Blue screens!

Soldato
Joined
12 Sep 2012
Posts
11,704
Location
Surrey
I am fixing a blue screen problem for someone. Trouble is, i cant get it to blue screen when i am around!

I ran memtest when i first got it and it returned no errors after quite a lot of runs. I was actually trying to stress it enough to encourage the blue screen, since i thought the heart of the problem was memory. The PC owner has had it for a year and a half with no issues until recently, where it would blue screen idle or not almost every 15-30 mins. Unfortunately since getting it, it has managed to go 8 hours without a problem, so i have no error code to work with.

Drivers up to date
Bios up to date
Fresh windows install

Thought this was most likely memory but now i know it probably is not!

My thoughts are it is probably either the PSU or HDD.

I left it in valley for a bit to see if anything would happen. Nothing for a few hours, then i leave the room and come back to a turned off PC. Load the PC up and it had blue screened but i missed the code again. The report showed me this though:

BB code a0
bcp1 000000000000000B
bcp2 000000011f956000
BCP3 0000000000000003
bcp4 00000000240a4000

I googled it and nothing came up.

spec is:
i7 920 @ stock
Corsair XMS3 triple channel 3 x 2gb
GTX 295
Asus P6T X58
OCZ 600w PSU (checked voltages with multi-meter and they seem fine)
Windows 7


I would start replacing parts and testing them if the blue screens were more regular, but they are not unfortunately. So i am now trying to trigger the blue screens the PC owner was telling me about, to find out the error code.

Any suggestions on any of this?
 
If it's blue screening, it should be creating a mini dump file which you can have a look at, this should point you in the direction of the problem.
Probably worth while checking event logs as well.
 
I had a pair of RAM sticks that passed 10 hours of Memtest, no errors. But ended up being the cause of the freezes and blue screens. Replacing them solved the problem. Might not be the cause in your case, but I would borrow some RAM and be absolutely sure.

Also, there are cases where RAM works fine in one system but causes platform instability in another system. So no blame should automatically be laid upon the previous owner (when purchased second-hand).

See here: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18569897

And here: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=25764655
 
I have some dual channel ram that i know is without problems. But swapping ram wont solve anything for me atm, as i cant get it to blue screen lol.

From the event logs i can see that there were a ton of blue screens before he gave it to me for repair. After i install a reader for these dump files, i might gain some more insight.
 
Heya guys, thanks for the replies.

I have been pretty busy with my new rig, so i havant had much time to fire up the other one since the other day.

The error is 124.

Voltages and everything are all on auto and the owner told me he has never touched the bios. Will find out tomorrow what all the voltages are.

Annoying thing is i cant get it to blue screen at all. Its frustrating because to test if i have solved the problem, i need to first consistently experience the problem. Checking the crash logs, it shows consistent 124 BSODs happening up to several times an hour when the PC was last switched on, in the summer. I have a feeling that maybe it was a heat issue causing instability. A few mins on valley will see the GPU hit 95 degrees and the CPU fairly toasty too. Have given it a good cleaning using compressed air, so hopefully temps will look a little better.

Any ideas on why i am not getting any BSODs and the owner of the PC was getting them constantly?
 
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