ASUS M4A88TD-V EVO/USB3 Motherboard
Phenom II x4 965 3.4Ghz
EVGA Geforce GTX 660 Superclocked latest drivers
16 GB 2x8GB Kingston ValuRAM KVR1333D3N9H/8G
1 TB WD10EZEX (in use for about a week)
650w PSU (forget brand off the top of my head but it's only a year or two old)
Standard onboard Realtek audio
Onboard LAN controller
4 port wall powered USB hub containing gamepad, webcam, portable drive, and headset
Here's what I know so far:
Problems began with three separate blue screens. Memory_Management, Bad_Pool_Header, and IRQL_IS_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
Ran 7 RAM test passes, two with memtest86, and five with the windows tool all passed.
Those three bluescreens happened the same night within hours of each other while the computer was in various stages of activity, from playing a graphically intense game, to chatting on skype, to surfing the web.
Avast Antivirus and malwarebytes found nothing remarkable.
The IRQL message is most often associated with video driver issues, so I updated to the latest NVIDIA drivers, computer worked flawlessly all day, including playing the same game, before crashing while sitting idle late in the evening. Computer has not crashed while playing a game since the first night this all started.
A few days later, my boot drive (I thought) stopped spinning up, since it was 11 years old, I figured it might have been the source of the trouble. New hard drive installed, clean install of windows, drivers, and basic applications, computer ran perfectly for a day before crashing again, no message and crash dump didn't finish . Only record in error log was that the computer had recovered from the crash, nothing flagged before it.
3/13: Computer has done a single random reboot
3/13: Crashed again, this time with stop code 0x24 related to NTFS.sys...so my brand new hard drive might be bad.
3/13-present: Computer will occasionally refuse to boot, and all you'll hear is the noise of "SOMETHING" trying to start repeatedly i.e. a disc trying to spin, Can't open the case right now so I can't tell what. Same thing that happened the morning I thought my boot disk had died. fans etc will run normally, but I have to hold power and shut down in order to boot successfully when this happens.
One time, I have also received the dreaded "disc read error" black screen...first time I have EVER seen that in over 20 years of working with computers. Occasionally, computer will also take an exceptionally long time to move from the mobo splash screen to the windows loading screen
Several things jump out at me.
1. The bluescreen related to IRQL points to video card or RAM issues.
2. Memory_Management most obviously points to RAM but also could indicate hard drive problems or video card, which led me to conclude my boot drive was the problem, especially after it gave out altogether.
3. Memtest 86 showed my processor running incredibly hot...near 100 Celsius...and the manufacturer danger zone is only a little above 60. This was later confirmed by HWMonitor. Idle it runs at 50 with all fans at full speed, and close to 100 under heavy load. Graphics card runs at 38 idle and 70 under load.
4. If it IS a processor or video card problem, why in the world WOULDN'T the PC crash when playing a game (Titanfall, Elder Scrolls Beta) that keeps it consistently at its limits...including 100-101 degrees on the processor temp? But it will randomly crash when idle or streaming something flash based? And even that's not a sure thing, sometimes I can watch flash stuff for hours, other times the computer bsod's within seconds of the video starting.
Could it be my processor, RAM, or video card? Where does the sudden crashing of the brand new hard drive fit in? Could it be that the motherboard or power supply is failing and trying to take everything else with it?
Link to all successful crash dumps after new Hard drive and OS reinstall (should be another, but one of the crash dumps never finished, it just spent hours in the preparing data phase until I got fed up and powered off)
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=E5219C988F3D0521%21105
Phenom II x4 965 3.4Ghz
EVGA Geforce GTX 660 Superclocked latest drivers
16 GB 2x8GB Kingston ValuRAM KVR1333D3N9H/8G
1 TB WD10EZEX (in use for about a week)
650w PSU (forget brand off the top of my head but it's only a year or two old)
Standard onboard Realtek audio
Onboard LAN controller
4 port wall powered USB hub containing gamepad, webcam, portable drive, and headset
Here's what I know so far:
Problems began with three separate blue screens. Memory_Management, Bad_Pool_Header, and IRQL_IS_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
Ran 7 RAM test passes, two with memtest86, and five with the windows tool all passed.
Those three bluescreens happened the same night within hours of each other while the computer was in various stages of activity, from playing a graphically intense game, to chatting on skype, to surfing the web.
Avast Antivirus and malwarebytes found nothing remarkable.
The IRQL message is most often associated with video driver issues, so I updated to the latest NVIDIA drivers, computer worked flawlessly all day, including playing the same game, before crashing while sitting idle late in the evening. Computer has not crashed while playing a game since the first night this all started.
A few days later, my boot drive (I thought) stopped spinning up, since it was 11 years old, I figured it might have been the source of the trouble. New hard drive installed, clean install of windows, drivers, and basic applications, computer ran perfectly for a day before crashing again, no message and crash dump didn't finish . Only record in error log was that the computer had recovered from the crash, nothing flagged before it.
3/13: Computer has done a single random reboot
3/13: Crashed again, this time with stop code 0x24 related to NTFS.sys...so my brand new hard drive might be bad.
3/13-present: Computer will occasionally refuse to boot, and all you'll hear is the noise of "SOMETHING" trying to start repeatedly i.e. a disc trying to spin, Can't open the case right now so I can't tell what. Same thing that happened the morning I thought my boot disk had died. fans etc will run normally, but I have to hold power and shut down in order to boot successfully when this happens.
One time, I have also received the dreaded "disc read error" black screen...first time I have EVER seen that in over 20 years of working with computers. Occasionally, computer will also take an exceptionally long time to move from the mobo splash screen to the windows loading screen
Several things jump out at me.
1. The bluescreen related to IRQL points to video card or RAM issues.
2. Memory_Management most obviously points to RAM but also could indicate hard drive problems or video card, which led me to conclude my boot drive was the problem, especially after it gave out altogether.
3. Memtest 86 showed my processor running incredibly hot...near 100 Celsius...and the manufacturer danger zone is only a little above 60. This was later confirmed by HWMonitor. Idle it runs at 50 with all fans at full speed, and close to 100 under heavy load. Graphics card runs at 38 idle and 70 under load.
4. If it IS a processor or video card problem, why in the world WOULDN'T the PC crash when playing a game (Titanfall, Elder Scrolls Beta) that keeps it consistently at its limits...including 100-101 degrees on the processor temp? But it will randomly crash when idle or streaming something flash based? And even that's not a sure thing, sometimes I can watch flash stuff for hours, other times the computer bsod's within seconds of the video starting.
Could it be my processor, RAM, or video card? Where does the sudden crashing of the brand new hard drive fit in? Could it be that the motherboard or power supply is failing and trying to take everything else with it?
Link to all successful crash dumps after new Hard drive and OS reinstall (should be another, but one of the crash dumps never finished, it just spent hours in the preparing data phase until I got fed up and powered off)
https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=E5219C988F3D0521%21105
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram