PC rebooting

DampDog · 25 Jan 2015 at 16:35

PC rebooting. Faulty ram?

Not quite sure if this is the correct section to place this so please feel free to move it, if necessary.

Windows 7, all up to date with current updates.

This has now happened twice, yesterday and again today. On both occasions it appeared to happen at 15:30.(give or take a few seconds)

The PC was unattended, the only app I'm aware I was running was Outlook. The PC has rebooted leaving a little pop-up saying the PC has recovered from unexpected shutdown and generated a minidump file.

I have no idea how to view a minidump file but had a little look in the built in Event viewer and it generated this.

- System
- Provider

[ Name] Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power
[ Guid] {331C3B3A-2005-44C2-AC5E-77220C37D6B4}

EventID 41
Version 2
Level 1
Task 63
Opcode 0
Keywords 0x8000000000000002

- TimeCreated
[ SystemTime] 2015-01-25T15:29:12.955214900Z

EventRecordID 518754
Correlation
- Execution
[ ProcessID] 4
[ ThreadID] 8

Channel System

Computer Daves-SSD-PC

- Security
[ UserID] S-1-5-18

- EventData

BugcheckCode 194
BugcheckParameter1 0x7
BugcheckParameter2 0x109b
BugcheckParameter3 0x4020002
BugcheckParameter4 0xfffffa802c6d4b30
SleepInProgress false
PowerButtonTimestamp 0

PC has been completely stable since the day it was built, never had any serious issues before. Any ideas or pointers?

McAfee & Malwarebyte have not picked up anything. No new software installed other than automated updates for weeks.

William-Mathew · 25 Jan 2015 at 16:37

What are the full system specs?

DampDog · 25 Jan 2015 at 17:03

William-Mathew said:
What are the full system specs?

CoolerMaster GX-750
Gigabyte GA-P55-USB3
Intel i5 760-2.80GHz Socket 1156
Corsair XMS3 (4X 2GB) PC3-12800C9
Gelid Tranquilo

Samsung Spinpoint F3 -1TB
Samsung 240G Solid sate (non-pro)
LG DVD/RW GH22LS50

AMD Radion HD6850 MSi

Winndows 7 Home edition

Built by myself 2010. PC has generally been very stable other than the odd hang with IE11

DampDog · 25 Jan 2015 at 18:36

I think I may have spotted it. I had a little look at task manager to see if there were any processes scheduled in the background.

I found this "GoogleUpdateTaskMachineCore" triggered at 15:29:21 which was when it crashed. I suspect a Chrome update that ran Saturday morning has screwed something up as it's only the past two days it's rebooted.

I'll keep an eye on it and see if it happens again and see what's showing in the task manager.

DampDog · 26 Jan 2015 at 12:06

Well my hope that I'd stumbled on the cause of my system misbehaving was short lived.

System failed to boot properly this morning and booted up in what looked like safe mode and attempted a repair which it said failed. It then rebooted as normal!!

I'm stumped, I can't put my finger on it whether I have a virus/corrupted file/registry or I have a hardware problem.

Any suggestions for a path forwards that may help me diagnose what's going on.

Raumarik · 26 Jan 2015 at 12:14

Use memtest86 (or similar) to test the RAM, check eventlog for disk errors of any kind, although with an SSD I'd be surprised if they were causing it.

Personally I'd also check to see what's been installed recently and remove it if a memtest comes back clear.

DampDog · 26 Jan 2015 at 14:08

Ok I've run Memtest86 and I am seeing errors, and that's with only about 45mins.

Now I've never used memtest86 before so it's all new to me but is there anyway I can use it to figure out which stick or sticks are beginning to fail? Or is it simply trial and error. I'm running 4 X 2GB.

Test / Errors
0 / 0
1 / 0
2 / 4
3 / 4
4 / 20
5 / 4
6 / 0
7 / 40
8 / 32
9 / 5
10 / 312

Total 421

ED209 · 26 Jan 2015 at 15:25

I would just remove one stick and run again, if it passes with no issues you know its that stick at fault.

failing that just use 1 stick of ram at a time and run the tests till the errors appear.

I have only used it once but had no errors

DampDog · 27 Jan 2015 at 10:04

Cheers, I'll try to isolate which stick is faulty over the next couple of days. Memtest86+ was showing errors numbering 100's yesterday afternoon when the system had been running for most of the day.
I've run 2 passes this morning and it's flagged nothing so I guess as it warms up the errors begin to manifest themselves.

Also I'm using Corsair DDR3 XMS which have a "Limited Lifetime warranty" No idea what that may or may not cover. So would 4 year old memory be covered, if I can diagnose the faulty stick??

Are there any memory test app that run from within windows 7 ??

DampDog · 28 Jan 2015 at 10:35

OK I've run memtest86+ with all 4 slots populated, 2GB per slot, channel 1+2. Errors appeared on first pass, additional errors on subsequent passes. (300+ in 2 passes)

I then removed Ram from slot 1+3 (channel 2)re-ran the test, 8 passes - no errors.

My thoughts were OK I have a faulty ram in one of the other 2 sticks. Swapped out the ram and ran the test again with the other 2 suspect sticks and had errors within seconds on the first pass. So far, so good.

I'm thinking, OK it looks like I have a faulty stick from what was channel 2. (it's dual channel anyway so I'm not to worried about isolating the individual stick. I'd swap both)

I turned it on again this morning with the same 2, (faulty??) sticks in place and its done 6 passes so far no errors.

Any ideas? Could I have an on-board memory controller failing as the MoBo heats up?? How reliable in memetest86+ as a diagnostic tool??

My thoughts are that my motherboard may have a faulty memory controller that manifest itself when warm. A failed ram stick isn't a huge problem I can just run on 4GB. Dying Mobo is. It's a 5 year old socket 1156 so don't think you can even buy them anymore??

DampDog · 28 Jan 2015 at 14:27

BUMP (help/suggestions please)

Elevon · 28 Jan 2015 at 16:53

DampDog said:
BUMP (help/suggestions please)

These can be tricky to isolate since can be numerous things ie faulty hardware from PSU to CPU/board etc,,did you double check your ram timings and voltage in BIOS?...Also are you using a good quality PSU,tried a different PSU to isolate any power fluctuation issues.

Last time I had a rebooting and shutting down PC was due to a faulty PSU many years ago.

DampDog · 28 Jan 2015 at 17:47

Cheers for the pointers, much apprecaiated.

Ram/bios timings are XMP defaults, system has never been overclocked. PSU is a CoolerMaster GX-750, not sure if they have a good reputation for reliability or not. I purchased it as case/PSU bundle.

It has me scratching my head at the moment, I was hoping to hang my hat on a simple failing stick of ram. But now the results from running memtest86+ are not repeatable I'm wondering what the cheapest way to diagnose it may be. No spare kit around me to swap out parts.