MS-7522)
Processors : Intel QuadCore i7 (LGA 1366)
OS: Windows 7 Enterprise Service Pack 1 64bit
Disks : Corsair CSSD-V64GB2 : boot disk
WDC WD10EARS-00Y5B1 : data disk (partitioned)
Display adapter: MSI R 4350 (comes from the ATI Radeon HD 4300/4500 series)
Network card: Realtek 8111C (was on the motherboard)
RAM : 3 x DDR3-SDRAM @1333MHz

PS: I collected all files manually, as the tools provided on this forum failed to create the output folder, possibly due to the multi-user setup of my comp and the fact that I remapped my Documents library to my second hard disk (see my topic about that).

Patrick · Apr 29, 2014

Hi,

We have various bug checks:

PFN_LIST_CORRUPT (4e)

This indicates that the page frame number (PFN) list is corrupted.

This error is typically caused by a driver passing a bad memory descriptor list. For example, the driver might have called MmUnlockPages twice with the same list.

Code:

7: kd> k
Child-SP          RetAddr           Call Site
fffff880`04479ac8 fffff800`040972ed nt!KeBugCheckEx
fffff880`04479ad0 fffff800`040b706b nt!MiUnlinkPageFromLockedList+0x8d
fffff880`04479b50 fffff800`040a3c8f nt!MiResolveTransitionFault+0x16b
fffff880`04479be0 fffff800`04093c3b nt!MiDispatchFault+0x95f
fffff880`04479cf0 fffff800`04084cee nt!MmAccessFault+0xe1b
fffff880`04479e50 fffff800`0439c7b0 nt!KiPageFault+0x16e
fffff880`04479fe8 fffff880`012e3eaa nt!CcPinRead
fffff880`04479ff0 fffff880`012e885c Ntfs!NtfsPinStream+0x62
fffff880`0447a030 fffff880`012ef64c Ntfs!NtOfsPutData+0x17c
fffff880`0447a160 fffff880`012eff43 Ntfs!NtfsWriteFcbUsnRecordToJournal+0xa8
fffff880`0447a220 fffff880`012ee036 Ntfs!NtfsWriteUsnJournalChanges+0x187
fffff880`0447a2a0 fffff880`012ca519 Ntfs!NtfsCheckpointCurrentTransaction+0x72
fffff880`0447a2d0 fffff880`012c9477 Ntfs!NtfsSetEndOfFileInfo+0x2a9
fffff880`0447a3d0 fffff880`0123bf84 Ntfs!NtfsCommonSetInformation+0x2c7
fffff880`0447a4b0 fffff800`0452fd26 Ntfs!NtfsFsdSetInformation+0x11c
fffff880`0447a530 fffff880`0118cbcf nt!IovCallDriver+0x566
fffff880`0447a590 fffff880`0118b6df fltmgr!FltpLegacyProcessingAfterPreCallbacksCompleted+0x24f
fffff880`0447a620 fffff800`0452fd26 fltmgr!FltpDispatch+0xcf
fffff880`0447a680 fffff800`04364a92 nt!IovCallDriver+0x566
fffff880`0447a6e0 fffff800`04085e53 nt!NtSetInformationFile+0x5ae
fffff880`0447a800 fffff800`04082410 nt!KiSystemServiceCopyEnd+0x13
fffff880`0447aa08 fffff800`042fdaab nt!KiServiceLinkage
fffff880`0447aa10 fffff800`04325bef nt!CmpDoFileSetSize+0xeb
fffff880`0447aaa0 00000000`00000000 nt!HvWriteDirtyDataToHive+0x2af

Various file system related routines in that stack (fltmgr, Ntfs, etc).

DRIVER_VERIFIER_DETECTED_VIOLATION (c4)

This is the general bug check code for fatal errors found by Driver Verifier.

Code:

3: kd> k
Child-SP          RetAddr           Call Site
fffff880`033855c8 fffff800`0450e4ec nt!KeBugCheckEx
fffff880`033855d0 fffff800`0450ef2b nt!VerifierBugCheckIfAppropriate+0x3c
fffff880`03385610 fffff800`0451fba8 nt!ExAllocatePoolSanityChecks+0xcb
fffff880`03385650 fffff800`0451fe17 nt!VeAllocatePoolWithTagPriority+0x88
fffff880`033856c0 fffff880`080045a1 nt!VerifierExAllocatePoolWithTagPriority+0x17
fffff880`03385700 fffff880`080037bb tcpipreg!InterfaceAddressRegKeyChangeHandler+0x109
fffff880`03385830 fffff880`08002a59 tcpipreg!TcpipRegQueryAndUpdateKeyValue+0x363
fffff880`033858c0 fffff880`01655754 tcpipreg!TcpipRegStartRegistryKeyNotification+0xbd
fffff880`03385910 fffff880`08003293 NETIO!RtlInvokeStartRoutines+0x34
fffff880`03385950 fffff800`0446c467 tcpipreg!DriverEntry+0x257
fffff880`033859a0 fffff800`0446c865 nt!IopLoadDriver+0xa07
fffff880`03385c70 fffff800`0408b261 nt!IopLoadUnloadDriver+0x55
fffff880`03385cb0 fffff800`0431e2ea nt!ExpWorkerThread+0x111
fffff880`03385d40 fffff800`040728e6 nt!PspSystemThreadStartup+0x5a
fffff880`03385d80 00000000`00000000 nt!KxStartSystemThread+0x16

tcpipreg.sys appears to be attempting to allocate zero bytes, which is the TCP/IP Registry Compatibility driver. We can confirm this as well by the NETIO (Network I/O Subsystem) call directly above.

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (a)

This indicates that Microsoft Windows or a kernel-mode driver accessed paged memory at DISPATCH_LEVEL or above.

This bug check is issued if paged memory (or invalid memory) is accessed when the IRQL is too high. The error that generates this bug check usually occurs after the installation of a faulty device driver, system service, or BIOS.

BAD_POOL_HEADER (19)

This indicates that a pool header is corrupt.

BugCheck 19, {3, fffffa800547daf0, fffffa800547dad0, fffffa800547daf0}

Code:

0: kd> !pool fffffa800547daf0
GetPointerFromAddress: unable to read from fffff80003b08100
Pool page fffffa800547daf0 region is GetUlongFromAddress: unable to read from fffff80003b081c0
Nonpaged pool
 fffffa800547d000 size:  470 previous size:    0  (Free )  .... (Protected)

Code:

0: kd> !poolval fffffa800547d000
Pool page fffffa800547d000 region is Nonpaged pool

Validating Pool headers for pool page: fffffa800547d000

Pool page [ fffffa800547d000 ] is __inVALID.

Analyzing linked list...
[ fffffa800547d000 --> fffffa800547d540 (size = 0x540 bytes)]: Corrupt region

CRITICAL_OBJECT_TERMINATION (f4)

This indicates that a process or thread crucial to system operation has unexpectedly exited or been terminated.

BugCheck F4, {3, fffffa80068f1b30, fffffa80068f1e10, fffff800027ca7b0}

Parameter 1 is 3 which indicates it was a process as opposed to a thread that terminated.

Code:

4: kd> !process fffffa80068f1b30 3
GetPointerFromAddress: unable to read from fffff800026fd000
PROCESS fffffa80068f1b30
    SessionId: none  Cid: 0178    Peb: 7fffffd8000  ParentCid: 0154
    DirBase: 197b71000  ObjectTable: fffff8a00f8c64e0  HandleCount: <Data Not Accessible>
    Image: wininit.exe

wininit.exe starts, stops and interacts with Windows service processes.

Right, so what's happening here looks like the fault of your SSD's firmware not being up to date. Please update your firmware for your SSD ASAP. Please also uninstall SpeedFan.

Regards,

Patrick

gymnor · Apr 29, 2014

Hi Patrick,

thanks for your swift and helpful reply! I've been suspicious about the SSD for a while, but excluded that one again when my BIOS started failing on me. I'll definitely update the firmware. Speedfan was installed by the tech I initially bought the computer from, but I've learnt the hard way that he's really bloating his computers with unnecessary tools everywhere. I'll kick it out, glad to do that :)

Thanks again, I'll keep you updated.

Patrick · Apr 29, 2014

Great, I look forward to your update.

Regards,

Patrick

x BlueRobot · Apr 30, 2014

You could also check the Bad Page List for any possible pages which may have parity errors, and thus could indicate hardware problems. You can use the !memusage 8 extension in WinDbg with a Kernel Memory Dump, or the use the MemInfo tool and the -s switch. Note that the Bad Page List is used for purposes of the Kernel too, and may not necessarily mean hardware problems.

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Multiple BSOD and random freezes - can't figure out if it's hardware or software

gymnor

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Patrick

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