[voldemarz]

I have fresh installation of Windows 7 64 bit on my new Dell Inspiron N5110 laptop (cam without OS). I have i7 2630QM processor and hence Intel HD Graphics 3000 and also nVidia GeForce 525M. The problem is that 3DMark Vantage and 3DMark 11 (both latest versions) crashes with BSOD if they are ran when logged in as a non-administrator user, even if I run them as an administrator. They crash when benchmarking loading screen start starts. If I log in as an administrator user then they are working fine. Can anybody help understand what is causing this? Minidump analysis (ant the end of the post) suggests that it's a driver fault as far as I understand.

System details:
· new Dell Inspiron N5110 laptop, came with no OS
· retail Windows 7 SP1 x64, freshly installed
· CPU - Intel i7 2630QM
· Video Card - Intel HD Graphics 3000 + nVidia GeForce 525M
· MotherBoard - based on Intel HM67 chipset


I have tried the following drivers (3DMark approved drivers marked with *).

nVidia:
266.58 *
275.33 * (latest) (current on laptop)

HD Graphics:
8.15.10.2342 *
8.15.10.2361 (latest) (current on laptop)


I made BSOD report as described here. I made one when I was logged as an admin (just in case some startup software affects..) and one when logged as a regular user. Both are attached to this post.

Just in case here's full memory dump.


Below is minidump analysis report using WinDbg.
*******************************************************************************
* *
* Bugcheck Analysis *
* *
*******************************************************************************

Use !analyze -v to get detailed debugging information.

BugCheck F4, {3, fffffa800b8f85b0, fffffa800b8f8890, fffff80003384db0}

Probably caused by : csrss.exe

Followup: MachineOwner
---------

4: kd> !analyze -v
*******************************************************************************
* *
* Bugcheck Analysis *
* *
*******************************************************************************

CRITICAL_OBJECT_TERMINATION (f4)
A process or thread crucial to system operation has unexpectedly exited or been
terminated.
Several processes and threads are necessary for the operation of the
system; when they are terminated (for any reason), the system can no
longer function.
Arguments:
Arg1: 0000000000000003, Process
Arg2: fffffa800b8f85b0, Terminating object
Arg3: fffffa800b8f8890, Process image file name
Arg4: fffff80003384db0, Explanatory message (ascii)

Debugging Details:
------------------


PROCESS_OBJECT: fffffa800b8f85b0

IMAGE_NAME: csrss.exe

DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP: 0

MODULE_NAME: csrss

FAULTING_MODULE: 0000000000000000

PROCESS_NAME: csrss.exe

DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: VISTA_DRIVER_FAULT

BUGCHECK_STR: 0xF4

CURRENT_IRQL: 0

STACK_TEXT:
00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 00000000`00000000 : 0x0


STACK_COMMAND: kb

FOLLOWUP_NAME: MachineOwner

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: X64_0xF4_IMAGE_csrss.exe

BUCKET_ID: X64_0xF4_IMAGE_csrss.exe

Followup: MachineOwner

 

[VirGnarus]

This is odd behavior. Perhaps there are drivers, services or apps that may be starting up in an administrative session but not in a non-admin session, which are causing conflicts. How many administrative accounts and non-admin accounts did you test this with? Try multiple accounts of each type to see if the behavior is specific to one account and not just an account type.

You may wanna start up Driver Verifier and then attempt to run with it active. Remember to restart PC after save settings to activate Driver Verifier checks. Any resulting crashes should assist in showing up the culprit.

I'll be perusing through this full dump and see what I can get out of it.

 

[voldemarz]

I have opened a thread in the Futuremark forum since I thought it could be caused by their software. Here is some more info related to the issue copied from from my posts in that thread:

----------- 1 --------------
I did some tests with 3DMark 11 and Vantage on my desktop pc. Initially I had only Vantage on that pc. I had used it many times from non-admin user profile.

I installed 3DMark 11 and it crashed with BSOD when I ran it from non-admin user profile. I didn't run it as an administrator because it doesn't require that like Vantage does. I thought that the crash could be a driver issue because they haven't been updated for about a year. So I installed latest AMD Catalyst Control center, when I ran 3DMark 11 from non-admin user profile, this time as an administrator, it crashed again. After the restart I tried running Vantage and it crashed also!

This seemed very similar to what I was experiencing on my laptop, so I tried running them from administrator user profile and they worked. Seems more like bugs in 3DMark software than driver problems as I thought initially, no?.

System details:
OS - Windows 7 Pro 64bit
CPU - AMD Phenom II X4 555 BE
GPU - MSI Radeon HD5770 Hawk
motherboard - Asus M4A89GTD PRO/USB3

I don't know what version of drivers did I have initially, but it should be possible to find out if necessary. The current (latest) driver package version is 8.861-110524a-119606C-ATI.

Minidump and analysis of 3DMark 11 crash with older video driver:
minidump
analysis text file

Minidump and analysis of 3DMark Vantage crash with the new video driver:
minidump
analysis text file
---------------------------

----------- 2 --------------
As member Jarnis in futuremark forum suggested I tried cleaning old drivers with DriverSweeper on the desktop pc, but it didn't help. I removed completely all ATI drivers and software, then restarted Windows in safe mode and cleaned using DriverSweeper, then rebooted again and reinstalled the driver. Then I rebooted again and tried running Vantage from non-admin user profile.
---------------------------

A bit later today I'll try what you suggested with different user accounts and driver verifier on the laptop.

 

[voldemarz]

I'm not sure what I was supposed to do after configuring the verifier and rebooting. I understood that it's tracking what is happening after the restart and I should just run the 3DMark. After the BSOD there was no VERIFIER_ENABLED_MINIDUMP, just a regular minidump (attached):

minidump_verifier
minidump_verifier_analysis

I think that verifier was running because "verifier /query" outputs many entries of this form:
Name: aswsnx.sys, loads: 1, unloads: 0
CurrentPagedPoolAllocations: 209
CurrentNonPagedPoolAllocations: 17
PeakPagedPoolAllocations: 213
PeakNonPagedPoolAllocations: 514
PagedPoolUsageInBytes: 53996
NonPagedPoolUsageInBytes: 115100
PeakPagedPoolUsageInBytes: 153444
PeakNonPagedPoolUsageInBytes: 254980

 

[voldemarz]

On the laptop I have only 2 accounts, one of them is admin. Tried to run from both of them. On the desktop pc I have one admin account and 4 normal user accounts. Tried to run from one normal user account and admin.

I tried creating a new non-admin user account on the laptop, but it didn't help in any way. Both 3DMark tools crashed when run either as an admin or as a normal user.

 

[VirGnarus]

That 'full' memory dump isn't as full as I'd expect it to be. I'm not sure what happened, but it appears to be only partial and primarily a user mode dump (which Windows never should generate from a crashdump). How did you manage to get this crash dump? It's just an utter mess. It may very well not have been generated successfully.

I looked at the minidumps, and they are very consistent, stating this is most likely the cause of a driver and not hardware. I looked through it and noticed it's the result of something called heap corruption, which is the memory portion reserved specifically for a particular process. I still am trying to scrounge up info on it, but for now I'm at a dead end because minidumps don't provide heap data for me to analyze, and I'm not sure if there's anything that can provoke them to collect that information.

Being able to create a kernel dump would greatly help in this regard, but given the state the last one was in, I'm not sure if that will work. Again, I'm going to continuing to figure out possible options here.

 

[VirGnarus]

Ok, I somewhat found a way that might help with diagnosing this. Though it can be risky. Make sure Driver Verifier is still on.

Since you have WinDBG, you go into the WinDBG directory (typically Program Files/Debugging Tools for Windows) and locate gflags.exe. Select the following options in gflags under the tab "System Registry":

- Enable heap tail checking
- Enable heap free checking
- Enable heap parameter checking
- Enable heap tagging
- Enable heap tagging by DLL
- Enable page heap


Restart your PC. Note that these checks have the potential of slowing your PC down, from a little bit to crawling. If things get too slow, then you'll have to go into gflags and disable em. Might need to get into Safe mode to do so. Also note that this may fill up memory pretty fast so be cautious. If you are desperate, you may also try enabling the "Enable heap validation on call". This option has the most potential for finding this heap problem, but that option has the biggest overhead out of all of them and also has more potential on slowing your PC.

Then just let your PC crash again running 3dmark. Sending any resulting crashdumps to us.

Also, did you try the latest suggestion that Jarnis mentioned, which is to use the -nosysteminfo flag for Vantage?

 

[voldemarz]

>>> How did you manage to get this crash dump?
Is there more then one way to make those crash dumps? In Startup and Recovery settings I have set Windows to make a kernel memory dump in %SystemRoot%\MEMORY.DMP. That's how I got it.

By the way default setting is to produce kernel dumps and I haven't changed it in the new Windows installation (more on that below), but I also get minidumps. Is that ok? I think when I tried to set to minidumps only and then back to kernel dumps I didn't get minidumps any more, only kernel dumps.

The annoying thing is that 3DMark Vantage and 3DMark 11 started acting differently although I haven't installed any updates or other significant software since I made tests with driver verifier. The only thing I installed on the next day is DivX Plus package (player, web player, converter and codec pack).

When antivirus (Avast 6 Free edition) shields are disabled, the benchmarks run, but about 10 s after I exit the application (3DMark 11 or Vantage) the pc suddenly reboots without a BSOD and doesn't produce any minidump.

When antivirus shields are enabled the applications crash as before. By the way it seems that it crashed in the end of system scanning stage before actual benchmarking is started. I think so because scene loading screen never shows, Vantage shows "scanning system" and 3DMark shows "please wait" pop-ups.

So to eliminate extra variables I made fresh installation of Windows 7 64 bit on a separate partition, installed drivers in order suggested by Dell, installed Windows SP 1 and then installed both 3DMark Vantage and 3DMark 11 (no antivirus here except Windows Defender).

Now the weird thing is that both 3DMark apps sometimes work and sometimes crash and I cannot figure out in which case it works. It seems random. I tried to wait while all delayed service starts up, but it didn't help. When thy work they only does it partially, I can start and interrupt benchmarking many times, but system crashes about 10s after I exit the application or when I start Vantage or 3DMark 11 again (not sure which is the case because they're working rarely and I havent tested this well).

Just in case I made new BSOD report in new installation of Win, minidumps and kernel memory dumps when run as admin, as normal user, as normal user with verifier running and when run as normal user:
BSOD_report_freshWin
kernel_dump_freshWin
kernel_dump_freshWin_admin
kernel_dumo_freshWin_verifier

When I try to run Vantage with -nosysteminfo flag it doesn't seem to have any impact, it seems to scan system and crash as before.

When I try to run 3DMark11 with -nosysteminfo from command promt or by adding this flag to the shortcut's target field I get

When I try to run 3DMark11Cmd with -nosysteminfo from command promt I get

C:\Program Files\Futuremark\3DMark11\bin\x64>3DMark11Cmd.exe -nosysteminfo
Error: Unrecognized argument: "-nosysteminfo"

I'll try your suggestions tomorrow on that clean installation of Win.

 

[voldemarz]

I enabled options you specified in gflags.exe, but now PC crashes without BSOD, just reboots in the same situation and it doesn't make a kernel dump nor minidump. Also when Windows starts up with gflags set, there are 2 programs crashing:

igfxtray.exe - Intel Graphics configuration and diagnostic application
hkcmd.exe - Intel's "extreme" grahics hot key interceptor

First I enabled first six gflags options you listed. Later I enabled also "enable heap validation on call", but it didn't help to make a crashdump.

 

[voldemarz]

Jarnis pointed out that for 3DMark 11 systeminfo had to be disabled from "Help" menu. When I did that it worked on both laptop's installations of Windows. In my main OS I had to disable Avast, otherwise I got this (this was a known compatibility issue issue) :

 

[voldemarz]

So it seems that BSOD is caused by Systeminfo component. Does it mean that the problem is in the program? Or could it be problem in drivers?

There will be an update of Systeminfo after 2-3 weeks. Would it be the best choice to wait and see if it fixes everything?

 

[VirGnarus]

So you are no longer experiencing bsods from running the benchmarks or afterwards? If so, yes, I'd say wait for them to fix it.

However, I can state that it could still be a hardware issue as when systeminfo is attempting to enumerate details for your hardware it may come across suspect hardware and bug out. I've seen this occur with other people who've had hardware problems. Again, this is a possibility, not a definite.

What confuses me, though, is that you're getting crashing that is forcing your pc to restart. Did you set in System Recovery (where you set options for crashdumps) to have it automatically restart at a crash? Make sure that's unchecked. If it has been, then what you're mainly experiencing is a forced restart either by power supply problems or by overheating.

 

[voldemarz]

Yes, there is no BSOD without systeminfo in 3DMark11. I didn't succeed to disabled systeminfo in 3DMark Vantage though.

Yes, automatic restart was on. When I unchecked that, and when gflags options were set, after the crash there was a blue screen (not BSOD) with the following message:

STOP: c000021a {Fatal System Error}
The Windows SubSystem system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0x0000005 (0xfd091666 0x0532edc0)
The system has been shut down.

After the restart there still was no crashdump.

 

[voldemarz]

Any idea what those status codes mean?

 

[VirGnarus]

I'm giving your old crashdumps another thorough look-through. The recent crash you experienced was something very similar. The weird thing is that it gave an "access denied" status. I'm not sure why that happened. Either way, it is no good having gflags on when the crash dumps don't wanna get produced anyways, for reasons which escape me.