Load-Related Crashes

Hello all, hoping you can help.

I'm experiencing random crashes to desktop, and blue screen errors when playing any 3D game which pushes the computer. It occurs between 20 minutes and 1 hour into playing routinely. The obvious indication is it's either power related, or heat related.

My specs are below, nothing is overclocked and besides two case fans and the stock intel cooler there is no additional cooling. When running a graphics stress test the computer did not crash for over 6 hours. When running a CPU stress test the computer did not crash for 10+ hours, nor a memory test.

Could the symptoms indicate:

1) An underpowered PSU to blame?

2) A chipset problem?

Are there any good monitoring programs which will log temperatures to a file (in case of blue screen) as I play for me to review later? What would readers advise be my next step to try and accurately diagnose the fault?

Thank you in advance for any help and advice you can offer,

Rob

Specs:

Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 2.4ghz
4gb Gold OC Ram
nVidia 9800 GTX+
Asus P45
OCZ500SXS 500W PSU

 

Sure,

From WhoCrashed:

On Fri 6/5/2009 9:32:27 PM your computer crashed
This was likely caused by the following module: ntfs.sys
Bugcheck code: 0x24 (0x1904AA, 0xB3A7B9CC, 0xB3A7B6C8, 0x89C143B2)
Error: NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM
file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\ntfs.sys
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT File System Driver
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Likely the culprit is another driver on your system which cannot be identified.



On Sat 2/14/2009 10:19:35 AM your computer crashed
This was likely caused by the following module: ntkrnlpa.exe
Bugcheck code: 0xD1 (0x0, 0x1B, 0x1, 0x813D72FF)
Error: DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntkrnlpa.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Likely the culprit is another driver on your system which cannot be identified.



On Thu 1/29/2009 10:09:47 PM your computer crashed
This was likely caused by the following module: ntkrnlpa.exe
Bugcheck code: 0x50 (0x9A0015D2, 0x0, 0x81CF3AE9, 0x0)
Error: PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntkrnlpa.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Likely the culprit is another driver on your system which cannot be identified.



On Mon 1/26/2009 8:00:11 PM your computer crashed
This was likely caused by the following module: win32k.sys
Bugcheck code: 0x1000008E (0xC0000005, 0x968F30BF, 0x8C74DC68, 0x0)
Error: KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED_M
file path: C:\Windows\system32\win32k.sys
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: Multi-User Win32 Driver
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Likely the culprit is another driver on your system which cannot be identified.



On Sat 1/24/2009 11:52:16 PM your computer crashed
This was likely caused by the following module: dxgkrnl.sys
Bugcheck code: 0x50 (0x87F1E000, 0xBADB0D00, 0x0, 0x0)
Error: PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\dxgkrnl.sys
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: DirectX Graphics Kernel
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Likely the culprit is another driver on your system which cannot be identified.



On Wed 1/14/2009 7:22:48 PM your computer crashed
This was likely caused by the following module: ntkrnlpa.exe
Bugcheck code: 0x1A (0x3451, 0xC0454E00, 0x84126AD0, 0x0)
Error: MEMORY_MANAGEMENT
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntkrnlpa.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Likely the culprit is another driver on your system which cannot be identified.



On Wed 12/31/2008 2:19:32 PM your computer crashed
This was likely caused by the following module: dxgkrnl.sys
Bugcheck code: 0x10E (0x1F, 0xC66B6EE0, 0x0, 0x1C19E6)
Error: VIDEO_MEMORY_MANAGEMENT_INTERNAL
file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\dxgkrnl.sys
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: DirectX Graphics Kernel
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Likely the culprit is another driver on your system which cannot be identified.



On Thu 12/11/2008 8:36:33 PM your computer crashed
This was likely caused by the following module: ntkrnlpa.exe
Bugcheck code: 0xA (0x4, 0x1B, 0x0, 0x81C4AB12)
Error: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntkrnlpa.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Likely the culprit is another driver on your system which cannot be identified.



On Sat 12/6/2008 8:59:44 PM your computer crashed
This was likely caused by the following module: ntkrnlpa.exe
Bugcheck code: 0x7F (0xD, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0)
Error: UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntkrnlpa.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Likely the culprit is another driver on your system which cannot be identified.



On Sun 11/23/2008 4:36:34 PM your computer crashed
This was likely caused by the following module: ntkrnlpa.exe
Bugcheck code: 0x7F (0xD, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0)
Error: UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntkrnlpa.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Likely the culprit is another driver on your system which cannot be identified.

I was away for 3 months which is why there is a gap.

I hope this helps, I'm really leaning towards there being a lack of power. With only 18A on the 12v rail and a quadcore/2 HDDs and the 9800 I figure it just can't handle it.

 

Updates:

Running prime 95 in torture mode will cause the fourth core to fail and/or a bluescreen.

Running Futuremark's 3D Advantage will cause a crash on the second CPU test.

Playing Far Cry or Dawn of War 2 will result in blobs of colour, about 1 inch in diameter, red and white, appearing on the screen as I play.

However, running stress tests on the GPU (ATItool, Fur test, an nvidia one) never cause it to fail or crash.


All this leave me thinking it's either a northbridge or CPU issue. How can I isolate 1 from the other to test? (Besides buying another motherboard?)

Thanks again for any help,

Rob