Need help figuring out what causes my BSOD

[Chris Tian]

Hello everyone,

For a few days now i have a problem, my PC goes to bsod or just freezes after a short while of gaming. Being idle or surfing the web works fine, although it went down 1 or 2 times while watching a video. Aditionally the BSOD throws out different error-messages each time.

My Spcs are:
OS: Windows 8 64-bit
CPU: AMD Athlon II x4 645
Propus 45nm Technology
RAM: 2,00 GB Single Channel DDR3 @324MhZ (6-6-6-15)
MB: ASrock N68C-S UCC
GC: 1024MB GeForce GTS 450
HD: 466GB Toshiba DT01 ACA050 SCSI Disk Device (ATA)

Adittional Notes:
First of, although i am a PC-Gamer for over a decade now, I am pretty clueless about PC's i know basic stuff and solve everything else with google, patience, the nice people in a pc shop, and strangers like you.

And until now i have tried:
-The refresh Windows option of windows 8, after that i had to reinstall every driver so they should be all up to date.

-Stress testet the gpu with furmark, the temp went up to 74 degree C, thats far higher than any game gets it, no crashes or anything.

-used prime95 to stresstest, that too didn't result in anything.

-used memtest without errors, but only for a few passes.

So if you read my wall of text this far i already thank you for your efforts. I feel like a ape trying to start a spaceship here.

 

[Requia]

The error codes will be vital here. In fact there being more than one will make it even better. The words aren't important in a blue screen, I need something like 0x0000008E (and even more numbers in parenthesis, not always needed but get them just in case)

When did the problem start?

When you reinstalled the drivers, did you get copies straight from the manufacturer website for the given device? If not do that.

captcha: easy as cake

 

[Chris Tian]

This might sound dumb, but how do i get these numbers to stay on screen long enough to write them down?

The problem started about 3-4 days ago.

When you reinstalled the drivers, did you get copies straight from the manufacturer website for the given device? If not do that.

Do the former or the later? I got the latest ones from the websites.

 

[Requia]

If you hit F8 while starting there's an option to turn off the automatic reboot on crash that was one of the dumbest 'features' Microsoft ever conceived of. But in the interest of not waiting 2 more days to get the errors, these instructions should get you to the error logs, which will be very long, just look for stuff with a red flag on it with a code in the format I described:

http://www.digitalmastersmag.com/magazine/2012/08/tip-of-the-day-how-to-find-crash-logs-on-windows-8/

I got the latest ones from the websites.

That was right then. Given how often that's been the source of my customer's problems you can upgrade yourself from an ape trying to start a spaceship to a regular guy trying to start a broken spaceship.

 

[Chris Tian]

That was right then. Given how often that's been the source of my customer's problems you can upgrade yourself from an ape trying to start a spaceship to a regular guy trying to start a broken spaceship.

Haha thanks for that.

There was not as much as i would have expectet in the logs you directed me to, is it possible that the "refresh windows 8" thing deletet them? It seems that way since nothing in there is older than yesterday evening, that was when i did the "refreshing".

Here is what i found that matches what you described:
(since i am german and my pc is too, i translate the errors as best as i can)

-Error while starting the DSM-Service. Result=0x800706B5

-Name of the faulty application: Explorer.EXE, Version 6.2.9200.16384, Timestamp 0x50107dbc
Name of the faulty module: SHELL32.dll, Version 6.2.9200.16384, Timestamp 0x5010818b
Exeptioncode: 0xc0000005
Erroroffset: 0x00000000001edb02
ID of the faulty process 0x948
Starting time of the faulty application: 0x01ce35fd1e6ff56c

Again big wall of stuff, thanks for your efforts.
Path of the faulty application: C:\Windows\Explorer.EXE
Path of the faulty module: C:\Windows\system32\shell32.dll
Reportidentification: c3d3e20a-a1f0-11e2-be67-002522717ce9

-While starting the session "Rjv Trace" following error occurred: 0xC0000035

-The Computer was restartet after a critical error occurred. The Errorcode was: 0x000000d1 (0x0000000000000002, 0x0000000000000002, 0x0000000000000008, 0x0000000000000002) A full image was saved in: C:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP.
Report-ID: 0411113-19984-01.

-Name of the faulty application: Crysis3.exe, Version 1.0.0.1, Timestamp 0x02f4d040
Name of the faulty module: Crysis3.exe, Version 1.0.0.1, Timestamp 0x02f4d040
Exeptioncode: 0xc0000005
Erroroffset: 0x01805f1a
ID of the faulty process 0x15c
Starting time of the faulty application: 0x01ce3696288aedec
Path of the faulty application: F:\Spiele\Crysis 3\Bin32\Crysis3.exe
Path of the faulty module: F:\Spiele\Crysis 3\Bin32\Crysis3.exe
Reportidentification: 9deec700-a289-11e2-be6a-002522717ce9

-The Computer was restartet after a critical error occurred. The Errorcode was: 0x000000d1 (0xfffff6fbcc03d0, 0x0000000000000009, 0x0000000000000001, 0xfffff8800378c115). A full image was saved in: C:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP.
Report-ID: 041113-14093-01

 

[Requia]

Refresh should delete error logs yes.


Ok, 0xd1 is a driver (and you already replaced those, so unless you updated drivers shortly before the problem started we can ignore this), a virus (unlikely), or hard drive corruption.

I like hard drive corruption, especially since you said you have an AsRock motherboard. Asus (who runs AsRock as their low cost brand) has had issues in the past with SATA ports going bad and corrupting the hard drive.

So, here's the plan of action: Chkdsk, if the problem goes away and then comes back switch the SATA port of the hard drive then chkdsk again.

Here's some chkdsk instructions for windows 8: http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/6221-chkdsk-check-drive-errors-windows-8-a.html go deep (if no errors found initially scan the drive)

Alternativley, you can run chkdsk /r from the commandprompt (run as administrator) and then reboot. A warning that this sometimes doesn't actually run the scan, it should take 30 minutes to 3 hours, so if the computer is back up in 15 minutes use the GUI instructions above.

 

[AWAR]

There's also this interesting little application that check's your hard drive's health.

 

[Chris Tian]

It seems i fixed the issue.
While i was waiting for replys on the error messages i cleaned the interrior of my pc (again) but this time i changed the RAM to the other slot. I didn't do that earlier because the way i understood it memtest should have indicated errors regardless if the RAM itself or the slot its in is faulty.
Since then i run games (Crysis 3, Civ 5) that crashed before for quite a few hours without any problems.
So i guess one of my two RAM-slots is broken.

I didn't post this earlier because i wanted to get a game running for some time so i could be sure it worked.

Thank you both very much for the help.