Custom made PC Crashing and Blue Screening Frequently

Pedro Ye

Prominent
Jul 10, 2017
1
0
510
Hello everybody,

As the title says my PC is frequently crashing and having Blue Screen of Death.

The computer is custom made and the specs are:

  • ■ Microsoft Windows 10 Pro (10.0.15063) x64
    Processor - AMD FX - 8350 Eight-Core
    RAM - Corsair Vengeance 8GB [2x4GB] DDR3 1600Mhz CL9 Blue
    Motherboard - Asus M5A97 R2 AM3+
    GPU - Asus Radeon HD7850 DC2 2GB DDR5
    PSU - Aerocool Templarius Imperator 650w 80 Plus Bronze
The crashes happen the most when I'm playing videogames such as Hearthstone, Counter-Strike Global Offensive and Cities Skylines. It has also crashed when I was downloading League of Legends (was downloading to test if it would crash on this game too), at the same time I was watching a Youtube video, don't know if it is important but might aswell add it in here.

The crashes and blue screens have started since September of last year, but have been more frequent from February of this year. I didn't search for much help because I was more concentrated on Uni stuff but since now I'm on vacation I decided to try to fix it.

When the pc crashes it doesn't turn off, it just freezes and I can't do anything, needing shut it off or restart by pressing the On/Off button of the PC. The last 3 blue screens (the ones which I took a picture and noted) codes are:

  • ■ 1 - SYSTEM_THREAD EXCEPTION NOT HANDLED (atikmdag.sys failure)
    ■ 2 - SYSTEM_THREAD EXCEPTION NOT HANDLED (no atikmadag.sys failure indicated, just the error)
    ■ 3 - SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION (also no failure indicated, just the error code)

When the first blue screen happened I tried to fix it by searching on google and so on. Updated the drivers and followed a guide. It seems it had to do with AMD drivers. On the next day the 2nd blue screen happened and later on the same day the 3rd one (I was playing CSGO on those last 2 ones).

The computer is 4/5 years old. It had been working well until September (when I thought it was just some random things, might had to do with some win10 software updates) and had been very bad, to a point which I can't really enjoy some games, being constantly interrupted by this crashes, on these last few months.

I thought the problem had to do with the PSU but I was not sure since the fans and lights on the hardware were still running when the crashes happened.

EDIT: I also remember a blue screen of death with the code IRQL_LESS_OR_EQUAL something like that.

Thank you. (Sorry for my English, it is not my native language, any miscomprehension please ask so I can try to be more explicit)

PS: Sometimes when I play Citites Skylines the game crashes, but not the pc. I think it has nothing to do with the other problems so I didn't metion it before. Just putting it in here in case it can help someone figure it out.
 

mbilal2

Reputable
Jun 15, 2017
939
0
5,660
Monitor your CPU and GPU temperatures using HW-monitor or something similar while playing games.

Best guess is that some process is using a bad memory address and that causes the issue. See if you can find "bugcheck error code" on the error screen. Download the latest BIOS, sound card, etc drivers from Asus' website (mobo). BSOD, most of the time is related to corrupt or non-compatible or outdated graphics card drivers. Make sure you download it from Asus' website and not AMD's. Once you get it, update it to the latest version.

Also run memtest86 to confirm your memory timings.

Good Luck!
 

Bo Lee

Reputable
Jun 17, 2015
509
1
5,360
When you updated your drivers, did you run DDU or anything to completely uninstall your old drivers? Sometimes if a video driver becomes corrupt, just updating won't fix the issue and when that happens, completely uninstalling the old driver and reinstalling the driver fresh works. And get your video driver from AMD, not Asus. That MB doesn't appear to have on board graphics (or at least images of it don't show any kind of video port), so Asus won't have the proper driver.
 
1. download manually a copy of your Ati?AMD video card driver and save it to your desktop
2 download and use ddu, yes go to safe more, and ye sand remove the complete ATI/AMD driver
3. reboot launch amd/ati software install and DO NOT INSTALL CATALYST, just drivers.
try...

source of short version based on information found at : http://www.overclock.net/t/420875/possible-solution-to-atikmdag-driver-crash
 
Solution