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Random BSOD, suspect a hardware problem
Firstly, thanks in advance for any advice or help...
I've had my system since 2011. Run windows 7 Ultimate the entire time until recently. Now windows 10 Pro.
Some basic system info...
i7-2600K (no overclocking)
Asus P8Z68-V (latest BIOS)
...using built-in HD3000 graphics of the processor
16GB Kingston Hyper Fury 1600
Samsung Evo 850 Boot drive
Never had a days problem with the system until a few months ago...
Then the following symptoms started happening:
BSODs i have seen "PAGE FAULT IN NON-PAGE AREA" and "MEMORY MANAGEMENT" and "IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL" and the ""DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION" one, as well as a couple others (ie. "KERNEL_SECURITY_CHECK_FAILURE"). Most often it is the "MEMORY MANAGEMENT" one.
These BSOD's most commonly follow my web browser doing weird stuff like abruptly closing out, adBlock crashing, or frequent "aw snap" and the error message that follows the "aw snap" error message when an immediate refresh of the page does not work. Sometimes it requires refreshing the page multiple times to actually get that tab to reload the page successfully. Other times, the BSODs come out of nowhere using any program or even just sitting IDLE doing nothing. Many hours can go by without a BSOD, and then sometimes I might get a couple almost seemingly back to back.
The problem also, "seems" to be more frequent on hot humid days. Not to throw anyone off track.
So yes, after any of those browsing issues mentioned I will typically experience a BSOD sometime in the near future.
In any case, at the time I was NOT thinking it was hardware, I did some of the basic things... removing external USB devices, double checking that nothing seemed off in device manager, drivers were current, etc. Nothing seemed to help and although my system was still probably pretty clean after all the years as I don't install tons of things and only what I need or use and just sandbox something I want to try out or play with in a virtual machine I figured I would try and be more drastic in troubleshooting as it might be time for a fresh install anyway. I basically uninstalled just about everything(software from the add remove programs) one at a time from the system and tried it but nothing made a difference. Uninstalled and reinstalled a bunch of drivers. Did not help. Most of it was all out of curiosity as I guessed it was something messed up with the system setup.
At that point I got tired of it and decided to just do a fresh install, so took the opportunity to update to win 10.
Did that, install went fine. started having the same symptoms in Win10 as in Win7. Started thinking this is a hardware problem. Became more frequent after installing Chrome just like in Win7 as well. Oh and just so people do not think this is a Chrome problem, back in Win 7, I ran incognito, also removed all extensions, etc, cleared out all cookies, cache, etc and then even just uninstalled it and reinstalled it. Did the same thing in Win 10 as well. No I did not try other browsers as it happens when idle or using other programs as well.
Then I think I got on a red herring as well, as some people on the internet were saying the built in HD3000 was not supported on Win10 but those posts were older so maybe that was the case initially? It is true there are no official Intel drivers for it but Microsoft identifies it properly and installs a named driver for it in device manager. It does appear to be a Windows 8 driver but again this exact issue happened in Win 7 with native HD3000 drivers so I am just not thinking that is it.
I downloaded an Intel CPU diagnostic utility from Intel and ran that about 4 or 5 times and every time the processor passed.
I have seen memtest86+ mentioned a bunch on these forums and I am not sure if there is something specific about that particular one that is better or not but I have run memtest86 v7.5 or whatever the latest is for 4 passes and then 10 passes and my memory passed. Still not satisfied I ran the Win10 memory test a couple of times and it passed each time but did not notice there was and extended test. I ran the extended test once for 10 passes, it took FOREVER, but also passed. Still, I can't help but think it's a bad memory stick, especially since I was able to find a post on Tom's hardware where someone literally had the exact same symptoms as mine and it ended up being a bad stick of memory. Luckily for him though one of the memory tests eventually failed for him and it became obvious what the problem was.
Also, for additional information, I have run the system in both safemode, and in a clean boot and neither has made any difference as the problem/symptoms still randomly happen.
The thing I have NOT done yet is pull the RAM, and run the system with one stick as a time. It's a (4x4) instead or a (2x8). More of a pain. Before I do that, I was wondering if you all think I am chasing my tail and it is probably something else(motherboard maybe?) or think that is the next logical step?
Thanks again.
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