Random Reboots, Reviewing Minidumps

I've been experiencing random reboots on my desktop machine quite frequently lately. I will leave the machine on while I am AFK, and I will come back to find it has been restarted with a pop-up message that the system has recovered from a fatal error.

I have the debug logs and I can identify exactly when each crash happened using the minidumps. Unfortunately, none of the minidumps ever seem to point to the same issue. There are a few that throw "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (a)" errors, each caused by a different process.

There are others that report "PFN_LIST_CORRUPT (4e)".

Some of the process names (which im familiar with most and I've found to be legit) are : iexplore.exe, 3dfish.scr, ehmsas.exe, explorer.exe. etc, etc.

At this point, everything tells me I should suspect my RAM. I've downloaded and run memtest86 through multiple phases and received no failed tests.

The only time I've found anything unusual that was memory-related was when I ran memtest in 'probe' mode for memory, instead of 'standard mode'. In probe mode, the memory immediately threw ~ 700 errors, and then locked up the machine. I'm not sure exactly what this test does, or how it affects the memory test.


Any advice would be greatly appreciated, I'm not a coder, and new to debugging windows dumps, but I'd really like to solve this issue.

Thanks in advance

CH

 

Still interested in any information anyone can provide.

Thanks

 

Attached minidumps for download:

laptopminidumps.zip

pcminidumps.zip

 

More often than not, when stop errors are random files, its hardware related.

Typical culprits are flaky ram, overclocking, and failing motherboards.

Check your ram.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/Memtest86_d4226.html

Make sure you devote a good several hours to it, unless you see errors immediately.

 

Thanks, I'll do another good long run of memtest86+ and see what comes up.

 

After that, I'd try something like http://www.majorgeeks.com/Prime95_d4363.html and run tests. Once again, spend a good few hours with this.

Yeah, its gonna make your machine quite warm, but the idea is to see if it fails with it. There should be a blanced test to stress both cpu and ram.

 

How long was memtest run for? I know you ran it initially, but I mentioned it again, because most people run it for 15 minutes and think that they are error free.

Did you try Prime95? We are looking for it throw any error.

While we are on the topic of hardware, what are your specs?

 

Memtest was ran long enough to do 2 full cycles, ~ 2 hours. Both of these machines are actually at a friend's house so I'm working on them as time allows.

I'm going to run prime95 and maybe a longer memtest on the laptop tonight. If I get any interesting results, I'll post them. Otherwise, I'll check back in when I get access to the desktop machine again.

Thanks for the follow up!

 

Chkdsk on the laptop revealed that there were a number of bad sectors. I made a ghost image of the disk, replaced it, and then did a little 'clean up' of the installed apps. After all that, the system seemed more responsive with less background processes running. I ran a 24 hour memtest and a 8-hour prime95 stress test and received no errors. I believe the crashes may have been related to the failing hard drive?


As for the PC, I have configured it to write a full-dump on bsod. I have had no crashes yet, but only a few application crashes. I completed removed and reinstalled the latest video drivers (nv4_mini.sys was mentioned in the minidumps). I've also cleaned up some of the background programs and I am in the process of installing updates. The only anomaly is that the machine seems to go to sleep mode and never wake up. I've checked the sleep/hibernate settings and disabled them. The PC still goes to sleep after 20 minutes, but I believe I've checked all the settings to prevent that. I ran a 2 hour memtest with no failures and also an hour stress test with no failures. I've got the machine for a week, so I'll torture it as best I can.

Thanks again for the input

 

I let the machine run a 20 hour memtest86 check for 40 passes with no errors.

I also ran a number of torture tests using Prime95 and there were no errors there either.

When I went to start up IE to download an additional Stress-testing application, IE immediately crashed. Upon trying to restart IE, Explorer.exe crashed. After a reboot, everything was normal again. I ran a full system scan with Lavasoft AdAware, which found a single malicious app, which was removed.

I've yet to force a BSOD, but I'll keep trying.

 

Sounds good so far.

Thanks for the heads up on the bad drive. I recently debugged another stop error 0x4e like you mentioned, and it too, pointed at the drive.

So you may have hit it right on the head.

Good job!

 

Just another note. I used the machine all evening yesterday with only a single issue. The print spooler service spoolsrv.exe (i think it was called), crashed unexpectedly when opening IE. The service automatically restarted itself, but I'm not really sure what caused the crash. The pop-up window said press cancel to Debug, which I did, but didnt get anything after that.

Aside from that one occurence, the machine ran fine all night. Lots of you tube, hard drive intensive searches, and 3d benchmarks all ran w/o fail.

 

When the spooler crashes, its usually due to flaky printer drivers. Look for an update, if possible.