Blue Screen due to ntoskrnl.exe ? [Updated - It had been RAM all along]

[Black Panther]

My computer's been having regular crashes. Ironically it crashes only while I'm browsing and never while gaming (and I game for long hours at a stretch!)

Bluescreen View shows that the culprit is always ntoskrnl.exe and when I googled that it points out to faulty memory. I have bought a new set of RAM quite recently...

However I checked with Windows Memory Diagnostic and with Memtest and got no errors at all.

Is it really faulty memory or could it be something else?
Could it be I've got some oc settings in the bios which aren't good for my RAM?
And why doesn't it crash at all while usage is really high during gaming?

 

[jboydgolfer]

afaik, that IS a Memory error..do you have bluescreenviewer? also, maybe a Malware scan too?

can you open elevated powershell and Run -sfc/scannow-

What browser is this on& can you clear cache, disable adons?

Could it be I've got some oc settings in the bios which aren't good for my RAM?

Set ALL cpu& ram oc back to default , i missed that part of your post. I. Too was getting these due to oc onnram/cpu

 

[Black Panther]

Pulling out half of my RAM isn't very practical. I mean the pc was crashing yesterday and today, but then the last time it crashed was on the 20th March so it didn't crash at all for an entire 3 days.
I have triple channel, and it's not practical to run the pc on one 4GB stick at a time especially if ''it decides'' not to crash.

Here's Bluescreen viewer, the bug string is always different but it's always ntoskrnl.exe (edit, wait once it was NETIO.SYS ??)

I'm running sfc/scannow right now... will edit and post result when it's ready.

Edit: The scan went ok saying Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

 

[jboydgolfer]

Could it be I've got some oc settings in the bios which aren't good for my RAM?

I agree about the ram part but I only meant for diagnostic purposes not for running it on a daily basis purpose, it never hurts to check.

But it seems as though you've been adding stuff to the original post I saw it when several of the things that are now there werent there I think, plus im still on 1st coffee .set all over clocks back to Default on CPU and RAM, reboot and try again see if that solves issue

Netlo.sys is nvidia network something or other iirc

Edit: The scan went ok saying Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

have you set all oc in bios back to default?

*edit*
hope it gets resolved for you...sorry i couldnt be of more help. I gotta get my day started. take care & good luck.

 

[Black Panther]

have you set all oc in bios back to default?

Thing is, sometimes the pc goes for days without crashing.

How would I know whether it doesn't crash because I put the bios at default, or because I removed a RAM stick?

If memtest, windows diagnostic and scannow all came clear with the pc oc'd and with all RAM sticks then surely no fault would be found if I were to put the oc and stock and run on just one memory stick at a time...

(Plus I'm not very eager to run this thing for hours or days, at 2.8Ghz instead of 4Ghz and with 4GB RAM instead of 12GB just to see whether it might randomly crash...)

Is there some other tests I could try perhaps?

 

[Black Panther]

Meh I can't figure it out.

It went 3 days without crashing, then yesterday it crashed 4 or 5 times while browsing the internet, then today the system's been on till 7 AM, browsing the internet and hours on Skyrim and not even one single crash.

 

[Mr.Scott]

Low vcore or vcore fluxuation will send the same BSOD.
Bang your vcore up a click.

 

[Black Panther]

I've done all the above advice and still can't figure out what's the cause.

What I'm finding strange is that I get no crashes during or after gaming, whereas if I just browse the internet without running a game before I'd get a BSOD every 10 minutes now?

If I start the pc and browse the internet I'd get BSOD's like crazy.
If I start the pc, run Fallout 4 for 5 minutes, I can just quit, go back to browsing the net and no BSOD's at all. (This is in fact how I solved the problem, I'd just start a game, quit it and get back to work, and no BSOD's at all). I've been doing this for the past weeks now, to avoid BSOD's I just run Fallout 4, not even play it, and go back to what I intended to do ie either browse the net on Chrome or work using Teamviewer.

I can play Fallout 4 for 10 hours straight (or more if I tried) without any issues, let alone BSOD's.

Can someone explain this? I"m so confused?

 

[natr0n]

Use another browser see if it happens.

 

[Black Panther]

Use another browser see if it happens.

Hmm that really makes sense. Totally escaped my mind. Will try it asap and tell you how it goes.

Not today though, because I've already run a game so as from my experience this past month the pc won't crash.

It's the exact crux which has me perplexed on what could be the issue, because if anything problems should arise while the components are stressed i.e. while gaming and not while I'm browsing the net.

During this past month while this thread was 'dormant' I ran OCCT, furmark and patiently memtest-ed one stick at a time.

Everything ran perfectly, no errors.

I gamed for hours on end, not a single crash (Fallout 4 with mods). Hadn't it not been so I wouldn't have managed to stay sane with a game crashing all the time .

However if I just power up the tower and browse the net without gaming before I'd find myself crashing every 5 minutes.

So the temporary quick solution was to log on steam, run a demanding game and log out.

If I even pretend to play for 2 minutes, I'd be safe to continue using the pc, browsing and whatnot, and no crashes happen whatsoever for long hours till I turn off the pc and go to sleep.

 

[Mr.Scott]

So....if you run something 3D you don't crash, and if you don't run 3D first you crash in 2D.
Sounds video driver related to me.

 

[Black Panther]

So....if you run something 3D you don't crash, and if you don't run 3D first you crash in 2D.
Sounds video driver related to me.

Yes, but apparently it seems that it really has to do with my internet browser after all.
I've changed video drivers several times to no avail.

Today after coming back from work I forgot that I had to try another browser and started Google Chrome as usual. The BSOD after 5 minutes reminded me (lol) I had to use another browser to see if the crashes appear.
This time I didn't run any game to 'solve' the crashes.

I am using Edge, and so far no crashes.

I wonder what could have happened to my Chrome to make it do this...

 

[natr0n]

Chrome is voracious.

 

[Steevo]

It's hardware acceleration causing the issues I bet, run Ghostbuster to remove any old devices and cleanup any codecs, turn off hardware acceleration in Chrome and try again.

 

[Black Panther]

Chrome is voracious.

True but I've been using it for years now and never gave me any problems. I'll try removing it and re-installing it to see whether the crashes happen again.

Also, I'm pretty sure Fallout 4 is more voracious, cpu, gpu and memory-wise than chrome...

The most curious thing is, if Chrome is the culprit, why doesn't it crash if I play Fallout 4 before? Lol makes no sense to me...

And btw as I'm typing this I've got 8 tabs open on Edge, 2 of them youtube.

 

[DRDNA]

what version of Chrome? It might be related to flash or maybe even Java as I believe Edge doesn't use either.

EDDIT also these errors can be caused by a driver issue conflicting the memory. Try doing this to see if you have a Driver issue >>> https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...behaving/f5cb4faf-556b-4b6d-95b3-c48669e4c983



Just type Verifier in windows search on WIndows 10 and select the CMD (run command) that pops up and it will run Verifier. GL


A good read on it >>> https://social.technet.microsoft.co...tart-due-to-ntoskrnlexe?forum=w8itprosecurity

 

[sneekypeet]

It's hardware acceleration causing the issues I bet

This is a good lead I'm betting. I seem to recall having to disable mine at one point, but it was years ago now and didn't strike me until posted.

 

[Mike0409]

@Black Panther I was getting a TON of these BSOD's over the last few months. I narrowed it down to Windows files and having to verify my windows image and installation files (Windows 10). I was having the SAME issues in Chrome - other browsers were fine (Edge, Mozilla etc..) Also had some issues upon cold boots would launch Chrome to browse and within seconds it would crash. Most notably it happened when my in-laws were over playing Facebook games...in Chrome.

This command helped me tremendously: DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

So far so good over about 4 weeks now. Just updated to the Creator version of Win 10 and still stable.

 

[eidairaman1]

As @Steevo said, hardware accel in webbrowsers can cause this. It is unpredictable at times since that gpus now ramp up and down in clock speeds.

 

[Black Panther]

This command helped me tremendously: DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

Done.

Now I was running a Malwarebytes scan. Is this normal? I mean look at the CPU and RAM usage... (I'm running an i7930 @ 4Ghz and have 12GB RAM)


[IMG]http://img.techpowerup.org/170429/normal.png[/IMG]

 

[DRDNA]

Looks normal to me...but the link above only links to your profile pop up.

 

[Black Panther]

I've finally narrowed it down, it's something with the overclock.

Everything worked fine before I went from 6GB to 12GB RAM.

12GB RAM work fine with CPU at 2.8Ghz rather than 4Ghz.

Now I need to get everything to work. It's sad if I have to go back to 6GB RAM only to enjoy the oc of 4Ghz.

But today was terrible. Crashes every minute. It definitely isn't Chrome because I was using Edge. Powering up my pc now takes minutes whereas it used to take seconds?

After everything loads up I start up task manager and the CPU is 30% occupied.
I have other pc's at work with weaker CPU's and the cpu usage is rarely over 4%?

I ran Malwarebytes, found nothing :/

 

[eidairaman1]

Try the ram at 1333 or 1600 and get back at us. Sounds like the imc was stressed out

 

[Caring1]

Looks normal to me...but the link above only links to your profile pop up.

+1, clicking on the picture brings us to your profile.

 

[Black Panther]

+1, clicking on the picture brings us to your profile.

Nevermind that it was my error, there's supposed to be no link

________________________________________________________________________

Anyway, I have solved the issue for good now, it wasn't my overclock (though I had lost it and couldn't find where I had written all the settings so experimenting didn't help!)

Check this:

What I can't understand so far is why memtest didn't give me any errors when I ran it before I started this thread... And windows memory diagnostics still doesn't find any RAM at fault... lol.

But it's evident.

When I ran the test and took the above screenshot I was running all 3 sticks. Then I tested them one by one and found the culprit, I bought these this February so still under warranty.

What's disappointing is that since my motherboard is triple channel I had bought 4 sticks of RAM (2 sets of 2) to put 3 in my pc and one in the work pc. So I eagerly went to try the 4th one and guess what... I couldn't even get Windows to boot with it, let alone run memtest! It's so unlucky to buy 4 sticks and find 2 of them faulty!

Now temporarily I'm running on 10GB RAM - 2 x 4GB Geils and 1 x 2GB Mushkin. CPU-Z shows I'm in triple channel, and since the Geils are slower than the Mushkin anyway it's not that it'll be much difference.