Need help with BSOD crashes. Unsure of cause.

[Willem Default]

Hey guys. Recently I've been experiencing frequent crashes while playing games. This does seem to be a problem exclusive to playing any game, really. Unfortunately I am unsure as to what the actual cause is.

What usually happens is that I play a game for maybe 45 minutes to an hour and then suddenly it will freeze. Invariably this ends in a blue screen incident with an error message. However, there a couple of things weird about this;

1. Firstly, the error message it advises me to search for is often different each time. Sometimes it's KMODE_SOMETHING_SOMETHING, other times it's IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, etc.
2. Secondly, it doesn't always blue screen, sometimes it just freezes up completely and a loud buzzing starts (either through speakers or through headphones if I'm using them), other times the screen suddenly loses display but the PC stays on (this may be a HDMI cable issue, so I have ordered a new one).

At first I was thinking maybe an overheating issue as I had that a couple of months back, and fixed it by totally taking my PC apart and using compressed air to dust everything (CPU cooler fan needed considerable dusting, to be fair), but when I had those crashes it usually turned off my PC in a failsafe kind of way, which is not what is happening here. With these new crashes the PC always stays on. Besides this, both Speccy and HWMonitor are showing temperatures I would usually expect both without load and under load, so overheating doesn't seem to be the issue.

This started about half a week ago, and after checking multiple times that everything was firmly connected on the motherboard (righting loose connections has in the past been a quickfix), monitoring temps and checking all fans were working, etc. I realised that like a dufus I hadn't checked to see if any drivers needed updating. Unsurprisingly, there was a new Nvidia driver update in Geforce Experience (I have a GTX970) and after installing that for the last couple of days the crashes had ceased, but now have returned.

The PSU should be fine for what I have, so I don't think that's the problem unless it's turned faulty now.

Any help would be appreciated.

Specs:

CPU: AMD FX-8350
CPU Cooler: bequiet! ShadowRock 2
Mobo: MSI 990FXA-GD65
GPU: GTX 970
PSU: Corsair CX600M
Drives: Kingston 128GB SSD, 1TB HDD, 3TB HDD
RAM: 16GB Dual Channel (Both Kingston, but slightly different models)

PCPartpicker Specs: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/Y3rxyc

 

[Grimbli]

I'm no expert, but this website has some good info.

http://www.howtogeek.com/163452/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-blue-screen-of-death/

Might be worth it to download that program they talk about. Also, you can usually drop it off at a computer repair store and have them poke around. Independent ones aren't too expensive. And they might be able to repair the problem. I had one restore a comp that was unbootable due to 3000+ malware.

 

[Willem Default]

Yeah I had looked at that page before, I do have BlueScreenView but the problem is that whenever I search for a solution for a particular error the minidump highlights, there are a million people talking about the issue but no one solving the damn thing. The latest error seems to be "KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED".

I don't have any repair stores near me, and carrying the PC over a distance could be tricky (I don't drive). Jesus, how did you manage to get that much malware on a system? xD

 

[Grimbli]

Jesus, how did you manage to get that much malware on a system? xD

Porn. Lots of porn. Weird porn and downright twisted porn. I'm not a proud man.

 

[Takran]

I dont know about KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED, but I had issues with occasional BSODs with the IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error, and it was bad memory. I replaced it and it's been smooth sailing since. Maybe try pulling one stick at a time to see if one of them is bad (or, if you have extra laying around somewhere, or know someone that does, swap that in temporarily).

 

[Grimbli]

Geek Squad probably does house calls. Might cost more though

Or you could remove all but one ram stick and try to BSOD and add more in or swap out if you bsod on the first one. Ram is easiest to check.

 

[Grimbli]

Geek Squad probably does house calls. Might cost more though

Or you could remove all but one ram stick and try to BSOD and add more in or swap out if you bsod on the first one. Ram is easiest to check.

I dont know about KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED, but I had issues with occasional BSODs with the IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL error, and it was bad memory. I replaced it and it's been smooth sailing since. Maybe try pulling one stick at a time to see if one of them is bad (or, if you have extra laying around somewhere, or know someone that does, swap that in temporarily).

Twinsies!

 

[Willem Default]

As a matter of troubleshooting course I reinstalled the GPU drivers from directly from Nvidia's site, took the GPU out and put it back in (you never know) and now am going to test run via Battlefied 3. If it crashes again, I'll check the RAM idea out. I did get more RAM recently (a few months back), so if there are more crashes it could be that they haven't been configured in BIOS properly. I'll update when I get more results.

 

[thanatos73]

OK, this is odd, I am also having thees same issues. Brand new parts Are in bold and underlined.

CPU: AMD FX9590
MoBo: MSI 990FXA Gaming
Cooler: Corsair H100i
RAM: 32Gb Corsair Vengance DDR3
GPU: MSI R9-380 4G
PSU: Corsair RM100i
SSD: Crucial MX100 500Gb
HDD1: 1TB (I can't remember the brand)
HDD2: 2TB
Case: Corsair Carbide 200R (with a small modification for the H100i fans)
Optical: LG DVDRW/CDRW combo drive.

I have been searching the internet, and tried quite a few different "fixes", even going as far as reinstalling Windows 7 from scratch and using old drivers for the GPU. It still happens.

 

[Willem Default]

OK, this is odd, I am also having thees same issues.

Thank god I'm not the only person/TESTie with these issues. I played 50 minutes of BF3 earlier and no crashes, so I'm going to play some more and see if it stays stable. Only issue with checking the RAM if it comes to it is that my CPU cooler hangs over one of the RAM slots, meaning that one RAM stick will be impossible to remove without removing the CPU cooler, which in itself means removing the mobo and unscrewing the CPU cooler. That would be a huge ballache.

If I don't crash after playing more over the next few days, then I'll recommend taking out the GPU and putting it back in just as a miracle turn-it-off-and-on-again type fix.

 

[GeneticPredator]

Porn. Lots of porn. Weird porn and downright twisted porn. I'm not a proud man.

Yes you are! Don't try to make us think anything else :p

 

[thanatos73]

I can't seem to play more than 30-45 minutes of ANYTHING! Except SC, which is odd. If I log into the Live servers, I can go for hours. FO4, Tomb Raider(either one), Ark, H1Z1, Alien Isolation, they all crash after about 45 minutes of playing. However, with Windows 10 and the updated drivers, I could just let my PC run, with nothing else running on it, and it would lock up. Linux, I have NO issues, I can play Ark ALL day, so I don't think its a hardware issue.

 

[Willem Default]

That's odd, my pc seems only to have the issues while playing games. Never seems to lock up or freeze with any other use (YouTube, Spotify, reddit, etc.).

 

[glockjs]

i've had the lock up and buzz issue on win 10. it was a memory leak/bad drivers. next time it happens try to get to task manager and see what your memory usage is at.

 

[thanatos73]

Check your AodDriver version. Open the control Panel, start the Device Manager in with Admin rights(right click, select Run as Administrator), go to view, and select Show Hidden Devices. It should be listed there.

 

[mromutt]

This sounds like a driver issue but to be safe, try running a mem test program to rule out ram. If you have a spare gpu try swaping that out for a day and see if you can get it to blue screen. If that all pans out as good try running a latency program, this could show you if a driver is acting up or hardware that uses a driver. If still none of that helps at least we have taken things off the table and can dive deeper into what the issue is.

 

[Krystal LeChuck]

try running Intel Burn Test and do a half hour run of Standard stress test. See if it is stable.

 

[Buzz Lightyear]

Interesting, I've also come across the "KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED" error before (using Windows 10) on my mum's laptop. I'm not sure exactly what caused it but I just put it down to overheating since the laptop is pretty old and constantly makes a pretty loud noise haha. I have no doubt that the cooling inside is in bad shape.

But I give up with laptops, more hassle than they're worth if you ask me.

If you do not need portability always and I mean ALWAYS stick to desktop.

 

[thanatos73]

OK, so latency tests and Burn in tests all came back fine. No issues, no lock-up, nothing. There was a driver issue, the AMD Overdrive driver was pointing to the wrong version, fixed that, and I STILL have the lock up issue. And it only happens with games. Its driving me nuts, I almost got eaten by a Spino yesterday on Ark because of it.

 

[glockjs]

OK, so latency tests and Burn in tests all came back fine. No issues, no lock-up, nothing. There was a driver issue, the AMD Overdrive driver was pointing to the wrong version, fixed that, and I STILL have the lock up issue. And it only happens with games. Its driving me nuts, I almost got eaten by a Spino yesterday on Ark because of it.

try updating your audio and nic drivers too