Very unstable system, help please

spleenharvester · 15 Mar 2011 at 20:54

Hey,

Been getting BSoDs recently with this new build, usually 0x0A, 0x1E, 0x7E or 0x124 or just a hard reset under load. Thought it was a bad OC, reverted the OC today (it was only a slight one) - no joy, if anything the system is less stable.

It's now taken to rebooting whenever it damn well feels like it (hard locked 3 times tonight while browsing) and cutting PCI devices off (WiFi and sound stop working at random), as well as losing USB devices at total random. Typing from the machine now just about, ready for it to go at any minute.

At first I thought I'd fixed it by uninstalling disconnected devices from device manager, but the moment I reinstalled the graphics drivers I got a BSoD and no POST. Made me think it was graphics card but could a graphics card do all this weird stuff?

-No thermal issues
-Cleared CMOS countless times
-First time it hard locked while browsing I smelt a slight burning smell; last time this happened was when ACC was enabled by accident and it's worked fine (mostly -.-) since this
-Set volts manually and messed around with BIOS settings
-Prime 95'd, Memtested and ATiTool artifact scanner'd, no dice
-Sample of the BSoDs I'm getting:

Code:

On Tue 15/03/2011 19:33:49 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\memory.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntkrnlmp.exe (nt!FsRtlInitializeBaseMcbEx+0x4345) 
Bugcheck code: 0x1E (0xFFFFFFFFC0000005, 0xFFFFF80002EAB9BF, 0x0, 0x107)
Error: KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
Bug check description: This indicates that a kernel-mode program generated an exception which the error handler did not catch.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem. 
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver which cannot be identified at this time. 


On Sun 13/03/2011 02:23:40 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\031311-18174-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: hal.dll (hal+0x12903) 
Bugcheck code: 0x124 (0x0, 0xFFFFFA800544C028, 0xB669C000, 0x175)
Error: WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR
file path: C:\Windows\system32\hal.dll
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: Hardware Abstraction Layer DLL
Bug check description: This bug check indicates that a fatal hardware error has occurred. This bug check uses the error data that is provided by the Windows Hardware Error Architecture (WHEA). 
This is likely to be caused by a hardware problem problem. This problem might be caused by a thermal issue. 
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system which cannot be identified at this time.

Any ideas? If this doesn't work I'm getting a damn netbook.

Cheers

95thrifles · 15 Mar 2011 at 21:03

Are you able to try another gfx card? See if it is related
Maybe borrow one off a mate for a couple hours just to test
Burning smell is worrying tbh

spleenharvester · 15 Mar 2011 at 21:09

Finally got graphics drivers to install and everything seems to be stable again now

fingers crossed it stays this way

The burning smell was discussed in great depth at another forum, we determined it's the smell of the MOSFETs tripping, some engineer guy said as long as there was no smoke all is good

TWiNKLeT0Es · 15 Mar 2011 at 21:19

Its a smell i love and hate.

Hope all goes well i had a GPU that kept popping for some time before it finally died in a puff of that lovely smelling smoke.

Admiral Huddy · 16 Mar 2011 at 09:06

I think the clue is in the message. The HAL.dll allows your system kernel to communicate with lower level hardware (in this case the GC) without changing any code. It's most likely been corrupted at some point. Try rolling back your system to a previous point and try reinstalling the divers.

The mini-dump and Event logs are often over looked but ideal tools for pointing you in the right direction

spleenharvester · 16 Mar 2011 at 10:16

Not so in-the-clear it seems

Got a MEMORY_MANAGEMENT BSoD this morning (SP1 wouldn't install, and eventually it gave out) and 4 hard locks. Problem is it always hard locks while writing minidumps too so no clue on it.

Any ideas? Ran Memtest for 12hrs with no errors, same with Prime and IBT.

Cheers

Brookert · 16 Mar 2011 at 11:00

motherboard flashed to latest bios?

spleenharvester · 16 Mar 2011 at 11:14

Indeed 'tis, the problems started a few days after building it so I don't think BIOS version could be at fault.

Bossk128 · 16 Mar 2011 at 11:19

Whenever I've had ntkrnlmp.exe and HAL errors it's been a bad HDD. Can you try a LiveCD and do some stress tests, browse the web etc, leave it running for a few days? This should ensure the solid state hardware gets a decent work out.

Or quickly try a second installation on a different HDD?

Also, ensure the RAM has the correct voltages (check the packaging), I let the SPD set the voltages and it was too low (1.8V vs 2.1v) when I built my current aged system and the problems were really random reboots and instability.

spleenharvester · 16 Mar 2011 at 14:46

I've been wondering about that, my F3 has been a bit funny for a while (suddenly a lot noisier), though SMART tests all check out.

RAM volts don't seem to be the problem

Tried 8-8-8-24 @1.65V (as spec'd on the packaging), 11-11-11-24 @1.5V, [email protected], 9-9-9-24 @1.65V. No joy.

It's been a lot more stable since I disabled the onchip SATA controller (this board has another chip that outputs 1 port which is slightly slower but in my experience much more consistent), might mess around with SATA ports for a bit.