Did you try replacing the battery on the motherboard?

No, the motherboard is less than a year old. All other settings including time and date remain intact.

Keep on BOINCing...! :)

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Greetings,

I do believe I have this BSoD thing figured out. :)

Before I rebuilt this PC I was having problems with the optical drive. It would work, then not, then it would, then not. I thought it was because I had it on the same SATA block as my 2 HDDs. I switched it to another SATA block which was powered by a different driver. I went from Intel to Marvel. That seemed to work better, but there were still issues of Windows not seeing the drive now and then.

So, after the rebuild, the new motherboard only has one SATA block powered by an Intel driver. I never once thought about the optical drive until yesterday.

Saturday night, 3/26, I had another BSoD. Yesterday I went to check drivers on a DVD and Windows didn't see the drive. I swapped the cable for it with a different one that runs to an expansion card. Windows then saw the drive. Last night there was another BSoD. I ran Memtest86 all night which of course found no problems... again. I booted into Windows and checked to see if Windows could see the optical drive... and it cannot.

So, unless someone has any ideas why this is happening, it looks like I'm in the market for a new optical drive. The DVD that came with the drive has something on it pertaining to a firmware update. BUT! If I cannot trust the drive to work properly, what's to say that if I get it seen by Windows again and try the update, that it won't crap out in the middle and really screw me up? Besides, there is something wrong mechanical wise when trying to open the tray. It clunks a few times and quits trying to open. Try it again and sometimes it'll open then, sometimes it will require a third try. I believe I should just get a new drive.

Any thoughts? :)

Keep on BOINCing...! :)

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

My opinion? Unless there is something really special about that optical drive, I'd just replace it. Last time I bought one at Microcenter late last year, they were like $20 for a bulk (non-retail boxed) LG DVD writer. It would be a cheap test, and possibly eliminate your issue. Be sure to install a new SATA cable (you should grab one when you get the new drive while you're shopping if it doesn't come with one) just for good measure. That's what I would do in your position, as it isn't an expensive or time consuming job.

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Or for not much more money, you can get an external USB optical drive, and only connect it up (to any computer) when you need to use it. Then it certainly won't be causing problems the rest of the time.

Greetings,

@ Al: Yeah, that's pretty much the way I'm leaning. I do have several new SATA cables so I won't have to get a new one. :)

@ Richard: That's a really good idea. I will definitely look into that as a viable option. :)

Thank you both for your ideas. :)

Keep on BOINCing...! :)

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Greetings,

Uptime: 35 days and 6 - 10 hours
Event.: BSoD

I just got a USB mobile DVD writer yesterday and connected it to the PC. Window$ recognized the new drive. I installed the included software. No problem.

Just after 10pm Central last night, BAM! Another BSoD. Upon reboot, the POST told me that a "New CPU was installed" and I needed to go into Setup, which is not the case.

I'm at a loss. Either this motherboard does not like optical drives or there is something else wrong with the board. ASUS diagnostics comes up blank. CPU diagnostics comes up blank. SFC comes up blank. DLGDIAG for the HDD comes up blank. Virus scan comes up blank. MalwareBytes comes up blank. MalwareBytes rootkit scan comes up blank. Memtest86 comes up blank. EVERYTHING comes up blank! I can find no abnormalities. :(

Keep on BOINCing... :)

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Has the weather warmed up at all? Possibly heat related?
Do you have a spare power supply that you could try?


EDIT- do you have a hair dryer?
If you're able to remove the power supply from the computer case you can then use the hair dryer to heat up the PSU to see if that has any effect. If no effect, give the PSU a minute or 2 to cool down then try heating the onboard regulators on the motherboard. No effect, give them a chance to cool down & try heating the memory modules. No effect, let the memory modules cool down & try heating the CPU.

---

Grant
Darwin NT

Has the weather warmed up at all? Possibly heat related?
Do you have a spare power supply that you could try?


EDIT- do you have a hair dryer?
If you're able to remove the power supply from the computer case you can then use the hair dryer to heat up the PSU to see if that has any effect. If no effect, give the PSU a minute or 2 to cool down then try heating the onboard regulators on the motherboard. No effect, give them a chance to cool down & try heating the memory modules. No effect, let the memory modules cool down & try heating the CPU.

Greetings Grant,

The weather has been in the low to mid 40s at night and high 40s to low to mid 50s day time. The CPU has been running warmer than with my old liquid cooler. I believe that is due to the pump heat sink not being absolutely flat.

When I first installed it and ran it it was high 60s C low 70s C. I pulled the system to reverse the radiator fan and saw that there was a large section of the center not coming into contact with the heat spreader on the CPU. I cleaned both parts and put a dab of Arctic Silver on and the temps now run from low 60s C to about 71 C.

I researched lapping the heat sink to get it flat but lack some stuff needed to do the job. A piece of granite counter top is ideal for this because it is flat.

I'm thinking about just rebooting the PC every morning just for GP. I don't think we have a hair dryer. Your suggestion seems a bit intense to pull off not to mention time consuming. Not that what I have already done is not time consuming, just that there seems to be a lot of disassembly/assembly testing involved.

There is something else that just came to mind. And this makes me think maybe mother board problem? In the past I have seen a message pop up stating that a USB port has been over powered. I'm thinking this could be board or driver issue. I have not been able to figure out which port is at issue.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions. I'll contemplate them and see about going that route.

Keep on BOINCing...! :)

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Greetings,

Ok, this is weird. I have an "after market" non-Micro$oft solitaire game that I play now and then. I noticed several days ago that the end game animation quit working when I would win. I just won a game and the animation is back. I do not see how this could have a bearing on the BSoD issue.

Here's what I'm gonna do for now: I will allow the PC to run continuously. When the solitaire program stops doing the animation, I will reboot at that time. Unless, I get a BSoD beforehand of course. ;) And I will only plug the DVD writer in when I will be using it. We'll see what transpires. :)

Keep on BOINCing...! :)

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

Greetings,

What to trust?

My ASUS utility is showing my CPU temp about 10 deg C cooler than my RealTemp 3.7 utility. ASUS: 51 to 53C RealTemp: 62 to 65C

Any thoughts? :)

Keep on BOINCing...! :)

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath

i'd run memtest for 6 or more hours to see if there's a bad bit ...ntoskernel errors are usually hardware related but can also caused by rootkits

i doubt the v8 is responsible ...it might have caused the problem to show it's ugly head

to see if there's a driver issue run

sfc /scannow in safe mode and see if it spits out any corrupted files

I'd still point my finger at ram though

EDIT:
Can you upload the contents of c:\windows\minidump somewhere?

another idea would be to disable hdd power down since sometimes hdd's take to long to wake up and can cause a BSOD

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I came down with a bad case of i don't give a crap

Greetings Grant,

The weather has been in the low to mid 40s at night and high 40s to low to mid 50s day time. The CPU has been running warmer than with my old liquid cooler. I believe that is due to the pump heat sink not being absolutely flat.

The problem may (or may not) be the CPU, but it could also be the motherboard voltage regulators. If they start to fail, all sorts of weirdness can result.

What to trust?

My ASUS utility is showing my CPU temp about 10 deg C cooler than my RealTemp 3.7 utility. ASUS: 51 to 53C RealTemp: 62 to 65C

Any thoughts? :)

I use CoreTemp (although I think the current versions come with loads of Crapware).
CPUID HWMonitor gives overall system temperatures, and it's CPU temperature readings match those of Core Temp (at least on my system).

---

Grant
Darwin NT

i'd run memtest for 6 or more hours to see if there's a bad bit ...ntoskernel errors are usually hardware related but can also caused by rootkits

i doubt the v8 is responsible ...it might have caused the problem to show it's ugly head

to see if there's a driver issue run

sfc /scannow in safe mode and see if it spits out any corrupted files

I'd still point my finger at ram though

EDIT:
Can you upload the contents of c:\windows\minidump somewhere?

another idea would be to disable hdd power down since sometimes hdd's take to long to wake up and can cause a BSOD

Greetings Zombu2,

I have run Memtest86 overnight several times since getting this new RAM several months ago and no problems have come up regarding RAM.

My first post yesterday lists everything I have done to figure this out.

The only HDD I have power down is the drive that holds all my data and stuff that I don't want on the system disk. Nothing accesses that drive unless I am doing it. The OS does no access that drive. But, on seeing your suggestion about the minidump ...

050316-19312-01.dmp 5/2/2016 10:09:48 PM KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR 0x0000007a fffff6fc`40009b20 ffffffff`c000000e 00000003`33ce8860 fffff880`01364760 Ntfs.sys
Ntfs.sys+148760 x64 ntoskrnl.exe+74ec0 C:\Windows\Minidump\050316-19312-01.dmp 8 15 7601 396,640 5/3/2016 3:21:39 AM

... I see that the "Caused By Driver" shows Ntfs.sys. That is for the file system and that has not been in any previous minidumps. Wait a minute, I just checked and I did have one show up back in November last year.

After running Memtest86 and getting booted up I ran SFC and it reported nothing was corrupted.

This may sound like a dumb question; I'm just not sure about the format workings of CDs and DVDs. Does ntfs.sys have anything to do with the format of CDs and DVDs? This PC ran for 35 days plus without an optical drive in it. I had my new USB portable DVD writer attached when the BSoD occurred the other night. When I had my internal SATA drive attached, Window$ would lose sight of the drive now and again. This also happen before I rebuilt this PC with a new motherboard and CPU and with the same drive. I would have to futz with the SATA cable to get Window$ to see the drive again; I would move it to a different connector.

Well, I have other things to do now, like mow the lawn. :( I hope this helps to get me pointed to the culprit responsible for these BS0Ds.

Thanks Zombu2! :)

Keep on BOINCing...! :)

---

CAPT Siran d'Vel'nahr - L L & P _\\//
Winders 11 OS? "What a piece of junk!" - L. Skywalker
"Logic is the cement of our civilization with which we ascend from chaos using reason as our guide." - T'Plana-hath