Windows 7 BSOD's on startup

[Jimzoaar]

Hi All,

I recently replaced my motherboard/CPU. I now have a Bulldozer FX-6200 with Gigabyte 990XA-UD3.

I was having issues with crashes and after various OS reinstalls, I finally got it to a particular state that it would not change. This was not ideal however. As this state meant that when it booted, it would hang at the 'starting windows' screen. I then had to manually restart it around 5-6 times, where it would do the same thing, I would then leave it for 30-45 mins, and then when trying to turn on, it generally booted.

I cannot run Prime95, my case is very cool, HDD around 25 celsius, CPU around 25 celsius. Prime 95 crashes either within seconds or within minutes and as I said, CPU temps never topped 50 celsius.

I have recently bought a new PSU, as my old one was not very good quality and i believed it to be that.

This is where I would appreciate some help. As the new PSU did not fix it, it has made a noticeable difference. The main one being it boots almost everytime now. When it doesnt, it seems to be BSODing with a memory dump and generic, useless, Microsoft error code.

I have tried a million OS reinstalls, my OS image is fine, all of these components were fine before I replaced the mobo/CPU.

Please help any advise is greatly appreciated!!!

Many thanks!!

 

[a little black duck]

Just because no one answered you immediately there's no need to repost every few minutes.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/320674-30-windows-bsod-startup

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/363674-31-windows-bsod-startup

 

[Jimzoaar]

I was just spreading the article across various subject area's because I have no idea where this should be, and should I put it in the wrong area, I will get no help.

 

[sam_p_lay]

Understandable I think, would be good to add multiple category option when creating a post. Checkboxes to select relevant categories, would work a bit like tags I suppose.

Don't get your hopes up though, these kind of changes never seem to happen on THG (like stupid images zoom link in articles).

As for the problem, first thing is to re-seat your RAM. Dodgy sticks, slots or improper seating can cause blue screens. Obviously since you got a new mobo you had to reinstall your RAM.

Remove all sticks but one and see if the problem persists. If it does, swap out that stick for another of your sticks. If not, try adding sticks until you start blue screening again. Remember, the problem could be the slot, so try it in different slots too. Just try all combinations to rule out memory as an issue.

If you didn't discharge your static before handling the memory, you may have damaged one or more of the sticks. You should still be able to request an RMA from your retailer for it.

What power supply are you using now and what did it replace? Units from Antec and Corsair are typically a safe bet (neither actually manufacture PSUs but they use the best suppliers). Seasonic are a top quality supplier they use who also sell PSUs under their own name - pricey but guaranteed quality.

I can say from first hand experience that other companies that are well-established in the PSU/case/cooler/etc industry (Thermaltake, Coolermaster etc) won't necessarily be good quality and can die within months.

 

[Jimzoaar]

I have tried the RAM, though I haven't been incredibly patient and dont think Ive tested both sticks as much as i can. I will perform that tonight, thank you.

As for the PSU I was using an awful casecom 500w. I have replaced with a be quiet! pure power 630w.

Bear in mind I only have a GTS 250 green edition, and two HDD's (7200RPM), so I dont need a beefy PSU.

Any other suggestions? My techy friends at work advised he beleives it to be a HDD issue? He thinks that before I replace the PSU, the fact it didnt have enough power and kept dying would have affect the HDD really quite badly.

 

[sam_p_lay]

Well I wasn't talking about wattage so much as reliability - even a 450w would be worth getting from a quality manufacturer. You are right though that you have ample power there.

I've never experienced that kind of fault with a hard disk - usually mechanical errors with the drive failing to spin up, clicking noises etc. Your friend could be correct though if the drive controller was damaged.

I'd advise a similar approach with the hard disks - unplug the one without your Windows installation and see what happens. If there's no effect, unplug the other and try a Windows install on the other drive if you can. If the drive is NTFS formatted already, you should be able to install Windows without wiping the drive.

You could also try disconnecting any other non-critical hardware (your DVD drive etc) and seeing if that has any effect.

 

[Jimzoaar]

I have had it where only the OS HDD, CPU, Mobo, RAM and GPU are connected at one time and this didnt have an effect. Unfortunately :/

I appreciate what you say about PSU's, I did a lot more research this time round and as confirmed by yourself I believe the PSU is of good quality and power for its price and my requirements.

This may sound strange to you but your very helpful at the moment and it is relevant, but should I be able to run Prime95? My understanding is that I should for atleast an hour. I see that people OC'ing, albeit with high end coolers, are stable on prime95 for ages, up to 3-4 hours, surely I should be able to run one for an hour?

I am asking because it always crashes after a few minutes tops and it could be a very good test to see if my machine is working again.

Many thanks again, really appreciate it Sam!

 

[sam_p_lay]

Glad to help I couldn't say about Prime95 though - I've never bothered with stress-testing, temperatures etc. Dabbled with overclocking a bit about a decade ago and haven't bothered since (found performance gain was always much less than proportional to clock frequency increase, with 15% clock increase resulting in <5% framerate increases - didn't seem worth voiding warranties over).

If I was in your position, I'd obviously get this blue screen issue sorted, and then just wait and see if it reappears. Once you've been using the system for a week or two without issues I think it's a pretty safe bet you're OK. I can understand wanting immediate confirmation that everything is OK though!

 

[Jimzoaar]

Ye its extremely frustrating because it ran fine for around 3 hours with the new PSU yesterday until I got a BSOD on startup.

Its so frustrating that there is no software to diagnose this stuff.

 

[sam_p_lay]

Yeah it's a rare thing in my experience that assembling a system is smooth sailing and you get into Windows with no issues. But it's usually worth it in the long run

You can buy pre-built systems to get a warranty and the luxury of just getting somebody else to figure it out, but that means you're without your computer while they fix it (and could mean big delivery costs) and you'll always know that you could have built that system yourself and chosen every single component.

I think your best bet is definitely the memory (are you using all the slots by the way or are there some free?). Other than that, a Windows installation on the other drive (a pain I know but could eliminate/confirm the possibility of a drive issue with your system drive).

NTFS is a solid filesystem for handling power outages (though filesystems that aren't will only risk a bit of data corruption, not physical damage) so it would only be a power spike that could potentially damage the controller. If that was the case though, you probably wouldn't be booting at all. So definitely memory first!

 

[Jimzoaar]

I am only using 2 slots, and am using the RAM from my previous build which i believe is Hynix branded (1333Mhz), althought ive worked under the assumption it is unbranded.

That is 2/4 slots full for your reference. Could it be that the timings etc are out? Is there any critical RAM settings in BIOS that could be affecting this that I could have a look at?

 

[sam_p_lay]

Well that's possible, but I can only see complications arising from different timings on one stick to the other stick. Although you can manually set them in the BIOS, they will be set automatically to the correct values anyway. If the sticks are the same then it's probably not an issue there. I'd just try each stick individually, and try each stick in each slot if necessary. If once you've tried all eight single-stick combinations you still have problems, you can probably rule out memory being the problem (unless of course both sticks were faulty, but it's not likely they'd both develop a fault at once).

 

[noob2222]

very first thing you need to do is update the bios. sounds like there may be an issue with the newer processor or memory. early bios were very very picky about what memory was used with BD chips, most are fixed when updated. updating may be tricky tho with the bsod, you will have to do it from a flash drive or hard drive through Q-flash. The newest bios is F9c

the nice thing about the gigabyte is that there are 2 bios's, If somehow the update fails (wich isn't often these days), it will still boot, so you can try again.

GIGABYTE DualBIOS™ is a patented technology that automatically recovers BIOS data when the main BIOS has crashed or failed. Featuring 2 physical BIOS ROMs integrated onboard, GIGABYTE DualBIOS™ allows quick and seamless recovery from BIOS damage or failure due to viruses or improper BIOS updating.

Also, make sure you have tried the "load failsafe defaults" option in the bios itself, sometimes this corrects some "hidden bug".

 

[Jimzoaar]

Thanks Sam, I see your logic, I will let you know how testing goes.

Thanks for your advice noob, I have the latest F12 (beta) BIOS but did try with F11 as i knew F12 was a beta.

 

[noob2222]

sorry, ya, I misread, thought you had the 990fxa, but your right, the XA is up to f13 for beta.

Testing memory sticks individually may find something.

 

[Jimzoaar]

I will be testing these after work. Are you of the same opinion that it would be oddly coincidental that these die at the exact time I swap mobo/CPU?

 

[noob2222]

another hidden program inside windows is Windows Memory Diagnostics.

you can type it in the search box at the start menu and it will bring it up.

 

[noob2222]

most likely some compatiblity between the fx and the memory. I initially bought some cheap patriot memory when I got my 8120. it didn't like it at all, sandra tested the memory at 11gb/s. Shoved it in my htpc and put the g.skill from that to my DT, sandtra went to 18gb/s. HTPC works fine with the patriot. just an odd combination sometimes.

 

[Jimzoaar]

I am looking to order RAM on payday ( a week today) so will see for sure then, I will be testing in the mean time as suggested from above.

By the way noob, I dont get your Sandra\htpc\DT lingo? I think i get the jist but not 100% sure.

 

[pjmelect]

The fact that when you changed the power supply the problem changed means that the old power supply was certainly faulty. Have you reinstalled the operating system since you changed the power supply? You may have corrupted system files. Try running as the administrator in the command prompt "SFC /scannow" If any errors are found then problem memory is almost certainly the cause.

Windows memory diagnostics is only a basic test of the memory, a much better test is memtest86 which you should run for a minimum of three passes. I doubt the hard drive is at fault, but to test it, go to the manufacturer of your hard drive web site and download their diagnostic software.,

 

[Jimzoaar]

Hi pjmelect,

I assumed that to and yes I have reinstalled since the new PSU. I will try your suggestion wgen I am home

Many thanks

 

[vrumor]

Gotta love the folks who think their issue is so much more important than others. Read the ToS spamming the forums is against the rules.

 

[Jimzoaar]

vrumor, spamming is defined as unwanted mail. If all of these people who like assisting others with their issues dont want to hear about my problem, they should be here, I posted it on 4 completely unrelated areas of the forum, grow up and do something with your life besides following me around for trying to sort my issue, cheers.

 

[vrumor]

Well there youd be wrong, Its against the ToS. Go read em and educate yourself on what is considered spam here. 4 posts on the same topic, is spam. And about growing up, youd do well in taking your own advice. You win the internet.

 

[Jimzoaar]

Well vrumor my problems solved now so I couldnt care less. I didnt define spamming by the ToS definiton either, I was talking about the real meaning of the word. Anyway, enough of proving you wrong.... Thanks very much Sam and noob and pjelect, I appreciate all of your help very much!

I tried all your solutions, was the on the cusp of ruling out RAM as the fault, when I tried underclocking it! from 1333 to 1066, and it has now been stable for 24 hours and has run Prime95 for 35 mins and completed all windows updates (it would crash EVERYTIME when trying to udate previously!!)


Thanks again guys, hope this helps someone else with a similar issues!!