Frequent Blue Screens

[horizongames]

Hey Eclipse community! recently my (brand new computer) has been experiencing some pretty common occurring blue screens. Now i searched threw google and found some programs that scan for error but none seem to find any. its strange because sometimes i can go a whole day with no problem but then i get a blue screen. then when i reboot its starts happening faster. i have updated all my drivers and updated everything for windows. i have plenty of space in the computer and a very powerful processor and i great fan so its not overheating or not enough processing power. can someone help me? if you have questions ill try and answer as best as possible. next time it happens im going to try and take a picture with my phone and i can post it on here. thanks so much!

[Devogen]

@ReapersGrin:

> Hey Eclipse community! recently my (brand new computer) has been experiencing some pretty common occurring blue screens. Now i searched threw google and found some programs that scan for error but none seem to find any. its strange because sometimes i can go a whole day with no problem but then i get a blue screen. then when i reboot its starts happening faster. i have updated all my drivers and updated everything for windows. i have plenty of space in the computer and a very powerful processor and i great fan so its not overheating or not enough processing power. can someone help me? if you have questions ill try and answer as best as possible. next time it happens im going to try and take a picture with my phone and i can post it on here. thanks so much!

Sounds like you have a memory issue, either one of your ram modules is getting too warm (which isnt something you would have detected normally)

If your PC works all day then blue screens, and then after it blue screens it happens more frequently - im sorry to say but this is most likely a component over heating, of which there is at least 20 i can think of first hand OTHER than the mobo or PSU or cpu over heating. Video RAM, your chipset overheating etc..  There are plenty of things that are crucial to optimal PC operation.

BUT that being said, if it was a major component you would be seeing the blue screen more often, so to be honest Im thinking one of your RAM modules is a little whacky

Try stressing your computer out, try some beefy games, try and find out whats triggering it

[horizongames]

@Devo:

> Sounds like you have a memory issue, either one of your ram modules is getting too warm (which isnt something you would have detected normally)
>
> If your PC works all day then blue screens, and then after it blue screens it happens more frequently - im sorry to say but this is most likely a component over heating, of which there is at least 20 i can think of first hand OTHER than the mobo or PSU or cpu over heating. Video RAM, your chipset overheating etc..  There are plenty of things that are crucial to optimal PC operation.
>
> BUT that being said, if it was a major component you would be seeing the blue screen more often, so to be honest Im thinking one of your RAM modules is a little whacky
>
> Try stressing your computer out, try some beefy games, try and find out whats triggering it

Well it has only started while im playing lord of the rings online. ( a beefy mmo) but i used to play Rift and it never happened as i recall. so if its happening during many hours of playing that mmo does that mean its just an overheating problem? is there a way i can prevent it from overheating or should i maybe shutdown and let it cool everyday? when im playing the computer stays at pretty good temp just a little warmth nothing unusual. also i have quite a few games on this computer can that effect it? there not running at the same time obviously. i use Game Booster which minimizes some backround tasks to prevent overheating and free some room for smoother playing. i also play games at high graphics settings. are these all factors?

[Godlord]

The 'blue screen of death' is the name given by an Average Joe for a 'kernel panic'. Whenever code does something wrong (e.g. divide by zero, hit an invalid page, etc.) an interrupt will be generated for the kernel to handle. If user code has done something wrong then it's the kernel's task to fix it appropriately, whenever supervisor code (e.g. the kernel, drivers, etc.) does something wrong the code has to fix it itself, which won't be happening most of the time.

To give an example: Skype in combination with game or audio creation software usually causes a kernel panic after a period of time, or sometimes even upon initialisation of one of such programmes. The reason why is that Skype uses the audio drivers through a very thin layer instead of libraries, and games do the same but through a layer that does the same as Skype does. Since the audio driver is being used by multiple tasks without proper management it might lead to kernel panics.

Now because this is something I tracked down myself it's quite straight-forward, but the majority of kernel panics are not. They can be caused by anything: missing drivers, broken drivers, malfunctioning hardware, misconfiguration of hardware, etc.

Memory does not cause kernel panics, even if the module is broken (unless it is entirely broken so the kernel won't even be able to get itself loaded properly). Page faults are always appropriately handled since the existence of the NT kernel. The cause of kernel panics is generally due drivers or software that uses them incorrectly (and therefore even malfunctioning hardware or misconfiguration of hardware), and it's therefore hard to track, and sometimes even harder to fix.

As for overheating hardware, use [a hardware monitor](http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html) to keep track of the temperature. Whenever it exceeds the maximum your component is in danger, but if it stays below that then there is no issue. Temperature is hardly ever the cause of kernel panics, it instead is the cause of systems that lock themselves until they are cooled down (it's common processor behaviour).

Regards,
  Stephan.

[Drummerpete]

If it's the blue that's annoying you, you can change the colour scheme of your monitor.
There should be a couple of buttons on your monitor, go to the menu and look for something like "Colour Adjust".

You can now have a lovely pink screen of death :D

[horizongames]

well [email protected].:

> The 'blue screen of death' is the name given by an Average Joe for a 'kernel panic'. Whenever code does something wrong (e.g. divide by zero, hit an invalid page, etc.) an interrupt will be generated for the kernel to handle. If user code has done something wrong then it's the kernel's task to fix it appropriately, whenever supervisor code (e.g. the kernel, drivers, etc.) does something wrong the code has to fix it itself, which won't be happening most of the time.
>
> To give an example: Skype in combination with game or audio creation software usually causes a kernel panic after a period of time, or sometimes even upon initialisation of one of such programmes. The reason why is that Skype uses the audio drivers through a very thin layer instead of libraries, and games do the same but through a layer that does the same as Skype does. Since the audio driver is being used by multiple tasks without proper management it might lead to kernel panics.
>
> Now because this is something I tracked down myself it's quite straight-forward, but the majority of kernel panics are not. They can be caused by anything: missing drivers, broken drivers, malfunctioning hardware, misconfiguration of hardware, etc.
>
> Memory does not cause kernel panics, even if the module is broken (unless it is entirely broken so the kernel won't even be able to get itself loaded properly). Page faults are always appropriately handled since the existence of the NT kernel. The cause of kernel panics is generally due drivers or software that uses them incorrectly (and therefore even malfunctioning hardware or misconfiguration of hardware), and it's therefore hard to track, and sometimes even harder to fix.
>
> As for overheating hardware, use [a hardware monitor](http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html) to keep track of the temperature. Whenever it exceeds the maximum your component is in danger, but if it stays below that then there is no issue. Temperature is hardly ever the cause of kernel panics, it instead is the cause of systems that lock themselves until they are cooled down (it's common processor behaviour).
>
> Regards,
>   Stephan.

well it only seems to start after a large game has been playing for several hours. so whats my solution? exchange the pc?

[Godlord]

@ReapersGrin:

> well it only seems to start after a large game has been playing for several hours. so whats my solution? exchange the pc?

Like I said it's hard to track down what causes it exactly. So you could try it on another machine, but if the behaviour is the same then the game developers simply have to fix it.

Regards,
  Stephan.

[horizongames]

@S.J.R.:

> Like I said it's hard to track down what causes it exactly. So you could try it on another machine, but if the behaviour is the same then the game developers simply have to fix it.
>
> Regards,
>   Stephan.

okay thanks, but if it the game is causing it can it also be the cause of all the blue screens after i reboot even though i never restarted the game? hope that makes sense.

[Godlord]

@ReapersGrin:

> the cause of all the blue screens after i reboot even though i never restarted the game? hope that makes sense.

The cause of that is not the game but something different, potentially some driver.

Regards,
  Stephan.

[horizongames]

@S.J.R.:

> The cause of that is not the game but something different, potentially some driver.
>
> Regards,
>   Stephan.

would a factory settingsrestore fix the problem?

[Gwen]

what does the blue screen say? is it an irc error, hardware error. It should give a partial answer in that crypitc mess it spits out.

have you installed any new device lately, have you installed new drivers?
Start removing devices and see if it continues. try to strip your computer down to the bare essentials… video memory, kb/mouse... disconect everything else.

[Draken]

I had issues like this one some of the pcs I repair Not sure if you added any new RAM to the pc but if you did and if they are diffrent types It can still work but then randomly give you blue screens.

What I mean is if you install lets say a 1 GB stick that runs at 2700 and a 1 GB stick that runs at 3200\. It will still work and load up most of the time but when you start doing stuff that uses more RAM it could be creating a problem here.

Might help and if not at least you learned something LOL

[Godlord]

@ReapersGrin:

> would a factory settingsrestore fix the problem?

Most often not.

Regards,
  Stephan.

[horizongames]

@Gwen:

> what does the blue screen say? is it an irc error, hardware error. It should give a partial answer in that crypitc mess it spits out.
>
> have you installed any new device lately, have you installed new drivers?
> Start removing devices and see if it continues. try to strip your computer down to the bare essentials… video memory, kb/mouse... disconect everything else.

>! 
Thats what it says

@Draken:

> I had issues like this one some of the pcs I repair Not sure if you added any new RAM to the pc but if you did and if they are diffrent types It can still work but then randomly give you blue screens.
>
> What I mean is if you install lets say a 1 GB stick that runs at 2700 and a 1 GB stick that runs at 3200\. It will still work and load up most of the time but when you start doing stuff that uses more RAM it could be creating a problem here.
>
> Might help and if not at least you learned something LOL

its a brand new computer. barely 2 weeks old and i havent modified anything. and i havent updated any of my drivers until this started happening and then when i went into device manager and found out i had updates i downloaded and it didnt help. im so desperate :( my last option is exchanging the computer i still  have 30 days

[Godlord]

Only thing I can recommend is dumping a minidump file and visiting one of Microsoft's forums for issues like these. Nobody on Eclipse can help you properly with kernel panics, unless they work at Microsoft. There is only one person who ever has developed his own kernel, and that's me, and I cannot help you with these issues, and potentially nobody can on this forum.

Regards,
  Stephan.

[horizongames]

@S.J.R.:

> Only thing I can recommend is dumping a minidump file and visiting one of Microsoft's forums for issues like these. Nobody on Eclipse can help you properly with kernel panics, unless they work at Microsoft. There is only one person who ever has developed his own kernel, and that's me, and I cannot help you with these issues, and potentially nobody can on this forum.
>
> Regards,
>   Stephan.

well i ran a program and found out its the operating system that is causing the problem. specifically ntoskrnl.exe, like you said the kernel. i wish it was drivers lol. well i uninstalled some games and some recently downloaded programs and so far so good. if it happens again im just taking it back and going HP

[Godlord]

@ReapersGrin:

> well i ran a program and found out its the operating system that is causing the problem. specifically ntoskrnl.exe, like you said the kernel. i wish it was drivers lol. well i uninstalled some games and some recently downloaded programs and so far so good. if it happens again im just taking it back and going HP

Rather take it to Microsoft, they can actually help you more than Hewlett Packard can. Unless they offer you some free service, then try to benefit from that.

Regards,
  Stephan.

[horizongames]

@S.J.R.:

> Rather take it to Microsoft, they can actually help you more than Hewlett Packard can. Unless they offer you some free service, then try to benefit from that.
>
> Regards,
>   Stephan.
>
> well its a Dell i just meant im taking it back to best buy and getting a HP

[Devogen]

@S.J.R.:

> The 'blue screen of death' is the name given by an Average Joe for a 'kernel panic'. Whenever code does something wrong (e.g. divide by zero, hit an invalid page, etc.) an interrupt will be generated for the kernel to handle. If user code has done something wrong then it's the kernel's task to fix it appropriately, whenever supervisor code (e.g. the kernel, drivers, etc.) does something wrong the code has to fix it itself, which won't be happening most of the time.
>
> To give an example: Skype in combination with game or audio creation software usually causes a kernel panic after a period of time, or sometimes even upon initialisation of one of such programmes. The reason why is that Skype uses the audio drivers through a very thin layer instead of libraries, and games do the same but through a layer that does the same as Skype does. Since the audio driver is being used by multiple tasks without proper management it might lead to kernel panics.
>
> Now because this is something I tracked down myself it's quite straight-forward, but the majority of kernel panics are not. They can be caused by anything: missing drivers, broken drivers, malfunctioning hardware, misconfiguration of hardware, etc.
>
> Memory does not cause kernel panics, even if the module is broken (unless it is entirely broken so the kernel won't even be able to get itself loaded properly). Page faults are always appropriately handled since the existence of the NT kernel. The cause of kernel panics is generally due drivers or software that uses them incorrectly (and therefore even malfunctioning hardware or misconfiguration of hardware), and it's therefore hard to track, and sometimes even harder to fix.
>
> As for overheating hardware, use [a hardware monitor](http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html) to keep track of the temperature. Whenever it exceeds the maximum your component is in danger, but if it stays below that then there is no issue. Temperature is hardly ever the cause of kernel panics, it instead is the cause of systems that lock themselves until they are cooled down (it's common processor behaviour).
>
> Regards,
>   Stephan.

Thats interesting, I'm wondering how I manage to fix blue screens by swapping RAM modules, but im sure you have a thorough explanation for that also.

I find it also interesting his video card only causes it once LOTR starts using the upper VRAM modules.

[digibattle]

Get A Mac…

I've had mine for nearly a year now and had no problems at all.

[Devogen]

@ςђєєรє:

> Get A Mac…
>
> I've had mine for nearly a year now and had no problems at all.

Because game support is so fantastic for macs…

[Bloodmorphed]

@Devo:

> Because game support is so fantastic for macs…

"fantastic" Nope, I'll agree with you there. It is not. But the my guild leaders in WoW all use macs and they NEVER have had problems gaming with theirs so maybe its not so bad either.

Although I'll probably never make that switch.

[Godlord]

@Devo:

> Thats interesting, I'm wondering how I manage to fix blue screens by swapping RAM modules, but im sure you have a thorough explanation for that also.

There might be a plethora of causes: the RAM-module might be more appropriate for the motherboard and the processor, the firmware does something odd during initialisation, the RAM-module itself might be bad (e.g. because of overheating problems), the motherboard might use incorrect voltages (even out of the sudden, since they tend to change), etc.

I should have made that cause of broken RAM-modules more clear: memory that loses its ability to store data (it would just be impossible to boot up properly, except for the boot loader which uses the 512 kiB memory available on every x86-system, but the kernel itself is most-likely to die).

The majority of kernel panics are considered spurious however, since hardware cannot be guaranteed to be fabricated correctly for a hundred percent (e.g. I recently bought a laptop, the left button of the touch pad was broken, so I returned it to the shop and got a new laptop, which didn't have a properly initialised hard disk, so I had to fix it manually through S.M.A.R.T.).

@ςђєєรє:

> Get A Mac…
>
> I've had mine for nearly a year now and had no problems at all.

The only great thing about it is Mac OS X, which is a very stable operating system. The hardware, however, is over-priced (both my main machine and my laptop only costed about €1000, and they are clearly superior to the majority of machines Apple ever produced). Not to mention the fact, which Devogen stated before, that game developers generally do not target Mac OS X.

Regards,
  Stephan.