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BSOD While Gaming - EXTREMELY Frustrated


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#1
Zehla

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I had this machine custom built two years ago. I went all out, I ordered it from Puget Systems because they came highly recommended to me. I am awaiting their phone call about this issue on Monday. For two years this computer has been amazing. I designed it personally to be able to conduct high end gaming on max settings, and then wrapped it up all nice and snug in the beastly Antec 300 Illusion Cooler Master tower. THe build up was fantastic. No wires hanging out, these guys are pros for sure, and I know jack about building my own so I'd rather leave it to the professionals.

The past two days have been almost as bad as when I owned my Dell. Nothing I do has fixed this. I play Rift mainly, on ultra settings, and have for months now with no issues what so ever. I've cleaned the dust out of the inside of the case, made sure my card fan is spinning, etc. I don't have more than a half hour before my game sound distorts violently, the screen resembles an old TV as you're changing channels, all goes black, and then bam, a BSOD. Sometimes I don't even have time to catch what the heck it says, the times when I do it says SYSTEM_DEVICE_EXCEPTION.

I've updated my graphics card drivers (which caused ANOTHER BSOD), my mouse drivers, my sound drivers, my monitor drivers, I've even scanned and installed all of the windows 7 updates I could find. Absolutely nothing fixes this problem.

I did not spend all this money to have this crap happen to a high end gaming machine. I have tried and failed to run Memtest, so I have NO idea if it is my RAM or not. It refuses to boot from the USB drive I installed it on, and none of the tutorials on how to make it work through the BIOS menu are any load of help at all, telling me to change settings that don't seem to exist in my menu.

At first I thought it was Rift. So I booted up Portal, and I get through the first four test chambers before the game cuts out and my computer restarts itself. I've scanned for viruses, found one corrupt file in my long forgotten copy of Bit Torrent. Having not used it for many years, I cut my losses and uninstalled it. Second virus scan came up clean. I run AVG pro because Norton caused the death of every computer I've seen it installed on. Coupled with Spybot Search and Destroy, I've not had an actual virus since the day I got this machine.

I can browse the internet fine. I watched an hour and a half long youtube video of Stephen Merchant's stand up routine last night on HQ with no issues. I could take my computer to Comp USA and see what their tech guys can do, but I really don't want some chain store kid mucking about in my 1700 dollar machine and voiding the warranty on me. Though I would rather not have to ship it all the way back to Puget for an analysis, as I NEED this computer for my art and design projects regarding my boyfriend's up and coming business. I can't afford to be without this computer for more than a week. I'm afraid to even try to render something in photoshop, even though it's just logos and typography, for fear of another BSOD. This computer is VERY valuable to me and I won't have just anybody tinkering around with it's insides, but it seems I am running out of options.

Should I wing it and buy myself some new RAM and see if that fixes it? Memtest refuses to work, and while I know a lot about what specs make a machine good for gaming, I am NOT comfortable pushing buttons in my BIOS settings when I don't know 100% what they do.

Any advice on how I can get back to gaming and design? Really sick of this. Every single computer I've ever owned has had something go catastrophically wrong at some point or another. T_T Even having one perfectly built by professionals didn't deter my bad luck.

EDIT:

Finally remembered the name of the software that lets me document all of my computer's specs. Attached file report.

Attached Files


Edited by Zehla, 17 March 2012 - 09:44 PM.

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#2
happyrock

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Hi Zehla ... :wave: ..:welcome:
you are having heat issues...
did you use compressed air to blowout the heatsink fins...
are all the case fans working...
the first rule in overclocking is if you start having problems undo any OCing you have back to default...
since you will be contacted by the outfit that built it tomorrow do not take it anywhere or do anything until you talk to them
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#3
Zehla

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I opened up my computer and turned it on, every single fan is running as it should be. I copy pasted what windows told me after I booted back up after a blue screen that occurred while I was letting my computer install updates.

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033

Additional information about the problem:
BCCode: 3b
BCP1: 00000000C0000005
BCP2: FFFFF80002F7C38E
BCP3: FFFFF880071BBEE0
BCP4: 0000000000000000
OS Version: 6_1_7601
Service Pack: 1_0
Product: 768_1

Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\031812-39936-01.dmp
C:\Users\Danielle\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-65099-0.sysdata.xml
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#4
happyrock

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if you do not answer ALL my questions I may not be able to help...
they are clues as to what we are dealing with...
because you crashed while getting updates installed run chkdsk /r first...
then ...
AppCrashView v1.11 - View application crashes
this utility only works on Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008,earlier versions of Windows don't save the
crash information into .wer files.

Using AppCrashView
AppCrashView doesn't require any installation process or additional dll files. In order to start using it...
click on AppCrashView.exe

The main window of AppCrashView contains 2 panes. The upper pane displays the list of all crashes found in your system,
...they are dated so scroll down to the bottom for the most recent..drag the window as wide as your screen
the lower pane displays the content of the crash file that you select in the upper pane.
select one or more crashes in the upper pane, and then copy them to notepad...paste the text in your reply

the download is here..down towards the bottom of the page...
http://www.nirsoft.n...creen_view.html
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#5
Zehla

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My computer is officially FUBAR :(

I can't boot it up anymore without it either freezing or restarting. I am posting this with my laptop. I went to run a chkdsk as you recommended, and it crashed my computer. My biggest regret is not updating my backup files. I'll never get my copy of photoshop back again...it was a gift from a friend whom I've long lost touch with.

Thanks for trying to help. I've no idea what's going wrong with this thing, but I do know that it's not in my budget to fix it :(
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#6
Ztruker

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How much ram do you have? Can you remove half of it and see if that makes a difference? If not, put it back and remove the other half.

If it's a memory problem that should identify the failing module.

Have you tried what happyrock suggested and remove all OC'ing to see if that makes a difference?

You can also try using a Live Linux CD like Puppy to backup your data or even the entire hard drive if you want.

Use Puppy Linux to backup your data:
Download the bootable Puppy Linux iso image. Get the latest version available, currently pup-431.iso. If you don't have a burning program that will burn .iso files get burncdcc, a small FAST no frills iso burning program or ImgBurn, another small, fast and simple burner.

NOTE...do not put a blank cd in until burncdcc opens the tray for you.

1. Start BurnCDCC
2. Browse to the .iso file you want to burn on cd/dvd ......in this case its puppy linux
3. Select the .iso file
4. Suggestion.... Check the option "Fix close"
5. Click on "Start"

Make sure in the BIOS Setup, the CD/DVD drive is the first boot device. Put the Puppy Linux CD in the drive, then reboot your computer. Puppy will boot and run totally in ram. After you get it running and you're at the Puppy Desktop, take the CD out and then you can use the burner software to save all your data to CD/DVD. You can also use it to backup your data to a external USB harddrive or Flash drive, just have it hooked to the computer when you boot up with Puppy.

==========================

Quick guide for saving data from Puppy Linux:

After you get to puppy desktop, click on the drives icon. It looks like a flash drive, top row. It will list all the drives connected your computer.

Click on the Red icon for the drive you want to mount, perhaps a flash drive. Puppy will mount the drive. The drive icon turns green when its mounted.

Minimize the drives mounter window. You will need it again in a few minutes. Drag the right edge of it sideways to shrink it to its narrowest size, then drag the window to the right edge of the screen.

Now click on the icon that looks like a filing cabinet (kind of yellow) on the main drive. It should already be green. You will see a list of all the folders on the main drive (Usually C:). Shrink that window to the narrowest you can. Drag that window to the left side of the screen. At this point you should have 2 windows open on your desktop, Flash drive on the right and C: on the left. Go back to the folders on the C: drive. Click on the Documents and Settings folder, then your user name or all users. Find the folders that has your data then drag and drop the folder with the data you want to make copies of to the flash drive window.

Your options are to move, copy, ect. Select COPY. If its to big you will have to open the folder and drag and drop individual files until the flash drive is full.

Click on the drives mounter you minimized earlier. Unmount the Flash drive by clicking on the green icon. You will once in awhile get error messages when unmounting the drive, ignore them. When the flash drive icon turns red again its safe to remove the flash drive.

Plug the Flash drive into the other computer then copy all the data files ( I drag and drop) to the other computer. Make sure the other computer can read them.

Now delete the data on the flash drive, then take it back to the other computer and repeat until all data is copied.

Above taken from here: Help with Windows XP (Won't Start) on GeeksToGo.


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#7
happyrock

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the help we are offering costs nothing...the same for any tools we tell you to get...
but you must answer our questions and follow our advise

one more time...

did you use canned compressed air to blowout the heatsink fins...


the first rule in overclocking is if you start having problems undo any OCing you have back to default...

did you do this

since you will be contacted by the outfit that built it tomorrow do not take it anywhere or do anything until you talk to them

did you do this...

now for a few others
can you get into the bios
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