A Serious Evasive Problem

[matthttam]

PREFACE:
I have never created a post before in my life regarding a computer problem but I have broken down tonight and decided that I NEED HELP.

SETUP:
Here are my specs
CASE: Antec 900 case (with extra 50mm fan on side)
PSU: Was using an MSI 650 W however I changed to a coolmax 1000 W while troubleshooting (and I am still using it for now)
CPU: Intel Q6600 2.4Ghz not overclocked
Motherboard: MSI P6N sli (not v2)
BIOS: v2.7 (latest)
Graphics: GeForce GTX 275 (1800 mb onboard)
HD1: WD 5000AAKS 500 GB (Primary)
HD2: WD 1002FBYS 1000GB (Secondary, No bootable partitions)
CDROM: Lightscribe DVD RW multi recorder
RAM: (x4) Crucial Ballistix Tracer 2GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory
Sound card: X-fi titanium
OS: Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit sp2
Mouse: Razer Copperhead (latest firmware and drivers)
Keyboard: Logitech G15 (latest drivers)
*All drivers are up to date. I am not running any overclocking (not even stock to my knowledge) and nothing is overheating (again to my knowledge and my programs that monitor that kinda thing).

The Problem(s):
First Signs of Problems

First I must say that problems began approximately one year ago.
The initial problem was that my graphics card (GT 8800 with 512 DDR3) finally died on me after only 2.5 years.
I determined it was the culprit and after some research i purchased my new graphics card (mentioned above).
I say this because I recall having a Blue screen of death (from here on known as BSOD) just before my graphics card died (probably the day before).
I quickly associated this BSOD to that particular hardware malfunction.

Windows 7 ultimate 64 bit
I had Windows 7 beta for a long time and had several BSOD's but contributed this to driver support from Logitech and razer and other manufacturers.
I upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate the day Windows 7 was released and all of my drivers were released within a month. Within a week or two I had several BSOD's.
I do not know these BSOD's off the top of my head and my log book is not with me so I will just describe the general solutions I found.
The errors seemed to point toward a memory problem or possibly a hard drive problem.
The BSOD's only seemed to occur (99% of the time) while the computer was completely idle.
Usually they occurred at 3 am (the computer is set to be on and up at all times do to filezilla server installed.
I realized that my anti-virus, AVG home, was running a scan at around that time and it seemed to me possibly a hard drive problem. (I had changed to AVG because I figured that AVAST may have been causing the issues but the issues continued without change)

I reinstalled Windows 7 a total of 3 times. Some of which because windows 7 stopped allowing me to even log into a GUI but rather just failing and BSODing. I had to backup files using the command prompt at one point because "safe mode command prompt only" was as far as I could get.

At this point I changed PSU's because I know that several problems could very well be power related.
After over a month of this (one week of which I had 11 errors in that week) I gave up and installed back down to Vista 64 bit (a completely clean install).

Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit
So here my saga begins
I have done hours and hours of research and I have finally gotten to the point where I am asking you what you think I should do (addressing the internet gods and people smarter than I alike).

I have been having the same BSOD's that I experienced in Windows 7. It usually starts after 2 to 7 days and then it becomes increasingly worse.
1 week ago I had the following problem:
the computer BSOD'ed as I was standing on the other side of the room (nothing was running other than the usual start up etc)
I wrote down the first error (may have been 0x000000A1) but if I recall I believe it was memory related
After the automatic reboot another error occured (something like 0x000000E2)
I waited and after a nother reboot another error occured (maybe F1 not sure anymore they are written down at another location)
I repeated this process a total of 10 times with 10 different errors before holding the power button fro 6 seconds.
Then I booted the PC like normal and EVERYTHING worked great!

weird huh?

even more recent problem:
a friend of mine came by and wanted to play wow on my computer with my roommate. I was not there but they informed me later that nothing on my computer would run.
They would doubeclick wow or firefox and it would load into RAM (as seen in the process listing) but the GUI would never appear).
They said they restarted and that the graphics drivers had to be reinstalled (automagically by vista I presumed)
They rebooted again and vuala everything worked fine and they played for 5 hours with no problems.

The problem about 1 hour ago:
I shut down my computer on Dec 11th.
Everything was working 100%
I brought my computer home in a case I have carried it around in since it was a micro pc (computer humor)
I placed it in the front room ( A) because I didn't want to hook it up just yet B) it was cold outside and I figured best to let it heat up for 24 hours before plugging anything in.)
Today Dec 12th I decided to plug it up at 11:30 pm.
Plugged everything up: same monitor same keyboard, same mouse, different wall power outlet (obviously), different router/ethernet corde, same ipod, different 2.0 speakers that are low quality.
Booted into vista and low and behold!
Graphics drivers had magically not ran or something
The login page was the default1024x768.
I logged in and changed my res to 1680x1050
at this point the DualCore monitor by MSI (up to date and was working mind you) said that I needed to run as administrator to run the program.
I am the Administrator; I got into user accounts and made sure.
I then noticed Internet would not load because some services could not start.
Low and behold it was the dreaded Access Denied when running services Vista problem that I researched for 30 minutes before system restoring back to Dec 9th (before previous updates).
I am not back online.
NOTE: during this problem my computer reinstalled both my mouse and my keyboard... the mouse reinstalled more than once I think...

ANOTHER problem I recall:
At one time too I had another issue in which I could log in and it would get to the black screen witha mouse and nothing would load. Don't recall what I did to fix it however.

just another note: I have gotten this error with both windows 7 and vista and have yet to figure out what it really means:
"Some processor performance power management features have been disabled due to a known firmware problem. Check with the computer manufacturer for updated firmware."
Also a language pack has the following error:
"Application initialization failed. Last error: 0x80070032"
This may be due to the fact that I installed Russian on this once but the SP wouldn't let me install unless I just had English so I uninstalled Russian (as I would never use it anyways)
THINGS I have done to fix these issues (or determine my problem)
RAM:
Obviously the first thing I thought was HEY! my ram may be going bad! I ran multiple ram scanners that came up 100% clean including but not limited to the Vista 64 bit and Windows 7 64 bit memory scanners. At one point I recall Vista recovery console (which makes a drive Z: presumably in RAM? not sure, had an 8 hex error code and crashed to the "desktop" which is just a blue screen)
I took out the 2nd and 3rd sticks and used my computer without changes for about 4 days. An error occurred again so I swapped out the 1st and 3rd for the 2nd and 4th sticks. I then had blue screens again. I am back up to 8 GB of ram and the errors occur no fewer or more prevalent than the usually have. This leads me to believe that the RAM is not the cluprit.

Hard drive:
I ran Spinrite on my 500 GB hard drive for 48 hours and came up with a clean bill of health. I also downloaded the western digital HD integrety scanning software and it comes up clean for both drives.
This leads me to believe my hard drives are peachy.

DVD drive:
a gear is going bad in the thing and the door won't open. Besides that I have seen an error before in sys logs that stated the drive couldn't be read but that was just once. and I don't see why it would cause this many errors but at this point I don't know what it is.

Power supply:
Again I changed to a 1000 W power supply from a 650 thinking I didn't have enough power. I also had 3 different power sources/outlets so it can't be bad wiring in the house or power strip(s).

Sound card:
It works well and really hasn't done anything wrong. All I can say about it.

Graphics card:
My computer does not crash while playing games. COD 4 and COD mod 2 work 100% with max graphics and V sync enabled. Honestly that card is a beast. Just beat Mirrors edge too with max graphics and virtually no lag. Doesn't cause BSOD's as far as I can tell. I keep upgrading drivers just in case and it has made no change.

Nforce: My mobo has 650i SLI chipset by nvidia. I install the newest nforce drivers as they are created and this has had little to know change on performance in regards to crashing.

Mobo itself?: I do not know if my MOBO itself could be going bad. I once thought that my north bride may be over heating (as the heat sink for that chipset isn't stationed very well and felt kina warm to the touch. I mounted an actual fan I use to cool the room directly towards the north bridge with the case open for about 12 days and the comp still crashed. Is there an easy way to help test if the motherboard itself is going bad.

Another though is this. I have 4 fans that use LED's. my 8 GB of ram have red LED's on them. My copperhead uses USB 2.0 to light up all pretty like. my G15 has a screen on it. Could this motherboard model itself not be able to handle the sheer power all of my peripherals need? I don't know how to check this.

Drivers: If a driver isn't right I can't find it. I have ran Verifier before with a /scan now with a 100% everything is good. I keep my comp up to date more often than most because I am a network security major.

Viruses: Again, my computer is secure. After multiple wipes and constant virus scans and protections I am 100% sure that there are not malicious software on my computer except for general tools I use to hack/learn with for my courses at college.

FINALIZATION:
That is my plight thus far.
I hope that someone out there smarter than I can suggest something for me
I don't' have the money yet to buy a new MB or HD or RAM so don't just say replace XYZ. I am looking for ways to further narrow down the problem so I don't waist money on 4 things and find out that it was a driver problem.
On the other hand if you are really really sure it is an XYZ hardware problem, it never hurts to voice that opinion as I may scrape up the money to at least try it.

Thanks again in advanced for any help or insight into this problem.

 

[rusty.nells]

Have you checked the specs on your RAM and properly configured the BIOS settings?

 

[matthttam]

Specs on RAM

I had purchased the ram several months before upgrading my graphics card and I had no problems out of the computer until after my graphics card died.

This said, I have not changed BIOS settings... partially because I honestly don't know what some of the settings are for and MSI doesn't have the best instructions on what the fields mean.

newegg!com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148215&cm_re=Crucial_Ballistix-_-20-148-215-_-Product
This is the link to the ram I have. What settings should I look to change?

I have to go to work now but I will be back tonight around 10.

 

[eric76]

Have you checked the Event Viewer logs for errors?

 

[Tweak]

The 650 chipset tends to run a bit hot so addressing that was a good idea...it may need a better solution...possibly. For the power, I think you've got that covered, drivers for the 650 also posed a problem so trying several versions may be required, BIOS flash is another thing obviously which perhaps I missed, but worth mentioning. My main suggestion I think would be to bump the voltages a little and manually adjust the memory timings within the BIOS as errors are more frequent with larger memory amounts and often times the solutions involve the memory and its settings. From all you mention I still lean toward memory related problems and suggest MemTest over the windows built-in checkers. You may have used memtest already from what I see stated but I wished to make the point it is a far better app than the windows check can offer. Try the memory settings and power and for certain make sure that northbridge (mostly) and southbridge are running cool. Hope this helps.

 

[matthttam]

Event Viewer

Have you checked the Event Viewer logs for errors?

I have checked the event viewer.
With every situation I have different event viewer errors. Somtiems I have none at all. Almost always I have the one mentioned above about "a known firmware problem." However, This error does not occur right before an error. Often the only error is the error code that occurs. After a reboot it has the error stating that the last shutdown was unexpected etc. etc.

Once or twice I've seen several services fail and crash. This does not happen every time.

My log goes back to 11/3. I was going to post it but it looks like my log is 700Kb long and I only have room for 97kb. If you really want to view the log request it and I can e-mail or post on a free file hosting site temporarily.

 

[matthttam]

The 650 chipset tends to run a bit hot so addressing that was a good idea...it may need a better solution...possibly. For the power, I think you've got that covered, drivers for the 650 also posed a problem so trying several versions may be required, BIOS flash is another thing obviously which perhaps I missed, but worth mentioning. My main suggestion I think would be to bump the voltages a little and manually adjust the memory timings within the BIOS as errors are more frequent with larger memory amounts and often times the solutions involve the memory and its settings. From all you mention I still lean toward memory related problems and suggest MemTest over the windows built-in checkers. You may have used memtest already from what I see stated but I wished to make the point it is a far better app than the windows check can offer. Try the memory settings and power and for certain make sure that northbridge (mostly) and southbridge are running cool. Hope this helps.

Running hot: may need a better solution... however, I don't think its the case because the chipset was lukewarm to the touch last time it had a BSOD. This was again with a big room fan pressed up against my case with no side on it. I also dusted out my computer in hopes that overheating was the issue.

I updated my BIOS completely from 2.61 (?maybe) to 2.7 which completely reset my BIOS settings (which didn't have anything changed anyways.

MemTest: I don't recall using MemTest because I couldn't find a version that worked on 64 bit. I may have used a boot CD and ran it and If I did it came up clean. I also did a stress test to my memory by opening about 300 programs and forcing every one of them to load into memory. I forced 8 GB of memory to become in use from teh resource management. My 8 coppies of world of warcraft ran great! along with every other game/application including adobe CS4 suite. I let it run like that for about 5 minutes swithcing between all of the applications to keep them ready for use in memory. No problems. Often it crashes when nothing is going on.

Voltages. I am going to go into BIOS and write down the things that I don't know if they need to be changed. Will post back soon.

Thanks again everyone for the help so far.

 

[B Trevathan]

Memtest, Malware, Minidump

Have you ran a malware scanner like Malwarebytes or SuperAntiSpyware these are not anti-virus programs I know you said you ran your anti virus program AVG

I agree with Tweak on Memtest, if you can get your DVD drive to work Memtest-86 is on most live CDs, the Dr.Web LiveCD has it and you can also check for viruses without being in windows.

Do you know that most of the time windows keeps a record with every BSOD in a mini dump folder? the folder should be "%SystemRoot%\Minidump" A good program to view these .dmp files is BlueScreenView

 

[Tweak]

Have you ran a malware scanner like Malwarebytes or SuperAntiSpyware these are not anti-virus programs I know you said you ran your anti virus program AVG

I agree with Tweak on Memtest, if you can get your DVD drive to work Memtest-86 is on most live CDs, the Dr.Web LiveCD has it and you can also check for viruses without being in windows.

Do you know that most of the time windows keeps a record with every BSOD in a mini dump folder? the folder should be "%SystemRoot%\Minidump" A good program to view these .dmp files is BlueScreenView

Virus or malware do not seem an issue after this number of reinstalls and having used two different operating systems I don't see updates and some (not all for certain) drivers as being a major problem although I mention it due to none issues with the specific chipset with driver in the past.

 

[matthttam]

BIOS and Clock speeds

There was nothing in BIOS that let me adjust any voltages. I could view the current CPU voltages which all were within .1 mostly within .02 of the target.
DualCore center by MSI reports that my VGA clock speed for my GPU is 300 MHz and my Memory is at 100 MHz.

Here is a list of BIOS settings that I don't recognize and therefore am not sure if they are set correctly. Some are just for information and can't be changed.
FORMAT: Setting : Current setting (options if available) - Description

CPU ID/MicroCode : 06FB/0B6
Frequency : 2.40GHz (266x9)
Bios : V2.7 120908
Usage Memory ; 8192MB
Physical Memory : 8192MB
Cache Size : 8192MB

MPS table version : 1.4 (1.4 or 1.1)
IOAPIC Function : Enable (enable/disable) - Include ACPI APIC table pointer to RSDT pointer
CPU execute-Disable Bit Capability : enable (enable/disable) - When disabled force XD feature flag to always return 0
Set Limit CPUID Max Val to 3 : disable (enable/disable) - Disable for Windows XP
HPET : enabled (enable/disable)

Power:
ACPI Function : enable (enable/disable)
ACPI standby state : S1 (don't recall options available... possibly S3)
PCI-E latency timer : 64 (powers of 2 up to 1024 i believe)

 

[matthttam]

Have you ran a malware scanner like Malwarebytes or SuperAntiSpyware these are not anti-virus programs I know you said you ran your anti virus program AVG

I agree with Tweak on Memtest, if you can get your DVD drive to work Memtest-86 is on most live CDs, the Dr.Web LiveCD has it and you can also check for viruses without being in windows.

Do you know that most of the time windows keeps a record with every BSOD in a mini dump folder? the folder should be "%SystemRoot%\Minidump" A good program to view these .dmp files is BlueScreenView

I am 100% sure it isn't a virus. I have used my usual arsenal of virus scanners/preventers including but not limited to:
AVG spyblaster spybot search and destroy ad-aware home and I have ran scans with malware bytes but it has come up clean.

I'll look into memtest on a live CD however I don't have any DVD's with me and my Disk drive takes about 10 minutes to open most of the time. I will do this when I get some more DVD's. However, I do feel this isn't necessary as I took out 2/4 sticks of ram and ran it until I had a problem. Switching to the other two sticks of ram I eventually had the same problem... Running with all the sticks of ram I have the problem. This tells me that RAM may not be the culprit (but as usual I could be wrong as I have been wrong on every step to fix the problem so far).

I know about the minidumps but could not find a good program to view them. I will install and use Bluescreenview as you suggested to further analyze any dumps that occur. If this computer BSOD's again I will most likely post the dump on the forum for analysis.

 

[matthttam]

Dump Files

Here is the dump files still on my system. It was saved using BluescreenView as a TXT file.

 

[pccpr]

power in residence may be a problem

Virus or malware do not seem an issue after this number of reinstalls and having used two different operating systems I don't see updates and some (not all for certain) drivers as being a major problem although I mention it due to none issues with the specific chipset with driver in the past.

Are you currently using a surge protector with power conditioning ? It may not be a problem with power from the psu ,you could be having problems in the electrical wiring in the house that is generating sags and spikes in the power that could be contributing to the problems you are having. Test the power coming from the outlet with a circuit wiring tester to see if anything is out of whack.

 

[matthttam]

Are you currently using a surge protector with power conditioning ? It may not be a problem with power from the psu ,you could be having problems in the electrical wiring in the house that is generating sags and spikes in the power that could be contributing to the problems you are having. Test the power coming from the outlet with a circuit wiring tester to see if anything is out of whack.

I stated in my initial post that I have had BSOD's from 3 different outlets using 3 different Powerstrips 1 of which was in another building entirely.
2 of the three outlets are in use 100% of the time via a TV or another computer. Neither of which have any problems with slumps or spikes in the voltages. I do not own a Voltmeter (I usually borrow them from friends at college but I'm home for now).

 

[ell]

I thought you mentioned something about the cd drive having problems, take it out, I had a laptop that I worked on freeze on boot from a bad drive, just a thought. I'd also run memtest overnight. Sure sounds like a memory or driver issue.

 

[B Trevathan]

Memory Voltage

From what I've learn so far changing the memory voltage may help because the memory you have uses 2.0V and your motherboard manual says its is set to 1.8V or 1.9V I read that someone raised theirs to 2.6V but I wouldn't go that high, if you want to try this the setting should be in the "Cell Menu" of your BIOs

Do this at your own risk, I would copy all my settings before make any changes

It should look like:
Memory Voltage [1.90]

The manual says:
Memory Voltage (V)
Adjusting the memory voltage can increase the DDR speed.

 

[LVTech]

@ b trevathan: WOW i can't believe you would advise him to run ddr2 modules at 2.6v. that's just dangerous and insane! this is not ddr he's working with. i know you said "i wouldn't go that high" so i can't understand how you could still suggest it? or even suggest something to him without trying it yourself first? are u aware of the different operating voltages between all the ddr versions? he will over volt his modules straight to hell and then blame you for bad advice..

default volts for ddr2 is 1.8v because they were made to consume less power then ddr. ddr3 requires even less. when i ran my ddr2 800s at 1000mhz i only reached 2.3v max with really loose timings, which was seriously pushing it at that voltage. plus, i was running gallons of water per hour to my modules to keep them from melting into the dimm slots. no way his computer will even boot with the ram at that voltage and even if it did, it would be dead in a short time using just air cooling. minutes, hours or maybe a day or two if he's lucky..

@matt: i couldn't read your whole first post, i found it to be a little long winded (no offense) but i did read enough to know that you're unsure about if its a hardware or software problem. i would start by testing my hardware because without stable hardware there is no software that will function 100% correctly. errors and bluescreens are inevitable.

tweak and rusty hit it pretty dead on with their sound advice. if you suspect the ram as culprit, get a copy of bootable memtest, burn it to cd or put it on a boot stick and run it for a few cycles, not just 1 cycle. it sometimes takes many hours for memtest to find any errors. don't worry about memtest not working on x64, it will load before the OS and do its thing. you can also try superPI, which is a nice program used by many overclockers in testing for stability and performance within windows. you can also try hyperPI as well, its a frontend for superPI with some extra features. sisoft sandra is another nice app, as well as prime95 for burn in stress testing in windows.

but if it were me and ram passed a few runs with memtest, i would then fire up prime95 or sisoft sandra and torture the ram until they crap out. if it craps out right away i would loosen my timings a bit and try again. if i loosened my timings all the way and they still crap out, i would try bumping the voltage a bit and start stressing the modules all over. most times if you set the timings correct for your ram and you're not overclocking, you can even run the modules below what their rated voltage is. sometimes hardware just doesn't like to play nice together and it takes a little tweaking and tuning to get it just right. i would also read my motherboard manual for clearing cmos and reverting bios back to default settings before i started any of these tests. familiarize yourself with your bios and research all the settings you're not sure about, its the only way you'll learn. best of luck! i really hope you get it all worked out.

 

[ridgefieldpc]

I think it may be your mobo. Some do crap like this. Try swapping the mobo and run it for a couple of days/months however long it takes you to get problems.

 

[matthttam]

*

Thank you for the advice. I will try out these applications when I get a chance to. I may raise the voltage to 2.0 because that is the voltage that the ram is supposed to use (at my own risk of course). They have heat syncs and I have plenty of fans to keep them cool enough. I will read the manual of the mobo to better understand it.

*

I'll check my voltages to make sure they are right on with what manufacturers request. 2.6 is a bit high for me although I understand what you meant. I personally don't overclock because I feel that my system runs fast enough without it.

*

It could be the mobo. If I get enough money for Christmas I may purchase another one and install to see if the problem goes away. I honestly don't like my motherboard due to the generally bad support MSI has given me as well as the chipset (which doesn't like overclocking one bit back when I was trying to overclock my CPU).

 

[matthttam]

I thought you mentioned something about the cd drive having problems, take it out, I had a laptop that I worked on freeze on boot from a bad drive, just a thought. I'd also run memtest overnight. Sure sounds like a memory or driver issue.

The CD drive has a bad gear in it and when you press the button it starts to open but doesn't really move. If you hit it over and over, eventually the momentum will time just right to get that gear turning. I haven't taken it out because usage wise it still works 100% if u can get it open. I know it is a gear/band problem because even a paperclip won't get it open (it just starts to open and then stops). It is worth a shot however and I will try this soon.

Note to all: I will try everything in due time, I have a lot to do today and it may be over the next few days to try to get anything done.