BSOD on boot

Not sure if this is the correct section so please move the thread or tell me to repost and ill get it done if its wrong :)

 

Ive just bought a major rig with several Corsair parts in it and im having issues with BSODs that so far seem to manifest when the system is cold (ie first couple of starts of the day)

 

Started right out of the box with BSOD during initial windows setup (came preinstalled so only had to do the first login setup thing) with BSOD during this process. Following this i had several BSODs during subsequent boot and once more during setup. I then ran windows mem diag and disconnected LAN cbl as i suspected this to be the issue and then it worked. I now suspect it was rather that the system heated up a bit during diags and not the removal of LAN cbl that was the fix.

 

Rest of the day system ran but when i booted today it BSODed while using firefox after just a couple of minutes. Subsequently it constantly BSODed during different parts of boot. I flashed BIOS to latest version then and on next start it BSODed again, then i checked around in BIOS a few minutes and on next boot it worked without issue as well as the restart i made just after. Dump files available on request. Further info below:

 

BSOD:

0x3B

0x1E

0x1A

0xBE

 

Rather frustrated as this has been an expensive rig, theres also a sound issue emanating most likely from cooling but might be MB/DIMM even though that is rare. Sounds almost like a coin laying on a vibrating chassi, also remiscent of a HDD writing data. Thankfull for all help :)

Do you have the latest drivers installed?

Run Memtest86+

All components above have latest drivers/firmware installed, forgot GPU its a:

 

Gainward Geforce GTX 680 (Latest drivers installed)

 

Ill see to a memtest, ill post results here.

Do you have the latest drivers installed?

Run Memtest86+

Memtest86+, no faults found.

Go into the BIOS, and see if someone oc'ed it too much. Most ASUS boards that support the i-series CPU's support oc'ing them. I found with my P8P97 that when everything was set to "auto" or if I just used ASUS' optimal settings, everything would run fine. When I'd run the automatic oc'er (which would reboot several times until it found a reasonable oc level it could maintain) it would be ok. But, if I started manually jacking with the settings I would get BSOD (well, actually the system would just freeze or reboot).

 

It's always best to just start from teh ground up...

 

1) reboot (or start up)

2) hit "del" to go into BIOS

3) if it goes into an Advanced Mode, see if you can flip it to EZ Mode

4) in EZ Mode, set it to "optimal settings"

5) from there, see how things go

 

Once you rule out the mobo/bios/oc'ing as the issue, then you can move on. Sometimes random BSOD's are caused by a faulty power supply surging intermitiantly. If your ram came back fine, then that rules that out. If you have onboard graphics, you can try using those for a while and disconnect your gfx card. (I know that when nvidia runs out new drivers for my gfx card, there's almost always some issue that makes me roll back to an older version until they fix whatever issue they caused. EG: one driver version kept causing my video to blip out for a few seconds then restore...Win Event Viewer would show that the driver kept failing and restarting/recovering itself.)

 

You could also boot into safe mode in Windows on a cold boot, and see if you get a BSOD or not. (If your ASUS mobo is like mine, then this will be a PITA, b/c ASUS wants to use F8 to bring up a "pick a different drive to boot from" menu. You'll need to hold down F8, then when/if the ASUS menu comes up, pick your normal boot drive, then immediately (!) hold down F8 again. Should get you the safe boot menu. Pick "safe with networking" and see how it goes.) If you can mess around in safe boot mode for a while w/o any BSOD, then there may be a conflict with services or something else loading.

 

The obvious thing you can do right now is to just go into Control Panel > Admin Tools > Event Viewer and see what the critical errors are saying. If your system isn't having memory or page file issues, then it should create an error report or dump log or something to explain what the heck happened to cause the BSOD.

I guess it's also important to mention that if it is an ASUS mobo overclocking issue, you may end up fiddling with settings that prevent your comp from even booting to BIOS. If that ever happens, then the mobo should have a blue button (?) on it that you can hold down to reset the settings. This saved my bacon one time when I was fiddling with a bit of oc'ing. In the end, I learned to just leave the settings on optimal, since any oc'ing I did wasn't showing any appreciable difference.

Good tip on the BIOS settings, if issue persists ill take a look at it when i boot tomorow morning. BIOS updates usualy reset settings in my experience but ill make sure to look closer on it.

 

As to the RAM i dont realy know memtest personaly but usualy a diagnostic can only do so much in troubleshooting them, often there are issues that simply dont stick to diagnostics unfortunately so im still not 100% ready to rule it out even if its unlikely now.

 

Ill also make sure to get a gpu driver one or two versions old, might be worth the rollback just to rule it out. Issues dont realy seem to be gfx related but ill take all the advice i can get at this point.

 

Anyone able to recommend a good HDD diagnostic program? Preferably a pre-boot application i can easily put on a usb drive, the ones that run in windows simply arent realiable.

 

Thanks for the tips so far, ill update here tomorow when i do another cold boot :)

Well issue persists, exactly same pattern as yday. Start system, run a couple mins and bsod. Go to BIOS and restore defaults, also shut of bluetooth ctrl just in case, and reboot, bsod.

 

Run startup repair and it actualy found something that might be interesting. It ran to end and then said it couldnt repair the proble, the last test: "Integrity controll & repair of systemfiles" 0x490.

 

This say anything to any of you? Also on first boot before first bsod of the day i ran Seatools hdd checker (doubt its very usefull as its a win application) but it didnt get any hits even directly on cold boot.

 

Edit: For some reason it seems this mornings BSOD/s didnt generate a minidump so all i have are the STOP codes: 0x1A & 0xBE in this order. I think the 0x1A was a MEMORY_MANAGEMENT.

 

The thing that it only manifests when (what i suspect) the system is physicaly cold sounds like a clear HW issue however alot of these errors ive got seem to be software related. Tried a "C:\bootrec.exe /FixMbr" but it says its not a recognized command for some reason.

Im guessing this is the part#, CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9B, correct me if im wrong.

 

Bought as one set 4x4gb however as its a shop assembly, since im lazy, i guess they could just as well have taken 4 left over dimms from around the shop.

If you are still getting the BSOD you can e-mail me the small memory dumps (256KB). I should be able to tell you the driver or component that is causing the crash.

With this platform they will need to be this part CMZ16GX3M4X1600C9

The part you purchased was for a Dual Channel chipset

 

Could you explain a bit more about it, im mostly a noob when it comes to part compability and complications of matching certain parts which is the reason i bought the system as i did. I tried to doublecheck for basic compability but couldnt find any info on channel at all. So basicaly if i understand it correctly id need quad channel DIMMs for this specific motherboard?

 

 

If you are still getting the BSOD you can e-mail me the small memory dumps (256KB). I should be able to tell you the driver or component that is causing the crash.

 

Ive checked them up with windbg but couldnt realy find any clear cut reason. Implicated memory and possibly windows installation but wasnt sure, if you feel very confident on reading dumps ill be glad to mail them to you though

There is no such thing as single / dual / triple / quad Channel memory, as this is a property of the memory controller in how it handles memory. This is why you can place memory in different slot configurations on a motherboard and it will register as single or dual or triple or quad channel.

There is no such thing as single / dual / triple / quad Channel memory, as this is a property of the memory controller in how it handles memory. This is why you can place memory in different slot configurations on a motherboard and it will register as single or dual or triple or quad channel.

 

Then im not sure how this is incorrect? The motherboard is 4 channel and ive got 4 DIMMs which ive doublechecked are plugged in their correct slots for a 4 DIMM setup. With the risk of sounding stupid, what is it thats done wrong or incorrect, is it a setting i should change in BIOS or is there a hw issue that causes the bsod's cause of incompability? In that case whats the exact incompability?

Bump, i could realy use a reply for this.

 

Ive done some reading on the matter and while i can see that Corsair labels their memories dual/quad channel in no other sources can i find any information that the actual RAMs have any influense on this. Like Wired stated the limitations is on the CPU and motherboard and of course you have to make sure the memories are plugged into the correct slots.

 

Ive checked in CPU-Z and it confirms that im running Quad channel and ive confirmed in the motherboard manual that the memories are plugged into their correct slots. The frequency however is only running at 1333MHz where it should be 1600MHz.

 

Ive read that with these memories and a X79 series motherboard i should maybe manualy set the specs for memories in BIOS as the automatic settings are less then optimal. Anyone know which settings i should put on for optimal performance with my current rig?

CMZ16GX3MAX1600C9B was tested in a dual channel, not a quad channel rig.

 

In short, enable XMP in the BIOS and you should be all set to go.