Random (and varied) BSOD - even after hardware replacement

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Franconstein

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Aug 13, 2012
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10,510
I've been racking my brains with this. A friend of mine bought a PC about 2 years ago (pre-built desktop), and about six months in, it just started randomly throwing BSOD on a Windows 7. Since then, he's changed every component from the rig, including brands (he went from Intel to AMD). He's also been through Windows 8, 8,1 and now Windows 10. He still gets random BSOD. Sometimes the computer's idle, sometimes he's browsing and sometimes he's gaming.

I checked his latest dumps (17 in one month), and there's a lot of variety in messages, processes, and overall information for the crashes. Of course, I have a very limited knowledge on how to read these files, and I use Nirsoft's Bluescreen View.

I've uploaded the files on a ZIP folder to my Dropbox (here), if anyone would be willing to give them a check and help me figure out what's going on.

As of now, what I'm going to do is give the HDD a low-level format, re-install Windows on it, and make sure I get the correct drivers installed in the correct order, just in case.

Any help with this would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance!
 
Solution
sadams04
Basics first...

1.) Drivers, drivers, drivers. For both the chipset (motherboard and related) and the GPU, go to the manufacturers web site and update (if not done already).
2.) Test the memory. Go to memtest86.com, download the ISO and burn it to a DVD. Boot to it and make at least three passes testing the memory. If you have an errors, replace the memory (or at least the failing module) with matching specs.
3.) Test the hard drive. HDTune.com offers a 30 day trial (however this is a good product and you can't go wrong purchasing and keeping it in your arsenal). Download, install and run through the tests.

FWIW, the Microsoft DART tools easily analyze the dump and can tell you the faulting piece. You are only interested in...
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sadams04

sadams04

Splendid
Nov 23, 2010
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Basics first...

1.) Drivers, drivers, drivers. For both the chipset (motherboard and related) and the GPU, go to the manufacturers web site and update (if not done already).
2.) Test the memory. Go to memtest86.com, download the ISO and burn it to a DVD. Boot to it and make at least three passes testing the memory. If you have an errors, replace the memory (or at least the failing module) with matching specs.
3.) Test the hard drive. HDTune.com offers a 30 day trial (however this is a good product and you can't go wrong purchasing and keeping it in your arsenal). Download, install and run through the tests.

FWIW, the Microsoft DART tools easily analyze the dump and can tell you the faulting piece. You are only interested in the Crash Analyzer...
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hh826071.aspx
https://technet.microsoft.com/library/jj713366.aspx
 
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Solution
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Franconstein

Honorable
Aug 13, 2012
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10,510


Thank you very much for your quick response! I am now downloading the DART tools to see if I can get more information about these crashes. Thanks for linking to it!

I forgot to mention (silly me), that I've done quite some thorough testing through Hiren's BootCD (both on DOS and from Windows), and the computer only crashes during the Windows tests, randomly. For instance, while running S&M Stress Test, I ran each component separately (CPU, HDD, RAM) and several times, and sometimes it would crash during one (say, HDD), and then sometimes it wouldn't.

As for the drivers, they've all been downloaded from the manufacturer's website, but some are for older Windows (some don't support Windows 10, for example).

Thank you very much for your assistance! I'll update if I find anything useful from the DART tools.
 
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Franconstein

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Aug 13, 2012
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10,510
So, after all the stress testing, component switching and everything else... it turned out it was the BIOS. Apparently, the ASUS M5A97 LE R2.0 does support Vishera processors, but they run highly unstable unless you update its BIOS. Did that, and now it's been running for a few days with zero crashes. *shrugs*
 
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