[MelancholyRose]

No. It's a hardware problem. It happens on other cases like ours when there's a problem with the wires being grounded properly or something.

[Advertisements]

So the consensus is the motherboard is the issue then?

[rshaffer61]

So the consensus is the motherboard is the issue then?

[MelancholyRose]

Honestly, I have no idea. I think his motherboard is actually fine, I think it's the case and wiring that might be a problem. But I don't know for sure. I'll have to open it up and look at the wiring, just to make sure I have everything plugged into the right places.

[rshaffer61]

Possibly a solder point on the USB connection has broken.
Does this happen with both front and back USB ports?

[MelancholyRose]

It seems only to happen with the top USB ports. I just plugged the flash drive into the rear port and it didn't crash.

His keyboard and mouse and other USB devices are in the rear ports, as well, and they don't cause problems. I even wiggled them a little and nothing bad happened.

Since his power and reset switch are on the top of the case next to the USB ports, I'm beginning to wonder if that's what's causing the startup issues.

Edited by MelancholyRose, 10 July 2011 - 11:32 AM.

[rshaffer61]

Sounds like the one USB port has a broken solder point.

[MelancholyRose]

Actually, I found out what's causing it.

A consensus seem to think the problem is the location of front panel wires and a CD/DVD player in the first(top) bay. Some claim by moving the CD/DVD to the second bay resolves the problem. Try touching the rear panel before touching the front panel, see if that helps. The only serious issue is that if caused by static electricity, other components and motherboard could be damaged.

EDIT: I don't own one and have never had the issue. I have wanted a HAF X case so rave read numerous reviews on them and other CM cases. It seems to affect only a few people, but is a known issue for CM front panel connections. Consensus seems to be that with a CD/DVD player in the top slot, the front panel wires short out by touching it. Others have blamed it on adding a second top fan which comes in very close proximity to the front panel wires on some models.

Also as far as the front ports shorting out, if the case is a Cooler Master it is a common problem caused by static electricity.

In the Cooler Master CM690II the front panel connectors are EXACTLY above the first DVD-ROM slot. The two objects get crammed together and sure enough, the USB ports are right above the DVD-ROM as well. Apparently with the DVD-ROM in the top slot below the front panel, it causes a short due to a static discharge, I believe.

We both have DVD-ROMs in the top slot, right below the front panel, directly underneath the USB ports. It could be the reason why my motherboard didn't last. I probably zapped it enough times to murder it. It happened on my machine, too, NOT just his. So I know it can't be a broken USB port. It's the case. I'm willing to bet that this has a lot to do with why his computer isn't starting up properly. The power and reset switches are directly beside the USB ports.

[rshaffer61]

Odd that would be the cause but understandable for sure.
Did you reposition your husbands to see if it resolved the issue with his?

[MelancholyRose]

No, I couldn't, I didn't discover this until yesterday when I was already back in my city and not at his house. I have to wait until this weekend. But I told him that until then, don't touch or use the front USB ports.

I think a hardware issue being a cause makes a lot of sense since I've done every single software test imaginable and it seems like there's no problem with anything else. If it doesn't relate to his startup problems, I think I know a few things that might fix it. I've been getting advice from some other people and when giving them error names and stop error codes, someone said that the Master Boot Record could be infected or damaged. I've also been told that the AHCI driver for the RAID probably needs updating because ahcix64 is a common file mentioned in BSODs. I just recently gave him the most current video driver so that shouldn't be causing problems.

[rshaffer61]

MBR shouldn't be corrupted unless your free space falls below 10% but it is a possibility even so.
If so there is a way to repair it using the Recovery Console
I would think the first step is to relocate the optical drive and see if the crashes stop then. If so then that would be the resolution before we attempt any other fix at this time.

[MelancholyRose]

Sorry I haven't been posting an update, I've been moving into a new apartment and we just got internet in here yesterday, and I've been busy beyond belief.
MBR was fine. Nothing is corrupted.
I ran a diagnostics test on both hard drives and they were fine. They passed both long and short tests.
I updated his RAID driver.
He still has blue screens on startup. I activated kernel dump instead of small memory dump so that it would catch the crashes when they happened and I successfully got a dump file. I've uploaded it on SkyDrive here:

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=e4de9a8be33ed49b&sc=documents&uc=1&id=E4DE9A8BE33ED49B!126#

It's inside the zipped folder.

I ran a Memtest and "rebooted" the hard drives from it, and the first boot up from that didn't have any problems. It only crashes on the very first start up from powering on without booting from something else first.

[rshaffer61]

Again the file is the ndisuio.sys which is the driver for the wireless stuff.
It can be stopped under the MSconfig\Services and is not needed as long as it doesn't affect the wireless operation.

[MelancholyRose]

I don't remember seeing that on there... but then again I only checked startup programs, not startup system files/services. And I've never heard that file mentioned before. If you mentioned it before, I didn't notice.

I'm sorry, but I guess I thought you meant startup programs, not services before.

I'm trying to find it in the Services list, but I don't see it anywhere, unless it goes by another name. I can see the driver system file in the windows folder, so I know it's there. But I don't see anything by that name in Services at all. Would it be called something else?

I read it goes under "Wireless Zero Configuration" but that isn't on there, either.

Would be it under WLAN?

Edited by MelancholyRose, 21 July 2011 - 10:09 PM.

[rshaffer61]

Lets see what you have in your startup services area

Please click on
Start and then to Run
Type in msconfig and press Enter
Now click on Services
Click on the Hide All Microsoft Services
Then uncheck everything and restart.
If system boots correctly and is running smoothly and faster then we have a startup problem
Try going back into msconfig and check one item and reboot
Keep doing that till you have found the problem or all are finally checked.
Post back with the results

[MelancholyRose]

No changes. It crashes every time. I have some new minidumps, though!

On Fri 22/07/2011 4:10:53 PM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\072211-24523-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x331945)
Bugcheck code: 0x1000007E (0xFFFFFFFFC0000005, 0xFFFFF80002D8E945, 0xFFFFF88003185A48, 0xFFFFF880031852A0)
Error: SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED_M
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This indicates that a system thread 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 Fri 22/07/2011 4:10:53 PM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\memory.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntkrnlmp.exe (nt!KeBugCheckEx+0x0)
Bugcheck code: 0x7E (0xFFFFFFFFC0000005, 0xFFFFF80002D8E945, 0xFFFFF88003185A48, 0xFFFFF880031852A0)
Error: SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
Bug check description: This bug check indicates that a system thread generated an exception that the error handler did not catch.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver which cannot be identified at this time.


On Fri 22/07/2011 4:02:40 PM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\072211-24320-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x7FD00)
Bugcheck code: 0xD1 (0x0, 0x2, 0x1, 0xFFFFF800028FBA7A)
Error: DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This indicates that a kernel-mode driver attempted to access pageable memory at a process IRQL that was too high.
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.

There's ntoskrnl again.

Attached Files

•  7-22-dumpfiles.zip   68.82KB   126 downloads