Multiple varying BSODs on a fresh 8.1 install

D

DackJaniels

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Joined
Feb 14, 2015
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3
Hi all,


I've been tearing my hair out for the last couple of days on a refurbished system build I've been working on. I receive blue screens on a very regular basis - sometimes immediately after boot, other times up to 10 or 15 minutes after booting. The error messages seem to be all over the place - I've seen SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION several times, KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED, CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED, and DRIVER_OVERRAN_STACK_BUFFER. Most of these reference ntoskrnl.exe.


I've reinstalled Windows 8.1 multiple times, using both UEFI and BIOS install modes, with my SATA controller set to both IDE and AHCI modes. No apparent change.


Here are the broad overview specs on the build. The motherboard is newly purchased, the processor is secondhand from a buddy, and the rest came out of my previous computer (which ran 8.1x64 with no trouble).


PSU: Antec 520W
Motherboard: MSI 970A-G43 (MS-7693)
BIOS: v10.3 (appears to be the latest available)
Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T
Memory: 2x4GB G. Skill PC3 8500 (F3-8500CL7D-8GBRL)
Storage:
119GB TOSHIBA THNSNH128GBST (SSD, the OS disk)
931GB Seagate ST31000524AS
Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 7700 Series (1GB RAM)


I have attached the output from the Sysnative BSOD tool. When I run perfmon /report, I receive the same error referenced here: Perfmon /Report in Windows 8.1 produces weird results - Microsoft Community However, I was still able to access the report files, so I zipped those up as well. I apologize if the files are in a different format than what perfmon /report produces.


I am happy to provide additional information as needed, though it may take me a while (depending on my luck, sometimes it can take four or five reboots before I can get into a working system).


I don't consider myself a newbie at this sort of thing, but I'm afraid this is beyond my level of experience. I greatly appreciate any help you fine people would be willing to offer.


-DackJaniels



View attachment SysnativeFileCollectionApp.zip
View attachment PerfmonReport.zip
 
There are so many different bug checks. This is most likely a hardware issue. To save both of us a bunch of time, enable Driver Verifier:

Driver Verifier:

What is Driver Verifier?

Driver Verifier monitors Windows kernel-mode drivers, graphics drivers, and even 3rd party drivers to detect illegal function calls or actions that might corrupt the system. Driver Verifier can subject the Windows drivers to a variety of stresses and tests to find improper behavior.

Essentially, if there's a 3rd party driver believed to be causing the issues at hand, enabling Driver Verifier will help us see which specific driver is causing the problem.

Before enabling Driver Verifier, it is recommended to create a System Restore Point:

Vista - START | type rstrui - create a restore point
Windows 7 - START | type create | select "Create a Restore Point"
Windows 8/8.1 - Restore Point - Create in Windows 8

How to enable Driver Verifier:

Start > type "verifier" without the quotes > Select the following options -

1. Select - "Create custom settings (for code developers)"
2. Select - "Select individual settings from a full list"
3. Check the following boxes -
- Special Pool
- Pool Tracking
- Force IRQL Checking
- Deadlock Detection
- Security Checks (only on Windows 7 & 8/8.1)
- DDI compliance checking (only on Windows 8/8.1)
- Miscellaneous Checks
4. Select - "Select driver names from a list"
5. Click on the "Provider" tab. This will sort all of the drivers by the provider.
6. Check EVERY box that is NOT provided by Microsoft / Microsoft Corporation.
7. Click on Finish.
8. Restart.

Important information regarding Driver Verifier:

- Perhaps the most important which I will now clarify as this has been misunderstood often, enabling Driver Verifier by itself is not! a solution, but instead a diagnostic utility. It will tell us if a driver is causing your issues, but again it will not outright solve your issues.

- If Driver Verifier finds a violation, the system will BSOD. To expand on this a bit more for the interested, specifically what Driver Verifier actually does is it looks for any driver making illegal function calls, causing memory leaks, etc. When and/if this happens, system corruption occurs if allowed to continue. When Driver Verifier is enabled per my instructions above, it is monitoring all 3rd party drivers (as we have it set that way) and when it catches a driver attempting to do this, it will quickly flag that driver as being a troublemaker, and bring down the system safely before any corruption can occur.

- After enabling Driver Verifier and restarting the system, depending on the culprit, if for example the driver is on start-up, you may not be able to get back into normal Windows because Driver Verifier will detect it in violation almost straight away, and as stated above, that will cause / force a BSOD.

If this happens, do not panic, do the following:

- Boot into Safe Mode by repeatedly tapping the F8 key during boot-up.

- Once in Safe Mode - Start > Search > type "cmd" without the quotes.

- To turn off Driver Verifier, type in cmd "verifier /reset" without the quotes.

- Restart and boot into normal Windows.

If your OS became corrupt or you cannot boot into Windows after disabling verifier via Safe Mode:

- Boot into Safe Mode by repeatedly tapping the F8 key during boot-up.

- Once in Safe Mode - Start > type "system restore" without the quotes.

- Choose the restore point you created earlier.

-- Note that Safe Mode for Windows 8/8.1 is a bit different, and you may need to try different methods: 5 Ways to Boot into Safe Mode in Windows 8 & Windows 8.1

How long should I keep Driver Verifier enabled for?

I recommend keeping it enabled for at least 24 hours. If you don't BSOD by then, disable Driver Verifier. I will usually say whether or not I'd like for you to keep it enabled any longer.

My system BSOD'd with Driver Verifier enabled, where can I find the crash dumps?

- If you have the system set to generate Small Memory Dumps, they will be located in %systemroot%\Minidump.

- If you have the system set to generate Kernel Memory Dumps, it will be located in %systemroot% and labeled MEMORY.DMP.

Any other questions can most likely be answered by this article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/244617
 
Patrick - thank you very much for your response. I've enabled Driver Verifier on the machine. I have seen a couple more blue screens since then, but the bug check messages have been as all over the place as previously. I haven't seen any VERIFIER strings so far, nor any of the messages listed in KB244617 (it's been mostly SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION so far). I will leave Driver Verifier enabled for a day as instructed.

Could you make any suggestions about where the hardware fault may be? My gut says the processor is the likely culprit, as it's the only piece I haven't owned and used before...but I don't know where to look to back that up. I've run one pass of memtest without anything coming up, but I'll run several passes after the Driver Verifier trial.
 
Hmm, I'm finding this very interesting, it looks like some security checks on hash table entries. I cannot be certain though.
Can we have a full memory dump?

Go the Start
Right click My Computer
Select Properties
Click Advanced system settings
Click on the Advanced tab
Select Settings under Startup and Recovery
Then under Write debugging information select Complete memory dump.

Once a dump is created go to:
C:/Windows/memory.dmp
Copy the file to the desktop, zip it up and upload it to a file sharing site like Onedrive. After the upload is done post the download link in your next reply.

Continue with Patrick's suggestions about Driver Verifier.
If you do run Memtest86+, run it for a minimum of 8 passes.
 
The dump is corrupt, can you upload a new one when you next crash.
 

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