OT: Diagnose PC BSOD?

The CPU slightly edges out the video card in my mind, but both are suspect.

On the plus side, it sounds like once you get the problem isolated, you'll have most of a second PC.

Graphics, hands down!

I'd start with a dump file analysis. Upload it here

It might indicate a driver problem or at least where it is crashing.

Cheers

Thanks. Most recent DMP file is >2.4G. I'll have to set the parameters to make it smaller.

--sp

You've not mentioned whether memtest86 indicated errors or not. I assume you've done the test.

NT

No errors. Yes I tested the memory/memory bus.

It does seem to have trouble waking up from sleep, which is apparently not uncommon, but I've not seen it on any other Win7 computer.

--sp

Microsoft.

If there are no hardware errors, there can only be software errors. Assuming you've run it long enough to pick up on any hw errors.

NT

My thoughts would be the video drivers.

Now for 'nother weird one... I just got a new laptop at work (a Dell Precision 5510) that does odd stuff. Windows Office stuff (so far I've seen it in Outlook and Excel) just ends randomly. At first I thought they weren't coming back after sleep or hibernate but, no, they'll just end. Multiple copies of Excel will just end (remove themselves from the desktop) without saving data. It's very odd and it's rather expensive hardware. Of course the helpless desk lives up to its name.

Also, does anyone else have problems with Dell laptops not understanding bluetooth devices?

I had a flakey computer which ran 4 days on memtest86 with no errors. The memory was the problem however; the GPU sometimes (when hot) failed to meet the memory timing. I replaced the memory, and it never hiccuped again.

Clifford Heath.

My guess(tm) is the video card. I've seen plenty of those cause BSOD problems. However, when I see a defective CPU, it usually produces a hang, not a BSOD. I've also seen very few dead or sick late model Intel processors.

You might want to try stressing the CPU: You can also beat up the GPU (video): So far, I haven't killed any boards or chips with these tests, but have done quite well at identifying problems.

Also, do something rather simple. Unplug the CPU and inspect the connections. I've found pieces of wire, broken pens, bent pins, shrapnel, and dead bugs under the CPU. My favorite was when I shoved a DIMM memory stick with rubber band in the socket. Anyway, if you moved the CPU from one motherboard to another, you may have moved the problem with it. The catch is a new i7-6700K is about $320.

Have you checked the BIOS version on the motherboard? Among other things, the BIOS runs the bus timing, which might be the culprit.

The i7-6700k is a Skylake processor, which might eventually be a problem running Windoze 7. Microsloth was going to stop doing updates for Skylake, but changed their mind:

Good luck.

I was having all sorts of troubles until I removed the Nvidia graphics driver. That cleared up 99% of the troubles I was having. Unfortunately I'm not able to install any of the Nvidia drivers that should work with this chip, they all crap out on installation including the original driver that came with the PC. But it's still better than the machine crashing and crap all the time.

Despite the parts changing, you ought to try running memtest86 for a few hours. If you haven't tried a clean OS install, you might try that. Does it only fail while in use, or can it fail while just sitting idle?

Jon

A few hours won't do if it only goes down every few days.

NT

I don't know if this is your problem, but I had the same issue last year on my Windows 7 PC.

I noticed the dump from the BSOD always mentioned a driver or file associated with my video system. After lots of googling and trying everything what finally fixed mine was increasing the voltage on the video card (I know that sounds crazy).

It turns out I could go into the advanced settings on my video card and tweak voltages. Raising everything about 5% permanently cured the BSODs I was getting constantly.

The dump refers to a paging fault which they say typically indicates a hardware failure.

Now that's something I have not tried yet. Had to download the tweaking software from EVGA (not NVIDEA).. bumped it up by 75mV. We'll see if it helps.

Thanks!

--sp

The other thing I have done with dodgy hardware is to boot a live Linux CD on it and do Unix based testing. This allowed me to prove beyond doubt that there was a race condition failure in the keyboard/mouse hardware of a particular Toshiba laptop model. Basically the GUI latched up in exactly the same way under Linux as it did under 'Doze.

The last time I had bother it was memory related but did not show up under normal memory testing. Basically the capacitors were dying. Quick check shows it was reported mostly as IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

If you haven't tried it already something like BlueScreenView run locally will give you a summary of the minidumps on the machine.

Setting out to provoke the failure in and out of sleep mode might allow you to identify the errant device driver(s). USB is most likely at fault there. Exotic video card drivers are always suspect - turning off almost all acceleration functions might shed some light.

Follow up. It looks like it was the CPU, as Tim Wescott suspected!

I took the graphics card out completely and enabled the Intel graphics

- and the BSODs continued, perhaps at a lower frequency but hard to tell.

Bought a new Kaby Lake CPU 7700K and it's been fine since with the original graphics card back in. Slightly faster and slightly cheaper than current price for the Skylake 6700K I had. I may have trouble getting a replacement out of Intel- still well within the 3 year warranty, but we'll see.

However- starting as of the last month or two Microsoft is deliberately shutting out newer CPUs from receiving all Win7 (and 8.1) updates including security updates. There is a hack to prevent this, but obviously it's unauthorized and may break with future updates. P***s me off because I bought a new copy of Win7 along with the Skylake CPU and apparently they're blocking some of those too (though I didn't see the popup until the Kaby Lake CPU was installed).

So that means that you'll be forced to 'upgrade' to Windows 10, and probably there will be other much more expensive software with 'perpetual' licenses that will (deliberately or by neglect) break or not be supported so the upgrade carousel does not stall and more money gets sucked out of the users. Sad!

--sp

I flushed Windows when they changed their EULA to give them ownership of everything on my machines. Haven't looked back.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs