BSOD Trouble. Can it be the CPU?

Apr 6, 2018
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Hi. I really hope somebody can help me with this endless frustrating problem.

So I built this computer back in July and these are its specs,

-ASRock Z270 KILLER SLI/AC LGA 1151 Intel Z270 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 ATX Motherboards - Intel
-Intel Core i7-7700K Kaby Lake Quad-Core 4.2 GHz LGA 1151 91W BX80677I77700K Desktop Processor
-G.SKILL Ripjaws 4 Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3000 (PC4 24000) Desktop Memory Model
-Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - CPU Cooler with 120mm PWM Fan
-MSI GeForce GTX 750 Ti DirectX 12 N750 Ti-2GD5TLP 2GB 128-Bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card
-EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2 Power Supply - ATX12V/EPS12V - 110 V AC, 220 V AC Input Voltage - 3.3 V DC, 5 V DC, 12 V
-Toshiba OCZ TRION 150 2.5" 480GB SATA III TLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) TRN150-25SAT3-480G
-WD Black 2TB Performance Desktop Hard Disk Drive - 7200 RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch - WD2003FZEX

The computer ran with no problems to my awareness, and I installed Windows 10 on it and it was fine. My little brother uses the computer alot because its really his, I was building it for him. Anyway about a month later my mom tells me something is wrong with the computer so I go and look at it. It starts up and maybe 5-10 minutes go by and BSOD. I restart it again and BSOD on startup. I would get the BSOD randomly on startup or a few minutes after everything is loaded. The BSOD would be Page Fault in NonPaged Area, or if I just let the computer run through the BSOD I would get a different error like Bad Pool Header. By the way I had my OS on the ssd.

So first thing I try is restoring a previous version of windows, cause it updated at some point I think, but during the restore process it fails. Since the pc is fairly new I just decide to reinstall windows completely and erase everything on the ssd and hard drive. During the installation of windows I get another BSOD. Same couple of errors. I keep trying and it eventually installs windows until I get another BSOD at some point. So I try this memtest without installing any OS to see if I have bad ram, I get no errors after the test takes 2 hours. I then take out my ssd from that computer and out it into my own personal computer and install windows on it, it seemed to work fine and I got windows running no BSOD. I place the SSD back in the other computer and I get BSOD at some point.

Next I think it could be the motherboard, so i send it out to get fixed under warrenty, they send it back I put everything back and try to reinstall windows, still BSOD at some point. So I just say screw this and buy a brand new motherboard hoping they didnt really fix the motherboard sent back to me. I get this motherboard now
-ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VIII HERO/Whetstone LGA1151 DDR4 DP HDMI M.2 USB 3.1 Z170 ATX Motherboard
and yes of course still BSOD after I reinstall everything and try putting windows on it again.

Just yesterdayI worked with my buddy on it and we took out the ssd and just tried it on the hard drive. We got the BSOD at first but then my buddy said maybe its my bios and its not updated to support my processor so we update it, we get BSOD once and then get into the installation of windows. Everything is running so we install the Intel Extreme Tuning Utility, cause we still think something is wrong here. We do a stress test on the CPU, passes and the CPU temp ranged from 50c-75c, so perfectly fine. We do a memory stress test 4 times, with one stick then two sticks then three sticks then four sticks, and everything passes. Everything was working fine and 45 minutes have gone by. Then we wipe everything again cause we want the OS on the ssd. Everything runs smoothly and fine. After windows is installed we run windows updater to check for updates, and there is updates, so we try installing all of them. They take awhile, we get a failure at some point but we click try again. Then it tells us to restart the computer, we do that and then BSOD AGAIN. Same page fault BSOD and bad pool header. I dont know whats wrong. Im so super confused, is it the ssd thats the issue, ram, cpu???????? Please help me. I never had issues like this before. Is it a windows update but that doesnt make any sense to me why that would be the issue. Please please Im begging for any help. Thanks again to whoever.
 
Solution
generally if you get a bugcheck you should provide the windows diagnostic memory dump from c:\windows\minidump directory

these are large files so you have to copy them to a cloud server like Microsoft onedrive, share the files for public access and post a link. Someone with a windows debugger can take a quick look.

In general, to do a fix you should update the BIOS and motherboard drivers from the motherboard vendors website. If you continue getting bugchecks you should provide the memory dump file.

since one of the bugcheck was a pool corruption, you should run verifier to attempt to bugcheck the system when a driver modifies another drivers data. to run verifier you start cmd.exe or powershell as a admin then run
verifier.exe...

Barty1884

Retired Moderator
Sounds like the common denominator for the BSOD is the SSD, paired with that specific system/motherboard.

The HDD with the OS on it worked out fine, the CPU, RAM etc check out, and the motherboard has been replaced.

I'd run a health check on the SSD - the fact it "works" on another system doesn't necessarily rule it out as the culprit.
Check to see if there's any firmware updates for the SSD too.
 
Apr 6, 2018
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Is it possible that the SSD is bad? I will try running completely on my hard drive only and I will check to see if there are any updates to my ssd. How would I know if my cpu or ram was bad? Is doing the stress tests on them good enought to check? Im scared it is the processor but I am not sure of entirely knowing. I am also pretty sure I tried just the hard drive by itself and still got the BSOD at some point but Ill check again just to be sure.
 

Barty1884

Retired Moderator
It's possibly. They don't tend to slowly fail though, they're usually catastrophic.... so i'ts a long shot, but it's the common denominator (at least, from what I read in your post).

CPUs are rarely 'bad' unless over-volted. It's more of a process of elimination thing to land at the CPU being the culprit.
RAM, MemTest would tell you...... you'd have to do more than a couple of passes though. I'd run it overnight.
 
Apr 6, 2018
3
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When I did the memtest without the OS installed it took like 2 hours and it did 4 passes, it came back with 0 errors. Is that enough passes or would I need to do it over again? I will look into the ssd being the problem and let you know if that helped at all. I will just unplug the ssd and install windows on the hard drive and see if that helps at all.
 
generally if you get a bugcheck you should provide the windows diagnostic memory dump from c:\windows\minidump directory

these are large files so you have to copy them to a cloud server like Microsoft onedrive, share the files for public access and post a link. Someone with a windows debugger can take a quick look.

In general, to do a fix you should update the BIOS and motherboard drivers from the motherboard vendors website. If you continue getting bugchecks you should provide the memory dump file.

since one of the bugcheck was a pool corruption, you should run verifier to attempt to bugcheck the system when a driver modifies another drivers data. to run verifier you start cmd.exe or powershell as a admin then run
verifier.exe /standard /all
and reboot the system. if any bad drivers are found verifier will bugcheck the system and name the bad driver in the memory dump file.
NOTE: be sure you know how to get into safe mode so you can disable verifier if you get a bugcheck during the boot process.
Use
verifier.exe /reset (this will disable verifier functions)

Note: you have to disable verifier after you are done testing or your machine will run slowly until you do.

 
Solution