Random BSODs in Windows 7 64bit
This post is about the frustrating lack of tangible help while trying to determine the cause of random BSODs on my HP Pavilion Elite (HPE-090a). I hope this summary of the myriad "solutions" I waded through can help someone else resolve their issue more quickly.
Late last year, when I bought the machine, it came with some version of Vista loaded. I don't recall how long I ran Vista, or if I did at all. Nevertheless, after upgrading to Windows 7 Pro 64bit (by "upgrading", I mean a fresh install on a clean hard drive), I started getting random BSODs.
This problem was disappointing because I had run the 32-bit version of Windows 7 Beta on a number of machines without a problem.
Figuring the BSODs were simply caused by an out-of-date driver conflict, I updated everything I could. The BIOS was already updated, as I did this as a matter of course soon after acquiring the machine.
Sadly, the BSODs continued.
The errors provided little or nothing as to what was wrong. There were no entries in the Event Log, other than an "unscheduled shutdown", and nothing particularly enlightening in the BSOD itself, just:
*** STOP: 0x0000007f (0x0000000000000008, 0x0000000080050031, 0x00000000000006f8, 0xfffff80002a83609)
Of course, I looked that up (here):
STOP 0x0000007F (UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP)
0x00000008 Double Fault
This means:
A double fault occurs when an exception occurs while trying to call the handler for a prior exception. Normally, the two exceptions can be handled serially, however there are several exceptions that cannot be handled serially and in this situation the processor signals a double fault. The two primary causes for this are hardware and kernel stack overflows. Hardware problems are usually related to CPU, RAM, or bus. Kernel stack overflows are almost always caused by faulty kernel-mode drivers.
Well, that wasn't much help at all. It hinted at a driver problem, but WHAT driver?
The BSODs continued with a frequency of about once a week or so. There was no pattern to them. I could be doing anything; browsing the net, checking email, writing a Word document, or the system could be simply sitting idle.
Now, having considerable experience in IT, I was determined to rectify this problem myself. I performed all the usual problem mitigating tasks - this included RAM tests, physical checks of all the hardware to ensure cards and components were seated correctly and reloading of certain drivers. Nothing seemed to work.
Searching the net with phrases such as "BSOD win 7 x64" confirmed that I was not alone (some 340,000 hits). Windows 7 x64 seemed to be crashing a lot. Most of the forums had superficial "solutions" and were mostly suggestions to do what I had already done, or worse, reload the HP bloatware version of Vista!
After a lot of frustration, I found a few posts that suggested my video card (nVidia GTX 260 1.8Gb DDR3) may be the source of the problem. Following that thread uncovered a lot of useless fixes. They included:
- Remove the nVidia Stereoscopic 3D driver component - USELESS.
- Reload older nVidia drivers - USELESS.
- Edit the Registry and adding a TprLevel DWORD entry - USELESS.
- Even, upgrade the PSU. Apparently the GTX 260 requires 38Amps to run - NOT TESTED but seemed tangible.
Sadly, by this time, the crashes were becoming more frequent, yet still completely random. Sometimes the machine would boot and crash before I even started doing anything. This made me think that the problem was a deteriorating PSU. There were a lot of posts (over 17,000) about this "problem".
Because I had to be sure, I attempted all the "Safe Mode" driver uninstalls. Cleared out the Registry and tried some of the third-party utilities to ensure there were no video driver conflicts. NOTHING fixed the issue.
Frustrated, I contacted HP support to see if they were aware of any issues and hopefully convince them to replace the PSU under warranty. Predictably, I received useless "canned" responses. My post on the HP forum also provide me with very little (although, I do thank those that took the time to reply).
In desperation, I decided to blow the machine away completely and try again with a fresh install of Windows 7 Pro x64. Once this was done, I ran all the updates and installed some of my preferred third-party utilities and apps. My list of "Essentials" includes (but, is not limited to) such products as: CCleaner, Firefox, Thunderbird, ZoneAlarm Security Suite (NOT Extreme Security, that's just TOO damn invasive) and the brilliant Directory Opus.
The BSODs persisted.
One thing I noticed during all my testing was that the machine NEVER once crashed in Safe Mode, nor did it crash when there were only generic VGA drivers loaded. This made me wonder about the PSU theory. Maybe it was a combination of driver and an under-spec power source as some posts suggested.
Yet another fresh install of Windows 7. This time I just let Windows do its updates and then left the machine to run without ANY utilities for a few days. No BSODs. I imaged the machine (with Acronis True Image) and started to install my utilities and apps - one at a time. I left the machine to run for up to a day before creating another image and installing the next app. This was so I could roll back, if need be.
Anyway, during this process, I did not get ONE BSOD... at least until I loaded ZoneAlarm!
Checking this discovery out on the net confirmed ZoneAlarm as a major problem. There were thousands of references to ZoneAlarm on Windows 7 x64 causing BSODs. Among them, there was one interesting solution; disable NetBIOS over TCP/IP (see image).
I didn't try the NetBIOS "fix" because I have my own fix; don't let ZoneAlarm anywhere near my machine! As far as I'm concerned, Zone Labs have had enough time to sort out such an important issue. OH, and yes, my version of ZA was up-to-date.
Just to confirm, there have been NO CRASHES since I rolled my machine back to a state that NEVER had ZoneAlarm on it. Therefore, I will NEVER bother to reinstall it.
To be fair, I have come to the conclusion that the issue is not JUST ZoneAlarm. I feel that it is a combination of the nVidia drivers, the GTX 260 video card, Windows 7 x64 AND ZoneAlarm. The reason? Well, I have a three-PC licence for ZA and have it installed on my HP Pavilion dv7 laptop (Win 7 x64 with an ATI Radeon HD4500) and on my daughter's HP Pavilion p6180a (Win7 x64 with a nVidia GT 120). Neither of which are causing me any BSOD problems!
As stated above, I hope this post has brought together ALL the relevant issues associated with a VERY frustrating problem, or, at the very least, helped direct someone in the right direction to solving their particular problem!