MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION BSOD hal.dll - not sure if driver or HW issue

Hello everyone,

I have been having crashes and BSODs with MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION for quite som time now. I tried formatting system disk and reinstalling Windows 10 Home, updated drivers I could find newest version of, didn't updated BIOS (but looks I have last version, last time I checked - the motherboard is a bit older: ASUS Z87-A).

I started to have this issue after I have been using external sound card (audio interface is Novation Audiohub 2x4) and installed ASIO4ALL drivers to be compatible with other HW I have been using. This could be unrelated however.

Regarding HW, I cleaned PC as much as I could, reseted cmos, reapplied thermal paste on CPU...

In following link I'm sending the file with minidumps etc for debugging: WeTransfer

The PC had BSOD on startup, during normal using (yesterday I have been able to use it for several hours before first crash, but after that the crashes has been more frequent and occurred on startup again), it BSOD even after I unplugged GPU (wanted to test if it's GPU related - driver or HW), it didn't crashed in safe mode as far as I can remember.

Any help / advise is much appreciated.

Thank you for the advise.

I did clean the drivers and install the latest one in safe mode. I chose option to uninstall drivers and restart PC (recommended) and started to download latest nvidia driver (restart was to normal mode, so it crashed), restarted again to safe mode and downloaded and installed nvidia driver only (didn't have option to install physX, only display driver and audio driver). After installation was complete I manually restarted the PC and tried to test the system in normal mode. After a minute or so it froze and BSOD was back, PC tried to boot about 10 times and finally I was able to boot in safe mode, to make dump folder ( WeTransfer )

The system even froze in safe mode as I was trying to write here from the broken PC.

Please use one of these share links: one drive, drop box, google drive, or amazon.
These are advertisement free, no agreements have to be accepted before viewing, and there is no risk to accidentally click on something that downloads potentially unwanted files.

Sorry, I tough WeTransfer is OK.
Here is Goggle Drive link: PIP-(2019-09-13_08-15-05).zip - Google Drive

Thank you.

1-11) I did this in safe mode with networking.

Code:

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.18362.239]
(c) 2019 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\Pip>sfc/scannow

Beginning system scan.  This process will take some time.

Beginning verification phase of system scan.
Verification 100% complete.

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

C:\Users\Pip>dism /online /cleanup-image /scanhealth

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.18362.1

Image Version: 10.0.18362.239

[==========================100.0%==========================] The component store is repairable.
The operation completed successfully.

C:\Users\Pip>dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.18362.1

Image Version: 10.0.18362.239

[==========================100.0%==========================]
Error: 0x800f081f

The source files could not be found.
Use the "Source" option to specify the location of the files that are required to restore the feature. For more information on specifying a source location, see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=243077.

The DISM log file can be found at C:\WINDOWS\Logs\DISM\dism.log

C:\Users\Pip>sfc /scannow

Beginning system scan.  This process will take some time.

Beginning verification phase of system scan.
Verification 100% complete.

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

C:\Users\Pip>chkdsk /scan
The type of the file system is NTFS.
This service cannot be started in Safe Mode

A snapshot error occured while scanning this drive. Run an offline scan and fix.

C:\Users\Pip>wmic recoveros set autoreboot = false
Updating property(s) of '\\PIP\ROOT\CIMV2:Win32_OSRecoveryConfiguration.Name="Microsoft Windows 10 Home|C:\\WINDOWS|\\Device\\Harddisk0\\Partition2"'
Property(s) update successful.

C:\Users\Pip>wmic recoveros set DebugInfoType = 7
Updating property(s) of '\\PIP\ROOT\CIMV2:Win32_OSRecoveryConfiguration.Name="Microsoft Windows 10 Home|C:\\WINDOWS|\\Device\\Harddisk0\\Partition2"'
Property(s) update successful.

C:\Users\Pip> wmic computersystem get bootupstate
BootupState
Fail-safe with network boot


C:\Users\Pip>bcdedit /enum {badmemory}

RAM Defects
-----------
identifier              {badmemory}

C:\Users\Pip>

12) Never overclocked on this machine

13) I put it to safe mode from Windows logins screen -> Shift+Left click on restart and restart, then F5 safe mode with networking
14) In safe mode there was no BSOD, but system froze (maybe I didn't wait long enough), so I manually hard reset the PC
15-16) While PC is turned off for a longer time, it indicates CPU fan error, tells me to press F1 to go to BIOS, after that I restart PC and this error no longer shows, the systems boots "normally". I don't have any HW available to test unfortunately.
17) turned it off, after I went to control panel in Safe Mode to check if it's off, it no longer offers this option:
Attachment 247252

Many thanks!

Place the computer in safe mode with networking.

Boot into Safe Mode on Windows 10

Plan to maintain this setting as long as possible for testing purposes.
Ideally testing can be done for a week.

For any BSOD:

a) run the V2 log collector to collect new log files

b) open file explorer> this PC > C: > in the right upper corner search for: C:\Windows\memory.dmp
> if the file size is < 1.5 GB then zip > post a separate share link into the thread using one drive, drop box, or google drive