[Getfest]

Hello Geeks to Go.

The problem: For some time now I've been experiencing crashes in pretty much every program on my computer a few times per day. This includes games such as World of Warcraft, Starcraft, and anything installed via Steam, as well as Microsoft Security Essentials, hardware drivers for my graphics card and Google Chrome. Chrome individual tabs and extensions crashing has been the symptom from day one, but recently the entire program started crashing. I also get Blue Screens between every and every second day. For a while I also got reports of corrupted files and Windows wanted me to run chkdsk. This seems to have gone away after running chkdsk a few times, but everything else is still occuring.

Solutions tried: Opened up the computer and checked every connection, took in and out RAM.
Thorough malware removal, I'm 100 % this is not the source of my problem and should not have any malware in my computer.
Chkdsk on both my hard drives.
Ran SFC /SCANNOW and it did some repairs, unclear on what.
Ran Windows Memory Diagnostics, did not find any problems.
Cleaned out my SSD to have some more free space, it started to get pretty crowded in there. Not sure if this might help, did it recently and the problem usually takes a while to show itself.
Reinstalled most of the programs crashing most frequently, including Google Chrome and World of Warcraft.

I've attached a dump (though zipped, the board did not accept .dmp files) that was created after the latest BSOD. It suggests that win32k.sys might be the problem. But I can't really be sure, and as I said, SFC /SCANNOW did not seem to solve the problem.

This is my system:
Processor: Intel Core i5 3570K 3,4Ghz (Ivy Bridge)
Motherboard: MSI Z77A-GD65 ATX
Memory: Corsair 16GB (4x4096MB) CL9 1600Mhz VENGEANCE LP
Hard Drives:
For OS: Samsung SSD Basic 830-Series 128GB
For most programs: 2TB WD Caviar Green
Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series
Power Supply: Corsair AX 750W 80+ Gold
Case: NZXT Phantom Special Edition Red Stripes

Any help in figuring out what might be the problem and how to solve it is greatly appreciated.

Attached Files

•  022613-7987-01.rar   20.9KB   117 downloads

Edited by Getfest, 27 February 2013 - 08:02 PM.

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The dump points to chrome.exe (Google Chrome):

BUGCHECK_STR: 0x1a_41790
CUSTOMER_CRASH_COUNT: 1
DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: WIN7_DRIVER_FAULT
PROCESS_NAME: chrome.exe

[Ztruker]

The dump points to chrome.exe (Google Chrome):

BUGCHECK_STR: 0x1a_41790
CUSTOMER_CRASH_COUNT: 1
DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: WIN7_DRIVER_FAULT
PROCESS_NAME: chrome.exe

[Getfest]

Hmm, guess I should've mentioned that I've tried reinstalling most of the programs crashing, including Google Chrome, without any difference.

But if that's the cause I'm gonna try going Firefox for a while and see if there's any difference.

[Getfest]

So I uninstalled Chrome and started using Firefox instead. Have yet to experience a BSOD, but the remaining problems still remain. Firefox crashes with regularity, as does World of Warcraft and other programs. Anyone have any idea?

[Getfest]

While everything continues to crash, the BSOD showed it's face today as well. This time it should not be Chrome as it was not running when the BSOD happened. Any help with information on what caused the BSOD this time would be greatly appreciated and might get one step closer to what's happening in my computer.

I've attached the zipped dmp-file.

Attached Files

•  030213-33119-01.rar   20.3KB   121 downloads

Edited by Getfest, 02 March 2013 - 11:35 AM.

[Ztruker]

This one indicates spotify.exe:

DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: WIN7_DRIVER_FAULT
BUGCHECK_STR: 0x24
PROCESS_NAME: spotify.exe

[Getfest]

This one indicates spotify.exe:

DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: WIN7_DRIVER_FAULT
BUGCHECK_STR: 0x24
PROCESS_NAME: spotify.exe

So if it's a different program each time causing the BSOD, what could be the cause? Would it be the hard drive then?

[Ztruker]

Could be the hard drive though it doesn't give that appearance. Worth running a diagnostic to see though.

Check the hard drive with the manufacturer's diagnostic tools.
Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.
Bootable Hard Drive Diagnostics

Also, even though you ran memtest you could still have defective memory, which seems more likely that a hard drive problem to me. Try removing two of the 4GB memory modules and test. If the problem occurs, swap them and test again.

The next thing to do is backup your data and use the recovery partition to restore to factory new state, then apply SP1 and all updates. Once that's done, then restore your data and start installing software again. PAinful but may be the only answer you'll find (if not a hardware problem).

[Getfest]

So after some tinkering and plugging in and out my memeory like you suggested I found the culprit. One of the memory was defective, and everything has been running smoothly without it. Will get it swapped. Thanks for the help.

[Ztruker]

That's good news. Glad you have it working.