Frequent BSODs while playing ESO

Brucas · April 2014

Hello!

I've been having problems with the PC crashing while playing ESO this last couple weeks. My initial response was to contact the people I got the computer from, assuming that it was a hardware or driver issue (the crashes started happening after I'd updated my graphics card driver on Saturday). The solution (unplugging certain components, starting the computer without them, plugging them back in) solved the issue temporarily, letting me play the game again last night, but today the BSOD returned. I want to explore all options, and seeing as how I've only seen this issue with ESO I'm posting here.

Processor's an Intel Core i7-4770 with 4x3.4Ghz
Graphics card's an ASUS GeForce GTX 760 2GB
Power supply is a Corsair CX 750W PSU (it doesn't seem to be a power issue)
Two Kingston DDR3 8GB RAM drives (unplugging these, restarting with one at a time before replugging both, was what seemed to solve the is

Enclosed are copies of the WhoCrashed's analysises of the dumpfiles:

On Thu 17.04.2014 20:48:12 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\windows\Minidump\041714-23953-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: fltmgr.sys (fltmgr+0x9D22)
Bugcheck code: 0x1E (0xFFFFFFFFC0000005, 0xFFFFF80000809D22, 0x0, 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF)
Error: KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
file path: C:\windows\system32\drivers\fltmgr.sys
product: Operativsystemet Microsoft® Windows®
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: Filterbehandling for Microsoft filsystem
Bug check description: This indicates that a kernel-mode program generated an exception which the error handler did not catch.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time.

On Thu 17.04.2014 20:48:12 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\windows\memory.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: fltmgr.sys (fltmgr!FltAllocateContext+0x62)
Bugcheck code: 0x1E (0xFFFFFFFFC0000005, 0xFFFFF80000809D22, 0x0, 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF)
Error: KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
file path: C:\windows\system32\drivers\fltmgr.sys
product: Operativsystemet Microsoft® Windows®
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: Filterbehandling for Microsoft filsystem
Bug check description: This indicates that a kernel-mode program generated an exception which the error handler did not catch.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time.

On Thu 17.04.2014 19:43:53 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\windows\Minidump\041714-15187-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x14DCA0)
Bugcheck code: 0xC000021A (0xFFFFC00002C14CD0, 0xFFFFFFFFC0000428, 0x0, 0xF833180768)
Error: STATUS_SYSTEM_PROCESS_TERMINATED
file path: C:\windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This means that an error has occurred in a crucial user-mode subsystem.
There is a possibility this problem was caused by a virus or other malware.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be identified at this time.

On Sun 13.04.2014 14:36:08 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\windows\Minidump\041314-18312-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: Unknown ()
Bugcheck code: 0x0 (0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0)
Error: CUSTOM_ERROR
A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error.
Google query: CUSTOM_ERROR

On Sun 13.04.2014 13:45:15 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\windows\Minidump\041314-18359-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x14DCA0)
Bugcheck code: 0x3B (0xC0000005, 0xFFFFF801EA72EFF1, 0xFFFFD0002636F9A0, 0x0)
Error: SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION
file path: C:\windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This indicates that an exception happened while executing a routine that transitions from non-privileged code to privileged code.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be identified at this time.

On Sun 13.04.2014 12:23:07 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\windows\Minidump\041314-23343-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: dxgmms1.sys (0xFFFFF8000167ECB0)
Bugcheck code: 0x50 (0xFFFFE0000B346F80, 0x0, 0xFFFFF8000167ECB0, 0x2)
Error: PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
file path: C:\windows\system32\drivers\dxgmms1.sys
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: DirectX Graphics MMS
Bug check description: This indicates that invalid system memory has been referenced.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time.

On Sun 13.04.2014 03:08:48 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\windows\Minidump\041314-31656-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: watchdog.sys (watchdog+0x39CA)
Bugcheck code: 0x10E (0x1F, 0xFFFFC00004D59010, 0x0, 0x2910B)
Error: VIDEO_MEMORY_MANAGEMENT_INTERNAL
file path: C:\windows\system32\drivers\watchdog.sys
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: Watchdog Driver
Bug check description: This indicates that the video memory manager has encountered a condition that it is unable to recover from.
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system that cannot be identified at this time.

On Sun 13.04.2014 02:57:22 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\windows\Minidump\041314-39703-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x14DCA0)
Bugcheck code: 0xBE (0xFFFFC000003FA1B8, 0xDF600002A7D0B101, 0xFFFFD0002A21DDB0, 0xB)
Error: ATTEMPTED_WRITE_TO_READONLY_MEMORY
file path: C:\windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This is issued if a driver attempts to write to a read-only memory segment.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be identified at this time.

Saerydoth · April 2014

By any chance do you use ESET antivirus? I looked up the fltmgr.sys and some indications were that causes it.

This definitely seems to be being caused by software on your machine not related to ESO (security software most likely). Basically, something is messing around with memory that it shouldn't. And it has to be a kernel mode process, indicated by the BSOD. ESO doesn't run in kernel mode, only drivers (and sometimes security software) do.

Brucas · April 2014

Sadly, no, I've been using the security package that comes integrated with Windows 8.1

Saerydoth · April 2014

All the crashes have been caused by something running in kernel mode. Check and make sure ALL your drivers are updated (not just video drivers, but also things like chipset drivers), drivers for USB devices, etc.

Beldorr · April 2014

Have you tried a Ram memory test? I had a stick troll me not to long ago. It didn't stop working, i just started storing data wrong in the first 128 ish modules that was incorrect. This would then throw blue screens with random messages each time.

I used memtest86 and tested each stick individually.

Saerydoth · April 2014

Beldorrub17_ESO wrote: »

Have you tried a Ram memory test? I had a stick troll me not to long ago. It didn't stop working, i just started storing data wrong in the first 128 ish modules that was incorrect. This would then throw blue screens with random messages each time.

I used memtest86 and tested each stick individually.

Memtest86 is not a very good memory test tool. I had 2 bad RAM sticks from my last build that it didn't detect. Prime95 is what finally detected them.

That said...BSOD's from bad RAM give different errors than what he's getting. Bad RAM tends to give memory_management type errors. Although the page_fault_in_non_paged_area BSOD COULD indicate a RAM issue.

I think this is DEFINITELY a bad driver, but I'm not sure which device. Windows drivers tend to all run in kernel mode and interact with each other, so it could be anything (even a sound card driver). DirectX is also in there (one of the BSOD's is a crash in DirectX itself). There is a remote possibility that it could be RAM, I would run a Prime95 test to be sure. But it is far more likely to be a driver.

Brucas · April 2014

I've checked graphics, sound, DirectX, and everything for external hardware like mice and keyboard. All those should be up to date but I'll plug the computer back in and give the drivers another check-up in the morning and make sure I get to them all. Only problem is, after the last BSOD during ESO, I started getting them outside of Windows, as well, at which point I dug my old rig back up in order to be able to play while I waited for tech support to get back to me. In any case, I'll boot it back up tomorrow and post back here with the results. In the mean time, thank you both for your input.

(Hmm, I just noticed I posted an incomplete version of the draft I'd saved earlier today.)

Saerydoth · April 2014

Grab Prime95 and do a test: http://www.mersenne.org/download/index.php

You'll need to customize some settings to test RAM. You want to set min/max FFT to be fairly high numbers (2048-4096). And set it to use 75% of your available RAM (don't go any higher than that or you'll hit swap and not actually test anything). Use the settings in the screenshot to stress test RAM. Change "number of torture threads to run" based on your CPU. i3, change it to 2. i5, change it to 4. i7, leave it at 8.

If you have a RAM issue, this will find it MUCH more reliably than memtest86. It found my RAM problem that memtest86 didn't find in 12 hours, in less than 15 seconds.

Brucas · April 2014

Running Prime95 on your settings lead to a computer crash:

On Sat 19.04.2014 16:41:15 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\windows\Minidump\041914-24562-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x14DCA0)
Bugcheck code: 0xD1 (0xFFFFD8022B91990E, 0x2, 0x8, 0xFFFFD8022B91990E)
Error: DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
file path: C:\windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This indicates that a kernel-mode driver attempted to access pageable memory at a process IRQL that was too high.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be identified at this time.

In case it's relevant, Prime95's stress test returns these results. With the settings in your image, the computer crashed after writing down the results of two of these threads; running the default 'Blend' setting did not result in a crash but returned the same results for each thread.

"FATAL ERROR: Rounding was 0.5, expected less than 0.4
Hardware failure detected, consult stress.txt file."

I opened the Device Manager, connected the PC to the internet and started searching for driver updates for each component; everything seems to be up to date, so I'm having a look at drivers for my hardware manually now at the time of writing. I'm also installing the two updates in Windows Update there seems to have been in the two days this computer's been offline.

If it's a driver issue, I'm going to make an uneducated guess and say it's the graphics driver; these crashes only started happening after GeForce Experience installed the 335.23 driver. I'm going to try downgrading to an earlier version (ESO and my system ran without a hitch with the 334.89 version), do another RAM test, and see if the problem persists.