BSOD 20 to 30 minutes after startup

Hello, all, my computer, an Alienware Area-51 v2, started having Intermittent BSOD in August. It was usually once or twice a week and at the time I wasn’t in a position to take time to diagnose what was causing them, so I stupidly just let them go and worked around them.

Then this past Friday the BSOD went from being Intermittent to happening consistently about 20-30 minutes after starting the computer. Every bluescreen has said: Stop code: REFERENCE_BY_POINTER

I’ve gone through a lot of suggested tests to try and figure out what the cause is and while I think I have narrowed it down to Nvidia Drivers, I have not been able to get anywhere past that. The memory dump files show ntoskrnl.exe as the cause, not seeing anything else, but also not sure what to look for.

Here is my V2 log: Microsoft OneDrive - Access files anywhere. Create docs with free Office Online.

So here is what has been done so far. My apologies that this long, just trying to be thorough.

After the bluescreens started happening consistently about 20-25 minutes after starting the computer, I went into safe mode and that did stop the bluescreens from happening.

Then I disconnected every USB device from my computer with the exception of mouse and keyboard and went though each to see if it stopped the bluescreens. They did not did not.

Uninstalled Virus software Bitdefender. still bluescreens

Ran SFC, DISM, Chkdsk and smart tools on the boot drive. SFC did say it was doing some repairs but the rest said everything was fine and did not stop the bluescreens.

Ran Memtest 86 overnight until finished and no errors.

Tried to do an In Place Repair Upgrade to see if that would fix anything, but bluescreened before it could finish.

Set up Driver Verifier to run, but after restart, it would hang on the Alienware splash-screen before login. Had to force recovery and boot into safe mode and then turn off Driver Verfier. Memory dumps were not created for that. Tried again and still had the same issue.

Completely removed Logitech Gaming Software, did not stop bluescreen.

Went through and deleted a bunch of old drivers and used Display Driver Uninstaller to remove Nvidia Drivers. This stopped the bluescreens. The Graphics card is a GTX980-Ti

I then ran the In Place Upgrade for Windows 10 which succeeded this time.

Then I installed the newest Nvidia software, 496.13. Restarted and 20 min later bluescreens again.

Used DDU to completely uninstall Nvidia again and then installed older version Nvidia software 466.47. Restarted and 20 min later bluescreens again.

Used DDU to completely uninstall Nvidia again and then installed even older version Nvidia software 442.74 Restarted and 20 min later bluescreen.

I’m sure I missed something and I’m not sure what else to do at this point. Im about at my wits end. I’m trying to avoid a clean install as it will take me forever to get back to the way it was. But will if I need too. The only time I can stop the bluescreens is when I uninstall all the Nvidia drivers. Could it be the Nvidia card itself? Is there some way I can test the card to see if it’s faulty?

I use this computer for work as well and I need to get it working soon.

Thanks in advance for the help!

Hi, Welcome to TenForums.

Reading your post. You know what you're doing and doing it right. Take the time to fill your system spec thoroughly. As it's the fastest and main point of reference for The community to be able to quickly put their knowledge advisedly.

As without this knowledge... The first question will be...

Desktop or Laptop ?

Thank you, I wish I felt like I knew what I was doing hehe. I’ve just been trying to do as much research as I could before I asked for help.

And thank you for pointing out the system specs, I totally missed the system spec notice and I’ve now added all the information I have in my profile . Let me know if there is anything else I can add to help.

Hello Bish and welcome to TF ,
Nice detailed write-up.

I've never had the opportunity to try this since finding out about it, but might be worth a shot for you:
Resplendence Software - WhoCrashed, automatic crash dump analyzer

Make a full backup with Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect

Then if you want to test a clean install to see if the problem still exists, you can restore your Macrium Reflect backup image when you are done testing.

Or if you have an extra drive, disconnect your current working boot drive and clean install to you extra drive for testing.

Hi Bish,

I've been seeing quite a few of these recently involving Dell systems. The fix has been to completely uninstall Dell Support Assist and make sure the driver dddriver64dcsa.sys is no longer getting loaded. Please have a look at this thread starting with my initial reply to see what is likely involved.

Thanks! I followed the suggestions and deleted Dell support assist using Revo, however I see the dddriver64dcsa.sys is still in the System32/Drivers folder. Wont let me delete or rename it, Is there something else I can do to get rid of it?

Waiting to see if I bluescreen again.

Thanks!

If you've tried everything that was suggested in the thread I linked (uninstalling all Dell utilities, using Autoruns) and are still unable to rename or delete the driver then the only other thing I can think to try would be booting into safe mode, renaming the driver to dddriver64dcsa.bak, rebooting, and then seeing if the driver is still loading.

cwsink said:

If you've tried everything that was suggested in the thread I linked (uninstalling all Dell utilities, using Autoruns) and are still unable to rename or delete the driver then the only other thing I can think to try would be booting into safe mode, renaming the driver to dddriver64dcsa.bak, rebooting, and then seeing if the driver is still loading.

Thank you again cwsink, removing the Dell Support Assist did the trick, I don't think I would have figured that out on my own. In the end I didn't have to do anything with dddriver64dcsa.sys. My computer has not crashed since removing the program.

I was actually able to work today, and I just wish I had posted here earlier this week hehe. You all have been great!

Very nice Machine BTW