ntoskrnl.exe BSODs - Windows 7 (64-bit) Home Premium

Hi all,

Since the last week in March I've been getting BSODs; sometimes a few days a part, and sometimes two or three times a day, but always whilst playing The Elder Scrolls Online. I play a Battlefield 2 mod called Project Reality quite extensively and haven't had a single crash with that relating to this. This problem has only started in the last 2-3 weeks since playing ESO.

Back in December 2013 I had major issues with memory related BSODs whilst playing World of Warcraft and satrow was very helpful in identifying the issue and directing me to get new RAM under warranty, which solved the issue. Since then I've had no problems, until I started playing The Elder Scrolls Online at the very end of March this year.

It began by constantly CTD'ing, with the standard error report form the game throws up "The game has crashed, tell us what you were doing at the time and submit this software report to us" kind of thing. I would re-load the game and move a few paces before it would CTD again, but at other times I could play for 2-3 hours without a single issue.

I suspected my GPU drivers needed updating for this brand new game, and so I used ATI's driver cleaner to remove all ATI/AMD related drivers on the suggestion of one of my older brothers, before installing the new updated beta drivers.

I think the driver cleaner removed my chipset drivers for my Asus P8Z77-V MOBO and so I reinstalled those.

Since doing this, the game-related crashes have become less frequent but I've started getting BSODs, which Bluescreenview tells me relates to ntoskrnl.exe

I'm about to go away for the weekend so haven't had much time to look into this, but a few Google searches bring up forums where people basically say "the best way to fix is a reformat" but I'd really like to avoid that if possible.

I've also tried reinstalling Elder Scrolls Online.

I was hoping over the weekend whilst I'm away some suggestions could be posted, but my intended course of action is:

1.) Run an ESET Smart Security 6 full-scan.
2.) Run a MemTest to rule out any reoccurring memory issues.
3.) Download and reinstall the latest of all my hardware drivers.

Can anyone tell me what is the correct order to install hardware drivers?

Here is a list of my PC specs:

CPU: Intel 3rd Generation Core i5-3570K CPU (4 x 3.40GHz, Ivy Bridge, Socket 1155, 6Mb L3 Cache, Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0)

CPU COOLING: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 CPU Cooler

MOBO: ASUS P8Z77-V

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz CL9 XMP (replaced like-for-like under unlimited warranty, January 2014)

GPU: Sapphire 11199-03-20G HD7870 2GB GDDR5 OC Graphics Card

SSD: Corsair CSSD-F120GBGT-BK Force Series 120GB Solid State Drive

HDD: Western Digital WD1002FAEX Caviar Black 1 TB 7200 RPM Internal Hard Disk Drive

PSU: Corsair Memory 650W Professional Series Gold AX650 High Performance PSU

CASE: Coolermaster Storm Enforcer Mid Tower ATX Case

I've attached a 64-bit DxDiag, and all my minidumps since the problem started.

Thank you!

 

Well, I left a full scan on through ESET SS6 and found no issues.

I also ran a 1-pass test on MemTest86 and found 0 errors.

I've reinstalled my ASUS chipset drivers, and also AMD's Catalyst Control Centre, and the latest 14.3 beta drivers for my HD7870 again in the correct order, with plenty of restarts between uninstalls/reinstalls.

Will let you know how I get on.

 

I'm afraid this hasn't sorted anything. Another BSOD pointing to the same .exe with the bug thing "unexpected kernal mode trap"

Minidump attached.

 

Hello,

I am currently having the exact same issue and I have also ruled out hardware as a cause. Since yesterday I have had multiple bsods while playing ESO. I have also reinstalled the game and I've been researching the issue in forums such as this trying to find a similar case. Unfortunate that this case does not yet have any replies =(. I genuinely think that this is on ESO's end, I've been playing many games on this PC without issue and my GPU was updated about 2 months ago increasing performance is both Skyrim and WOW. After installing ESO I noticed that the game Hearthstone had a fragmented and pixelated appearance. This may or may not be related, but could it be the fault of Directx? I removed ESO and hearthstone returned to its original appearance.

Anyway, I still haven't figured out why the bsods occur, but I have seen many other posts detailing similar issues. Odd things like characters turning a weird glossy purplish-pink color before a freeze/bsod. My drivers are all updated and none are beta versions. This issue occured first yesterday after a Windows Update and ESO Maintenance (unexpected) within the 24 hours prior.

This is happening with far too many people who are only having this issue with ESO which leads me to believe it is a flaw on their end not the user's end. I really hope someone can shed some light on this soon.

Below Please Find the Analysis from WhoCrashed for today, yesterday's crashes were no different.

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System Information (local)
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computer name: BRIANA-PC
windows version: Windows 7 Service Pack 1, 6.1, build: 7601
windows dir: C:\Windows
Hardware: Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd., X79-UD3
CPU: GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3820 CPU @ 3.60GHz Intel586, level: 6
8 logical processors, active mask: 255
RAM: 17126445056 total
VM: 2147352576, free: 1893093376

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Crash Dump Analysis
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Crash dump directory: C:\Windows\Minidump

Crash dumps are enabled on your computer.

On Mon 4/14/2014 4:44:28 PM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\041414-48641-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x75BC0)
Bugcheck code: 0xF4 (0x3, 0xFFFFFA80192EEB30, 0xFFFFFA80192EEE10, 0xFFFFF800033E17B0)
Error: CRITICAL_OBJECT_TERMINATION
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 process or thread crucial to system operation has unexpectedly exited or been terminated.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem. This problem might be caused by a thermal issue.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be identified at this time.


On Mon 4/14/2014 4:44:28 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: 0xF4 (0x3, 0xFFFFFA80192EEB30, 0xFFFFFA80192EEE10, 0xFFFFF800033E17B0)
Error: CRITICAL_OBJECT_TERMINATION
Bug check description: This indicates that a process or thread crucial to system operation has unexpectedly exited or been terminated.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem. This problem might be caused by a thermal issue.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be identified at this time.


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Conclusion
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2 crash dumps have been found and analyzed. No offending third party drivers have been found. Connsider using WhoCrashed Professional which offers more detailed analysis using symbol resolution. Also configuring your system to produce a full memory dump may help you.


Read the topic general suggestions for troubleshooting system crashes for more information.

Note that it's not always possible to state with certainty whether a reported driver is actually responsible for crashing your system or that the root cause is in another module. Nonetheless it's suggested you look for updates for the products that these drivers belong to and regularly visit Windows update or enable automatic updates for Windows. In case a piece of malfunctioning hardware is causing trouble, a search with Google on the bug check errors together with the model name and brand of your computer may help you investigate this further.