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Repeated computer bluescreens.

A client's computer has been blue-screening recently, once or twice a week. The computer had a USB male to VGA female adapter, which we thought might have had some impact, but shortly after replacing the video card and drivers, the computer blue screened again. We tried reinstalling all drivers for all component's from Dell's website, but we were still getting blue screens. We even replaced the memory with no change, as well as the antivirus software. Perhaps more baffling is that the minidumps seem to point to components of the OS, specifically ntoskrnl.exe and ntfs.sys. Other dumps point to random drivers. Very hard to get a handle on the exact cause here.

The system in question is a mid 2012 Dell Optiplex with:
4GB DDR3 1600 memory
Core i5-3470 @ 3.2GHz
Nvidia GeForce 210 Graphics card

Attached are the last five dump files.
070215-15350-01.dmp
072415-33228-01.dmp
072815-30810-01.dmp
061715-14430-01.dmp

Scott C

Last Known Good won't be useful here, but have you tried rolling back to a save point before the issue started?

Also have you tried booting into Safe Mode?

If that doesn't work try a non-destructive reinstall of Windows.

https://www.winhelp.us/non-destructive-reinstall-of-windows-7.html

Here are some troubleshooting steps to try before starting a non-destructive reinstall of Windows 7:
•Last Known Good Configuration often solves booting and stability problems after installing software, drivers, or messing with Registry entries.
•Always boot to Safe Mode at least once - this often repairs corrupted file system and essential system files.
•If Windows starts and runs properly only in Safe Mode, turn on Clean Boot mode to see if some non-Microsoft software or driver is causing the problems.
•If Windows is able to boot, use System File Checker and icacls.exe to repair corrupted system files.
•While Windows is running, use free WhoCrashed for determining BSOD (Blue Screen Of Death) causes.
Also, Reliability Monitor might reveal faulty drivers or software.
•System Restore can help reverting back to a state when your computer was running normally.
•Repair your computer is useful for fixing startup problems and file system errors, and testing memory modules for defects.

If these suggestions don't provide relief, I'd back up the user's data and flatten the workstation and do a clean re-install.

Matt W.

ASKER

The computer boots up just fine. The BSOD only happens at random every few days.

Scott C

Yes and most of the suggestions above will work as you have a booting machine.

If the machine was not able to boot, I'd advise going straight to a wipe and re-install.

Matt W.

ASKER

ScottCha, I'll definitely try your suggestions. I was only mentioning that it wasn't prohibiting the machine from booting.

Thanks for your comment, I will update as soon as I try some of these suggestions.

Scott C

No worries. Just wanted to make sure we are on the same page.

nobus

things to try :
-clean boot :- run msconfig - select startup tab, and click disable all
reboot to test
-look in event viewer for errors
-install speedfan and monitor the temperatures : http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

Frank Helk

Hmm ... I sometimes have such random BSODs when hardware fails. Especially half-dead power supplies and/or half-blownup electrolytic capacitors coud produce sikes on the computer's internal power grid ... and the results of such interruptions could be very strange, indeed.

So please check the capacitors on the mainboard for signs of internal pressure, like arched tops, and replace the power supply unit. The half-blownup capacitors could be replaced ... use replacements with same capacity but one size higher in voltage (they're usually designed "on the edge").

Qlemo

The minidumps do not put a finger on the culprit, your BSODs are all kind of hardware/driver failures (KMode Not Handled, IRQL not less or equal, and similar), without naming the driver.

The current nVidia drivers are known to cause freezing, BSODs and other failures, though the dumps generated are clear to that regard. But it is something easy to check. Anything up to 350.12 is fine.

nobus

i would suspect hardware here
you can run ram and disk diags, but if the problem arises only once or twice a week, it is far from sure if you'll find anything - but always better than do nothing, and it's a good start
the best way is to swap parts and devices- and keep a list of what you swapped :
Ram, disk, Power supply

you can also test the voltages : +5, +12 +3.3V on the 20- or 24 pin plug
http://pinouts.ru/Power/atxpower_pinout.shtml

as for diags, i use the UBCD a lot :
Hardware diagnostic CD UBCD

go to the download page, scroll down to the mirror section, and click on a mirror to start the download
Download the UBCD and make the cd <<==on a WORKING PC, and boot the problem PC from it
Here 2 links, one to the general site, and a direct link to the download

since the downloaded file is an ISO file, eg ubcd527.iso - so you need to use an ISO burning tool
if you don't have that software, install cdburnerXP : http://cdburnerxp.se/

If you want also the Ram tested - run memtest86+ at least 1 full pass, - you should have NO errors!

For disk Diagnostics run the disk diag for your disk brand (eg seagate diag for seagate drive) from the HDD section - long or advanced diag ! (runs at least for30 minutes)

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ ultimate boot cd
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html download page

** you can make a bootable cd - or bootable usb stick

for completeness -here's how i handle disk problems : https://www.experts-exchange.com/Storage/Hard_Drives/A_3000-The-bad-hard-disk-problem.html

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Matt W.

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Matt W.

ASKER

I've requested that this question be closed as follows:

Accepted answer: 500 points for frankhelk's comment #a40903742
Assisted answer: 0 points for Matt W.'s comment #a40940404

for the following reason:

Finally found the real cause. USB to vga graphics adapter software.

Matt W.

ASKER

Through vast amounts of trial and error we've eliminated the bsods on this machine. We replaced RAM, Video adapter, etc without success, but when replacing the video adapter we did not remove the previous usb to vga adapter software that was being used to host a second monitor on this machine. One of the last things we did was to remove that software and we've not had an issue since(about 3 weeks) knock on wood.