Repeated Blue Screens - Can't Narrow Down the Issue

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Extra Fox

Extra Fox

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My system is dead.

In fact, it has now been dead longer than it was not dead.

It had a short, fantastic existence from the end of March to the end of April. At which point a crash during a game led to repeated Blue-screen errors. I've tried what I believe to be a wide gamut of problem solving approaches to determine the issue, but I've ultimate come up empty and I'm in need of advice.

Here are some highlights:

    1) The memory tests error free with Memtest86+.
    2) I've RMA'd the motherboard, but that didn't fix anything.
    3) I've updated to the latest BIOS, but that seems to have no effect.
    4) I replaced the original boot disk with an Intel unit, but that had no effect.
    5) I've tried installing Windows 7 and Ubuntu, but I'm met with Blue-screens or Kernel Panics shortly after launching the install sequence.
    6) Blue-screens and kernel panics seem to refer to a device driver, but I with nothing installed I struggle to understand how I can address this.

At this point, even though the memory test clean, I still suspect it as the culprit. There are two things that I've found curious. 1) the motherboard does not detect its speed properly, I have to manually set it and 2) Memtest86+ does not detect it's specs at all.

I also tried to launch Ubuntu without installing trying with just a single stick of memory installed. It kernel panicked using both sticks although the end kernel panic message was different this time. With two sticks I would get "Kernel panic - not syncing: Fatal exception in interrupt!", with a single stick I get "Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill the idle task!"

When attempting to install Windows I seem to get one of two errors.
- DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL - STOP: 0x000000D1
- Blank - STOP: 0x0000001E

System Specs

  • - ASUS Sabertooth Z87
    - Intel i7 4770k
    - Corsair Dominator (2x 16GB, 1866)
    - ASUS nVidia GTX 770
    - Intel 530 (240GB, previously, Samsung 840 EVO)
    - Corsair AX760 Power Supply
    - Windows 7 x64 Ultimate
 
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Marklamarkle

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This is a tricky one. To start the diagnostics I would recommend taking all of the memory sticks then place one in, boot it up, the switch the memory stick. Do this until you have tried all the memory sticks - Please let me know when you have done this and tell us the results.
 
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Extra Fox

Extra Fox

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I currently don't have an OS on the drive to boot to, it's bare metal at this point. However, I'll do what you've suggested, but instead boot to installing Windows. I've only got two sticks of Memory so this won't take too long.

The results are as follows:
Stick A) Windows installer launches briefly before producing a blue-screen error. I tried this twice, the first time was a blank error with 0x0000001E, the second was the "IRQL" error with 0x0000000A.

Stick B) With only this stick, the system simply froze at the swirly Windows logo screen (for the life of me I can't remember the technical name for this screen).
 
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Extra Fox

Extra Fox

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I think I'm going to RMA the memory. I've tested it countless ways over long periods of times without a single apparent issue. However, in reading some posts on what the Blue-screen stop codes mean I am seeing some correlation between the codes and possible memory issues.

The processor will be the last if the memory RMA doesn't resolve anything which I may get started as a precaution.

I'm currently running the various test utilities from the Hirem Boot CD to see if I can expose any tell-tale issues. Of course, if anyone else has a suggestion I'm willing to try it out.

I can't even begin to express how much of a bummer this whole business has been.
 
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Marklamarkle

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So I've talked to a friend about this and we think either you have faulty ram or faulty ram slots. It must be a hardware problem. Do you have any other functional ram available to test with? If so, try that. If the PC still wont start up correctly then it must my a motherboard problem, so claim it on the warranty.
If you do not have any other ram sticks available the safest option is to buy new ram, or claim it on the warranty.
Good luck
 
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Extra Fox

Extra Fox

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I really wish I had some extra RAM for this. I could buy some cheap, compatible memory, but I'm already into this system too far in terms of cost.

I'm going to go with the warranty approach at this point lacking better options. The motherboard was previously sent back and returned. Asus never indicated what, if anything, they did so I'm not 100% certain that the board is okay.

Thanks again for your help and I'll post once I get the RAM back.
 
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Extra Fox

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I received the new DRAM today. I installed it and then tested it for about 2 hours and it ran clean. Kind of like it would when I tested the old sticks.

So I tried to install Windows and hit a blue-screen right at the black, animated Windows logo screen.

I'm on the phone with ASUS now; apparently they did replace a component on my motherboard, but the fellow wasn't sure what it was. After he ran through the various scenarios I've tried as far as troubleshooting goes he's concluding that another RMA is for the Motherboard is in order.

This is such a persistent bummer right now. I have half a mind to go buy another Motherboard, but I simply don't want to sink any more cash into this build. :(
 
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Extra Fox

Extra Fox

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The motherboard came back from ASUS last week. After getting everything reassembled and the BIOS setup I crossed my fingers and tried to install Windows.

To my great disappointment I was greeted with a Blue Screen error shortly after the Windows logo screen.

It's been over 60 days since my system crashed I'm about ready to tear my hair out. There's nothing left on this system that hasn't either tested without issues, been RMA'd to the respective manufacturer, or completely replaced at my own cost.

I'm hoping that ASUS may see fit to send me a completely new replacement at this point, but I'm not optimistic.
 
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Extra Fox

Extra Fox

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While I haven't completely lost faith in ASUS I no longer have much left for the Sabertooth, that's for sure.

Still, I'd be happy with a complete replacement of the board. They obviously have not been able to fix it, if in fact they've even tried. Clearly whatever they're doing while it's away at their facility doesn't include actual integration testing.

I guess if they refuse to send a new replacement I will have to buy a different board and then try to seek compensation either through ASUS or possibly Amazon.
 
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junkeymonkey

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I thought with mine it was just my bad luck and I spent well on replacement parts that did little to help it the my buddy ordered his wile I was putting mine together and his was worse than mine like the only way he could keep the bios was to remove the vid-card from the slot over night or it would be dead and had to remove the battery and this was with 3 different cards after 3 weeks of fooling with it he just ordered a gigabyte 990fxud3 took all the stuff off the asus and it fired right up the first time and he isstill running it today
his son ordered his a day after his dad did and with him it was always the red leds coming on and only worked when it wanted to so he chunked it for a asrock 990fx ex9. I was able to ''use'' mine for over a year I found if I keep the bios at default and used just one stick of memory [did not matter witch slot] it seemed to work fine [???] between the 3 of us we had lots of spare parts to swap out 5 vidcards- 6 memory kits 7 psu's and with all of that never got one full time stable
so this time around I just went intel best move I ever made and I now wonder if I was fooling my self sticking with amd for so long
 
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Extra Fox

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For now at least, my investment with ASUS will be followed through to whatever conclusion. Ideally, that will be a fully functional motherboard that gives years of service. However, the option still exists to replace it outright, I just hate to lose that much money.

The CS fellow, Nick, who I spoke to on the phone today seemed genuinely helpful. So I'll send the board in again and hope for the best. Third time is the charm?
 
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junkeymonkey

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record all the # on your board to check that when you get it back if its your board you sent in or a replacement - more than likely it will be a referb. my deal on this is that I bought and new board and I expect a new board in replacement not someone else's junk board that you claimed to have fixed up

'' I just hate to lose that much money.'' --- well ya , so did we lots of it you figure you already spent lets say for psu memory vid card and noe to try to fix it you spend more on memory and that don't work so you try a now card well that did not work start adding this up ...

its hard to say on what you should do but like my buddy above has allways built asus and his sabertooth was enough to change that

lots of hype and low on quality its only got a 55% rating and read the 1 and 2 egg

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131976&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&PageSize=10&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&IsFeedbackTab=true#scrollFullInfo


like I said mine would only work with one stick at default in any slot
 
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Extra Fox

Extra Fox

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With apologies Junkeymonkey, I didn't get notice of your reply.

Here's an update; the effort to replace the Motherboard with Asus Customer Service was a disappointing one. So much so that I just bought another Motherboard so I could be done with it. I have a "refurbished" Sabertooth sitting in the box as a backup now.

The replacement board was another Asus, this time the Maximus VI Hero. Yeah, I know, kind of dumb considering my experience, but I still believe Asus makes solid hardware. It's just their customer support that could use a lot of help.

At any rate, the new Motherboard performed much better and I didn't get any BSODs when trying to install Windows, but all is not well because the system now just freezes when trying to install. I've followed quite a few suggestions based on other people's threads dealing with similar problems to mine with no luck.

What really made my heart sink though was when the system froze while trying to use Diskpart in the command window while in the installer. A system with otherwise healthy hardware shouldn't do that right?

So now, my thoughts are that the system has either a bad Processor or Power Supply. Even though I thought I excluded the former by using my old power supply as a test. I'm running MemTest again as well and I'll run it all night, but I doubt the Memory is going to have any problems.

Needless to say, this still completely sucks... nearly 5 months later. :(
 
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Marklamarkle

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Hi Extra Fox,
I'd just like to say I think you're having really bad luck with this build. I genuinely fell sorry for you because I know how frustrating this is.

Anyway, I dont think the processor is at fault here, they simply do not fail out of the blue unless the socket has been damaged in some way if you tried to take it out. Processors from the 1990s are still functioning... Equally, I doubt the power supply would fail at that precise time at each install attempt, however it might stuggle to power the hard drive if it is low powered (This would be a PSU less than 100w and yours is more than that). This leads me to think that perhaps the hard drive you are trying to partition is corrupted, but SSDs are renowned for having a very low fault rate. If you have a friend that could lend you one just to test the system, that would help see if this is the issue.

The only other component I think we haven't tested is the graphics card. I doubt this would affect the install procedure, but at this stage we might as well try all the options. Take it out and plug your monitor into the motherboard to see if it makes a change.

Best of luck!
-Mark
 
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Extra Fox

Extra Fox

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Well, I do appreciate the sympathy. I've never encountered a more frustrating, stubborn system issue than I have with this PC. I've always been able to find a resolution and I'm confident I will at some point here, I just can't believe it's taken this long or cost as much money as this has.

To add insult to injury, my Klipsch Promedia 2.1 system also died during this time. One of the inline satellite amplifiers detonated inside the amp after 7 years of dependable use. So that was just super.

I too find it highly unlikely the Processor or power supply is the issue. If I had processor issues, wouldn't I see a system crash when using MemTest or Prime95? And I was able to test the system using my old power supply which produced the exact same results as the current supply did. So I just don't know, these are the last two components that have yet to be RMA'd or outright replaced and I'm simply out of ideas and patience.

I'm going to do as you suggested, I've got an old Velociraptor HDD here that worked when last I used it. I'll try the install on that to see if I get anywhere. I'll also remove the Video Card, it's been isolated before as not causing an issue, but I can still pull it and use the HDMI from the motherboard. Maybe it's messing up the install or something of that nature. The thing that still bugs me though is why the system froze up when I was in the console window.

I'll let you know what happens.
 
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Extra Fox

Extra Fox

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Maddeningly, results were the same. With the video card removed and running off the built in video card (HDMI only) I tried two things;

1) Install on the intended SDD.
2) Install on the old HDD.

In both cases the install froze at less than 10% of the way through the expanding files step. The percentage it freezes at seems random at this point.

I've heard the suggestion that if you leave an installation that has frozen long enough it will eventually proceed. Some of the threads I've seen have suggested anywhere from 8 to 24 hours. This seems strange that this should work and I would think suggests of bigger system issues at play, but at this point I'm willing to try.

Regarding the memory test, it ran clean after two full cycles and was well into the third when I stopped it. I really don't think the RAM is the problem in this case. If it was it seems logical that as fast as the problem arises I would see memory errors almost immediately in the test. Besides, I've RMA'd it once already when I was convinced that was the problem.

So I'm left with the following options unless there are any other ideas.
1) Let the install run over night (this just can't be right).
2) RMA the Processor and Power Supply.

$%#@!
 
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Extra Fox

Extra Fox

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I don't doubt there are issues given those that I've experienced and the worst of it comes when you need to rely on their Customer Service, but I find a lot of folks who are quite happy with their Asus hardware as well.

To be fair, when I first built my system it went together without a single problem and ran great, so whatever has gone wrong must have impacted more than one component. Because there's no good reason I can think of for it to behave this way.

After starting another install attempt yesterday evening it stopped at 4% on the expanding files. Curiously, I can still move the mouse cursor although it hasn't progressed any further than where it stopped last night.

Is there some way to get a verbose output to the install process beyond the simplistic progress Window you typically get?
 
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Extra Fox

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I'm going to check the MD5 of the ISO I downloaded from Microsoft to make sure it's correct. I know that number-wise it's the same as my installation disk from Microsoft. I can try another USB stick although the one I was using was quite new.

SHA1 checksum is confirmed so I'll redo the installer on a different Memory stick.
 
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Extra Fox

Extra Fox

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Well, I just experience my first Blue-screen error with the new motherboard. Here's what I did.


  • ■ First, I recreated the USB installer from the ISO I downloaded from Microsoft. This froze up as it has been doing.
    ■ Next, I tried burned the ISO to a DVD and tried installing with that. This produced a Blue-screen error of 0x0000001E.

One thing I noticed is that the SSD is occasionally "frozen" after an install attempt. Through the BIOS I'm able to change this status using the SSD secure erase feature, but this is rather strange.

So right now I'm thinking the following.

  • ■ RMA the power supply or motherboard.
    ■ RMA the new Intel SSD (how could it be bad already?).

I don't know what else there is to try?
 
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Marklamarkle

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Well error code 0x0000001E is when there are corrupted drivers...
Perhaps your DVD driver is interfering, try disconnecting the DVD reader and try again.
 
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Extra Fox

Extra Fox

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That's one I've seen a lot during this whole thing. It's been a frustrating clue because I'm not sure how to install the all the drivers before I have an OS to run them with. If there's a way, it's beyond my knowledge at this time.

I've got the DVD disconnected and I'm going to run through some clean install steps and see what happens.
 
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