Since installing Windows 7's SP1 and the mid-April security update packages this year, I've had very frequent BSOD/reboots on, or very soon (< 10 mins), after waking my PC from sleep. They average out to every other morning wake (when computer completing tasks overnight) and around one in eight other wakes. There are no minidumps for September because I accidentally turned off error logging.
Otherwise, the system seems perfectly stable when heavily multitasked, editing large video files or in graphics-intensive gaming. In the first 17 months of its life the PC BSODed 3 times, twice due to graphics card drivers with their own problems.
The Windows 7 Ultimate x64 (Full retail - single OS, one original installation) PC is:
Home-built (2 years ago)
An i5 720 with
4GB (2x2GB) GSkill Ripjaw 800 DRAM,
Gigabyte GA-P55-UD4 motherboard,
XFX ATI Radeon 5850 video card,
1TB Western Digital Caviar Black HDD (2 partitions + System) and
Corsair TX-750w PSU.
Internal, 4-year-old Sony DVD-RW & DVD-ROM drives.
USB peripherals include a couple of WD HDDs.
The system is currently set to use the hybrid sleep power setting which is by far the most appropriate for me. Within that setting, I have varied the USB power states for peripherals but with no effect.
Attempts to fix the problem include:
removing an older Creative sound card and flushed out the lingering drivers.
uninstalling older anti-malware programs (& their drivers): AVG, Spybot S&D and Ad-Aware. Replaced with MSE.
installing every driver update I could find that didn't destabilise the computer during regular use.
updating the BIOS to the latest F9 (acting on the HAL 12 errors that seem to be commonplace in sleep transitions).
uninstalling one & both DVD Drives.
All of the above = No effect on problem.
I've also
checked the RAM using Windows Memory Diagnostic - No errors found
checked the RAM sticks individually and together in every configuration of motherboard slots using >7 runs of Memtest 86+ for each test - No errors found
checked the processor cores using Prime95 - No errors found
checked the HDD using chkdsk /f /r and Western Digital Data LifeGuard Diagnostics (Extended Test) - No errors found
Ran the System File Checker - No errors found
At present I do not have access to an alternative power source or compatible RAM. I would prefer not to reinstall everything from scratch if feasible.
I made text copies of the 30+ pre-July BSODs (and their associated WinDbg reports) before the folder became full and can send if helpful.
Connected USB devices:
MS Trackball Optical
MS Natural Ergonomic Keyboard
WD MyBook 500GB HDD
WD Elements 1TB HDD
Mobile/ActiveSync lead to elderly HP Ipaq PDA
Hauppauge Nova-USB2-T DVB-T TV tuner (this was a 2010 problem I thought I'd solved - time to check again)
Altho' there are 9 instances of "USB Root Hub" in Device Manager's "USB controllers" branch, there isn't an external one connected to the machine.
Only as needed, I hook up a camera, iPod, printer, hiking GPS receiver, TrackIR headset, etc.
I've reset the pagefile as recommended (it was switched on, showing 1087 MB allocated and pretty much that size of "pagefile.sys" in the C root but I did move it to another partition and back on that day in Oct - not as carefully as I thought, apparently).
Downloaded the appropriate files: will burn, run, install as appropriate and report back.
I've had very frequent BSOD/reboots on, or very soon (< 10 mins), after waking my PC from sleep. They average out to every other morning wake (when computer completing tasks overnight) and around one in eight other wakes.
Hi,
I came across Reliability Monitor by accident a while back and tried to find a correlation between BSOD/reboots and anything else. Nothing consistent in the "Windows stopped working" & "Shut down unexpectedly" apart from the proximity to being woken up. Then I took another look at Event Viewer and kept finding the HAL 12 error Information entries related to this: Firmware Corruption of Memory During Sleep Transitions. While it's not supposed to cause problems, it seems pretty coincidental otherwise.
Seatools registered no errors. The Jan2009 Hauppauge driver is still in the latest download package. Uninstalling the Gigabyte utilities proving problematic: having to use Revo at the moment.
That HAL 12 error is BIOS related. It's basically hardware drivers tampering with the bottom portion of memory for various reasons, which are pretty much all legitimate. Windows doesn't like it and therefore bickers about it, even though it provides no problem. You can ignore them, since you updated the BIOS and that didn't seem to resolve anything.
Your crashdumps are showing up memory corruption to Windows code images. Only hardware can explain problems with this, and since these all are reporting solitary bit flaws (and memtests show nothing), I can only point the finger at the "trinity of corruption" for being responsible for this: Power supply, motherboard, or CPU. I am leaning far more onto motherboard/PSU issues than the CPU.
Check voltages and temps using HWInfo. Have "sensors only" selected at startup. Log both idle and high load scenarios for us to take a gander at.
Hi VirGnarus,
Attached is a brief report from HWInfo. The yellow highlighted sections represent a Prime95 run; some moderate video editing; graphics benchmarking in a game and multiple concurrent Firefox, Word, video & audio windows, respectively.
Thanks for taking a look at it. Let me know if you need more of the same or other activities, please.
LeifEC
Hello jcgriff2,
Successfully uninstalled EasyTune 6 and DES 2. Received a 1316 Network error when trying to install the newer versions. Will deal with that later if system stabilises without the Gigabyte utilities. Not sure how much energy was actually saved and I'm not OCing at the moment. Will let you know what happens in case gdrv.sys proves to be a better contender as the culprit.
Thanks,
LeifEC
Aside from chipset drivers, I have not yet found any software that comes with a motherboard that is worthwhile. It's all gimmicky and buggy, and has caused numerous instability issues that we've seen here at TSF. Yer best bet is to avoid them in the future and just install chipset drivers.
HWInfo showed up very solid numbers. I saw nothing that hinted to anything of concern. Since temps and voltages looks pretty stable, I have no other alternative than to believe we got a buggered motherboard on our hands, with the wee slight chance of CPU.
Interesting summary of bundled software. Mine did look poorly designed and the translation/proof-reading wasn't up to much.
As for the hardware: Ah, crud. Do you think the messed-up wake process/BSOD is liable to damage anything else or get worse while I check out a new motherboard/system?
Ta,
LeifEC
I doubt it. Unless it's a blown cap on the motherboard it shouldn't show a progressively increasing failure. The CPU looks rather healthy and at least the temps and voltages going to it look quite stable and should not reduce its lifespan.
OK, VirGnarus and jcgriff2,
A statistically inadequate sample of 2 successful, manually induced sleep-wake transitions later ...
I'm going to see how things go w/o the Gigabyte software, bearing in mind that their motherboard is probably the problem so expectations of BSOD-free existence are very low. Will report back in a week. Or sooner, if something new and/or interesting happens.
Thanks to you both for your time,
LeifEC
Ok. Hope it works. I do want to note that the drivers that the motherboard software runs off of are motherboard centric, so any issues that involve the motherboard can be imitated by the software. Actually, now that I think about it, I've seen it happen before. Keep an eye out, and if things look good, you're in the clear.
Fine for 3 days and then back to the irregular wake up reboots (minidumps attached). Couple of memory corruptions (tho' not as far as Memtest is concerned), the USB TV tuner driver, the graphics card and, allegedly, Windows Media Player.
Without finding the true cause, I don't think this will be solved but it's not for lack of effort by y'all.
Hi,
Yep, that Hauppage TV tuner (FWIW, mine is a different device to the one at that link) is soon to be replaced. But wouldn't it show up more regularly/always if it were the cause?
EaseUS Backup installed on Aug16 this year. Is it looking suspicious? Any recommendations for better programs gratefully received: I'm not attached to it.
Thanks
L
Hi,
Yep, that Hauppage TV tuner (FWIW, mine is a different device to the one at that link) is soon to be replaced. But wouldn't it show up more regularly/always if it were the cause?
Driver Verifier flagged that driver. I would disable it for now.
No, it would not necessarily show up in every BSOD. The right conditions must exist and all converge for BSODs to occur... like the 3 weather fronts that came together resulting in the "nor'easter" in the movie "The Perfect Storm".
EaseUS Backup installed on Aug16 this year. Is it looking suspicious? Any recommendations for better programs gratefully received: I'm not attached to it.
Thanks
L
Not specifically mentioned in BSODs, but the fact that it may try to backup files it has no permissions for may be a problem. I would uninstall it for now. You can always reinstall after BSODs gone.
Righto.
Will uninstall EaseUS and replace tuner. Might be a delay on the latter.
I've tried memtest86+ >7 runs on every configuration of my 2x2gb RAM sticks I could think of (and the mobo manual allowed): Stick A/Slot 1; A/3; B/1; B/3; A/1 + B/3; B/1 + A/3. No errors reported. Advisable to try in the "wrong" slots?
Thanks,
L
Hello again jcgriff2 and VirGnarus,
An update that my be of use for your driver database/to help others. I finally swapped out the Hauppauge TV tuner for a more up-to-date device and flushed out the hcwu2dtd.sys driver. BSODs continued without noticeable effect so, old though it is, I guess that driver might be OK.
I've bitten one bullet and switched to hibernate rather than hybrid sleep and haven't had a BSOD in the week since. Possible too early to tell if this is a lasting quasi-fix but if it works for a month it will be a workable compromise. Can't see how to turn off the annoying "All's well" wake-up beep in the BIOS for those overnight timed events, though.
Thanks for all the help,
LeifEC
I guess this is an ok compromise. Note that the hybrid sleep thing is a newer form of sleep and while it tries to be backwards compatible there may be some hardware that simply does not like it at all. One thing you can do is go into Device Manager and right click and click Properties for certain devices that you find suspect (like the TV tuner) and see if it has a Power Management tab. Under that you can uncheck or check the "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power" option and see if that resolves anything.
Hello,
"Hybrid" sleep was new to me but I didn't know it was actually a relatively recent innovation. The seemingly basic, and manufacturer-uncorrected, problem now makes more sense.
And thanks for the suggestion. I forgot to mention that I tried the power management options on all my USB devices without any improvement to the hybrid sleep difficulty.
No reflection at all on the help I've received here, which was great, but I think "Solved" would accidentally mislead any forum user in the future who was trying to fix the problem and keep using hybrid sleep.
The hardware folk should/may have moved beyond this incompatibility fairly soon. Perhaps. Is there a category for Compromise/Workaround?
Thank you both,
LeifEC
That's why I decided to leave it to your discretion to mark it as solved or not. I figured it's not really a solved case, but does compromise to get rid of the symptoms.
I do want to state that the TV Tuner only popped up on one crashdump, and it was not a Driver Verifier crashdump. I personally believe you have been chasing after shadows on that one.
I still am very concerned about the crashdumps reporting memory corruption, especially with single missing bits in kernel code, including one of the latest ones you provided. This still reflects on my previous speculation that we have trouble with the CPU or motherboard. What I find odd is - if I understand correctly - this is only occurring during wakeup from hybrid sleep. While I understand some hardware says "no" to that, this is an unusual way to say it. Part of me thought, "Perhaps a driver or actual hardware is corrupting memory when waking from sleep?" But then I check and I realize it would corrupt swaths of memory, not a solitary bit.
While your HWinfo readouts looked promising, I would still be leery of the power supply. Maybe hardware is not being powered up properly? This is just one of the potential cases, and while I might add it's hardly possible, it still has the potential to do so.
All-in-all, I blame the motherboard foremost. Whenever I see inconsistently ugly behavior that does not translate into failed diagnostic tests, it has always been the motherboard playing foul. You can take on this and start swapping hardware, but I can assure you that if you have indeed successfully uninstalled any and all no-good motherboard utilities and software and updated BIOS and chipset drivers, there's no other explanation for this than you got bad hardware, and the motherboard is to point finger at right now.
Fascinating insights. I had been pursuing the TV tuner driver from my own experience of its earlier power management issues and jcgriff2's note.
Yes, BSODs occurred only on (or soon after) waking from hybrid sleep and only began after 18 months of essentially stable use. The only hardware or software changes at that time were Win7's SP1 and a clutch of security updates. I guess the motherboard chose that moment to start acting up.
Thanks for the advice on not swapping out hardware. If waking from hibernation begins to fail, it may be time to reassess the whole system, upgrade-wise.
Have a good holiday season,
LeifEC
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