Random Blue Screens

[thesupermedium]

Hi,

My brother, who is not a member of Tom's, recently converted from Mac to PC. I helped him along with building a computer and putting it together, and he enjoys tinkering and fiddling with the thing.

However, about a day after he got everything together and working, the computer would randomly start flashing the monitor and turn grainy before blue screening. At first we thought it was the GPU because this happened primarily while playing games. Later on I was talking to a friend who suggested that a blue screen is typically a hard drive issue. This would make sense, seeing as a faulty GPU wouldn't display anything in the first place.

Now we are poised to RMA the drive and see what happens from there, though I get the feeling we are entering this blind. We still arent 100% sure what the problem is. If anyone could give some pointers, previous experiences or suggestions, my brother and I would be grateful. If you need more information please feel free to ask.

System specs for the build are as follows:

Asus 785G AM3 motherboard

Phenom II 955 Black

4GB Corsair Dominator

HIS 5770

Corsair 750W Modular

Thermaltake V9 Blackx edition case

 

[Emerald]

have you tested the memory? do it one stick at a time.

 

[Ubrales]

When I experienced this (blue screens) on my new i7 build, I raised the CPU voltage to 1.275 volts, and the system has been stable ever since. The max CPU voltage for the i7-920 is 1.375 volts per Intel.

 

[thesupermedium]

@EMERALD -- No I have not, though we are planning on doing this.

@Ubrales -- This is an AMD build, and that aside, me and my brother have the same build, same motherboard and CPU and memory. I have no problems, so the voltage is probably fine, though I will double check to be sure.

Also, the power supply is mounted on the bottom facing down and is on carpet, which kept alot of air from getting to it. To remedy this, we sat it on a plastic lid and it has been sucking more air. Could this problem be related to that?

 

[aford10]

The symptoms you describe are likely graphics driver related. Make sure you have the newest 5770 driver.
http://www.hisdigital.com/us/support.shtml

Errors are usually logged in the event viewer.
start-->run-->eventvwr.msc-->check the system and application logs for errors (red X's).

 

[thesupermedium]

Best answer selected by thesupermedium.

 

[thesupermedium]

Thanks aford10. I relayed the information to my brother and the computer has been working without a hitch since we reinstalled the drivers.

And thanks for everyone's advice.

 

[aford10]

Good to hear!

Thanks for the vote

 

[thesupermedium]

Unfortunately... His computer is continuing these problems now. We added a new hard drive and even tried a different GPU, all to no avail. He suspects it's the motherboard causing all of this trouble, but I think if the motherboard were damaged it wouldn't boot properly anyway. The RAM appears to be working since we tested each stick. I am poised to take apart my computer and test out each of his parts with mine, though a fix for his would be preferable.

If any of you have any other ideas about what this could be, please do tell. The Blue screens he has been getting read something about a memory dump, which is preceded by horizontal staticy stripes. Thanks in advance for any possible information.

 

[aford10]

Are there any errors logged in the event viewer?

 

[thesupermedium]

I've tried accessing the event viewer, but when I type the .msc into the run bar and press enter nothing happens. I'll try a reboot to see if the program is hung or something.

 

[aford10]

If the run command doesn't access it, you can go to start-->control panel-->administrative tools-->event viewer

 

[thesupermedium]

Managed to get the computer started again, and it gave me a message saying "windows must now restard because the Plug and Play service terminated unexpectedly"

I got the event viewer open. Read as follows:

MMC could not create the snap-in.

MMC could not create the snap-in. The snap-in might not have been installed correctly.

Name:Event Viewer

CLSID:
FX:{b05566ad-fe9c-4363-be05-7a


Does any of this make sense?

 

[aford10]

Look for the following file, and rename it.
c:\windows\system32\mmc.exe.config

That fixed it for several others in this thread.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itprovistaapps/thread/3928aa45-497c-4f2a-93fb-faaa7946d973

 

[thesupermedium]

Thanks! I hope this helps with the blue screens. As you might understand this has been incredibly frustrating for both me and my brother, who is used to the simplicity of owning a Mac.

He gets off of work at 10, so I'll inform him of this when he is back. Thanks again for the help, and I'll give you an update after we've implemented the change.

 

[thesupermedium]

Yeah, so when we tried to rename the file, which was just called MMC.exe in his system32, it said access denied, and that we needed permission from trustedinstaller. I have no idea what that means...

 

[aford10]

Yep, it's an ownership issue. Follow this guide to take ownership of the file. Then you can rename it.
http://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-7/windows-7-how-to-delete-files-protected-by-trustedinstaller/

 

[thesupermedium]

Right, so we did that, and renamed it from "MMC.exe" to "mmc.exe.config.bak" and now whenever you try to open the event viewer it doesn't recognize the file and asks what program we want to use to open it...

 

[thesupermedium]

Got the event viewer open, and it says under critical "Kernel power". I don't know what that means, but I'll start researching.

 

[aford10]

Is there an event ID number?

 

[thesupermedium]

Event ID 41. With more research I found out is has something to do with abrupt power loss. Basically shutting off the computer or unplugging it. I attribute this to the bluescreen. Right now my brother is rebuilding his index in the belief this is system instability.

 

[aford10]

I've seen a lot of people with this error. You have windows 7, right?

Try disabling any and all hibernation settings in the control panel-->power settings.

In the device manager, what is listed under the audio devices?

Download memtest, and let it run overnight.

Look up your motherboard, and see if there is an updated BIOS.
http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

 

[thesupermedium]

Well my brother rebuilt the index last night and it appears to be working okay. We will run a memory test just to be 100%, and I'll mention the other stuff. Thank you so much for your help! I know Geek Squad qould have charged like $300 and wouldn't have helped.

 

[aford10]

You're welcome