# [SOLVED] Windows 7 random restarts and the odd BSOD



## Henners91 (Nov 6, 2010)

(I have attached my DXDiag)

Hey guys,

My Computer has been restarting randomly and BSOD'ing with the code 00000x124. It ranges from every ten minutes to sometimes every few days; there's no pattern as to what's causing it as it can happen when the computer is totally idle and when it's being stressed.

I think it's a hardware fault as it has done this whilst I've been running Windows off of a disk and in safe mode. The problem also persisted after a total reinstall of Windows. The heatsink for my processor was pretty clogged up with dust and cleaning that out appeared to lessen the problem, though this may be coincidental.

I have run chkdsk, though I am not entirely satisfied that the problem isn't the hard drives.

I left memtest on overnight and it did 17 passes; no faults with my RAM.

I removed my graphics card and sound card and I still had the problem.

I am upgrading my power supply in order to accommodate a GTX470 and after I have done so I may be able to give more info as to whether it could've been a fault with that, but this system has been running flawlessly for 9 months.

Personally I think it's either the motherboard or the hard drives, but I need a more informed opinion as I am quite the nublet when it comes to the hardware side of things.

Any help that can be provided would be appreciated! 

This is the info that was provided for the last error in EventViewer:


ErrorSource 3 
ApicId 3 
MCABank 0 
MciStat 0xf668a00009000135 
MciAddr 0x44084da0 
MciMisc 0x0 
ErrorType 9 
TransactionType 1 
Participation 256 
RequestType 3 
MemorIO 256 
MemHierarchyLvl 1 
Timeout 256 
OperationType 256 
Channel 256 
Length 928 
RawData


----------



## Jonathan_King (Apr 3, 2010)

*Re: Windows 7 random restarts and the odd BSOD*

Hello,

Try running each of the three Prime95 tests for a couple of hours apiece. See here: CPU - Stress Test with Prime95 - Windows 7 Forums

The 0x124 BSOD is typically caused by the CPU, RAM, motherboard, or possibly the PSU. I won't say the hard drive cannot cause one, but I will say it's rare at least. If you're concerned about the hard drive though, feel free to run Seatools: 

SeaTools for Windows | Seagate

It might be one of those "Hey, why not?" diagnostics.


----------



## elesbb (Nov 16, 2010)

*Re: Windows 7 random restarts and the odd BSOD*

ive noticed that the biggest problem for BSOD is old and outdated drivers . so try updateing your drivers go to the manufacturers website and look for the latest drivers . also , make sure your memory and hard drive are SECURELY connected . i also noticed that caused a BSOD on my friends computer , he ended up replacing the HDD connector .


----------



## Henners91 (Nov 6, 2010)

*Re: Windows 7 random restarts and the odd BSOD*

Thanks Jonathan, I'll run the tests tonight.

As for drivers; I have reinstalled and updated from scratch; all are up to date.


----------



## Henners91 (Nov 6, 2010)

*Re: Windows 7 random restarts and the odd BSOD*

Okay I checked the tool out and didn't use it as I think the system will just crash if I leave it running any utility that runs with the OS. Furthermore, apparently it can cause temperature issues and I don't want to leave the PC running unsupervised for 6 hours: is it altogether necessary for me to run the test? Are there alternatives?

I thought it might be useful if I post some of the event viewer logs that concern hardware problems:

```
'Reported by component: Processor Core
Error Source: Machine Check Exception
Error Type: Cache Hierarchy Error
Processor ID: 5

The details view of this entry contains further information.


- System 

  - Provider 

   [ Name]  Microsoft-Windows-WHEA-Logger 
   [ Guid]  {C26C4F3C-3F66-4E99-8F8A-39405CFED220} 
 
   EventID 18 
 
   Version 0 
 
   Level 2 
 
   Task 0 
 
   Opcode 0 
 
   Keywords 0x8000000000000000 
 
  - TimeCreated 

   [ SystemTime]  2011-09-08T13:17:38.425829400Z 
 
   EventRecordID 13503 
 
  - Correlation 

   [ ActivityID]  {184DA2BD-17CB-4E59-8DF6-68E2338946C9} 
 
  - Execution 

   [ ProcessID]  1588 
   [ ThreadID]  2096 
 
   Channel System 
 
   Computer HenryMain 
 
  - Security 

   [ UserID]  S-1-5-19 
 

- EventData 

  ErrorSource 3 
  ApicId 5 
  MCABank 0 
  MciStat 0xf66b400064000135 
  MciAddr 0x7e066ce0 
  MciMisc 0x0 
  ErrorType 9 
  TransactionType 1 
  Participation 256 
  RequestType 3 
  MemorIO 256 
  MemHierarchyLvl 1 
  Timeout 256 
  OperationType 256 
  Channel 256 
  Length 928 
  RawData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



A fatal hardware error has occurred.

Component: AMD Northbridge
Error Source: Machine Check Exception
Error Type: Sync Error
Processor ID: 0

The details view of this entry contains further information.


 [ Name]  Microsoft-Windows-WHEA-Logger 
   [ Guid]  {C26C4F3C-3F66-4E99-8F8A-39405CFED220} 
 
   EventID 20 
 
   Version 0 
 
   Level 2 
 
   Task 0 
 
   Opcode 0 
 
   Keywords 0x8000000000000000 
 
  - TimeCreated 

   [ SystemTime]  2011-09-08T13:17:38.425829400Z 
 
   EventRecordID 13501 
 
  - Correlation 

   [ ActivityID]  {E539A3DC-32F3-48A0-9632-072342CD1EF7} 
 
  - Execution 

   [ ProcessID]  1588 
   [ ThreadID]  2096 
 
   Channel System 
 
   Computer HenryMain 
 
  - Security 

   [ UserID]  S-1-5-19 
 

- EventData 

  ErrorSource 3 
  ApicId 0 
  MCABank 4 
  MciStat 0xba00001000020c0f 
  MciAddr 0x0 
  MciMisc 0xc00a0fff01000000 
  ErrorType 2 
  Length 928 
  RawData
```


----------



## Jonathan_King (Apr 3, 2010)

*Re: Windows 7 random restarts and the odd BSOD*

You don't have to sit and watch the computer for the full 6 hours, actually. Why don't you start with the Large FFTs test (max heat), and then babysit it with Speedfan for about 15 minutes or so. After that point, the temperature levels off and you can walk away for the rest of the time. The other tests shouldn't generate as much heat, so if the Large FFTs passes heat-wise, you don't have to watch the others.

You can find alternatives to Prime95, such as OCCT, but they will all have the same effect on the system (heat? crashing?). If you can't run any of those, your next-best option is to just start replacing components. Might start by removing all but one RAM stick, and if it crashes, try with just one other instead. If you still get crashes, CPU might need replacement, or motherboard.


----------



## Henners91 (Nov 6, 2010)

*Re: Windows 7 random restarts and the odd BSOD*

Okay, I am not sure if this response might sound a little bit ungrateful... but here's what I wound up doing.

Running Prime95 for 10 minutes did absolutely nothing to the CPU, however I wasn't able to monitor the temperature (something we became suspicious about) whilst doing this.

The reason that we were suspicious about temperature was because cleaning out the heat sink, as well as (on separate occasions) disabling cool 'n' quiet and my EPU-4 engine utility resulted in the crashes becoming much more disparate and no longer 'chaining', that is, having one crash did not result in an almost guaranteed follow-up when the PC was powered on again.

I went and got my hands on AMD Overdrive, which was able to give me temperature readings for both the CPU's fan and the individual cores (though we took the latter with a pinch of salt). I left this programme logging the temperature whilst I was gaming for 15 minutes. After this period, the temperature had been shown to have reached 55*c which is pretty close to the threshold at which I believe the PC will automatically restart because of CPU overheating.

So today we took a look at the CPU's heatsink again and it was once more clogged up with dust, we cleaned that out... then we removed the heatsink to inspect the paste that's on the processor's sarcophagus (sorry for the layman terms, this was pretty much my dad's area; I have no idea if that insulating paste is actually a paste or if you call the CPU's shell a sarcophagus ). It was cracked, patchy and was even showing bare metal in places. My dad removed it with white spirit and reapplied it some that he uses for his work.

Suffice to say, I ran Prime95 (this time with a temperature log) and after 12 minutes it did not exceed 55*c. It hit 55 and then stablised at around 52/53. I played the same game I had played that got 55*c the day before for 15 minutes again, and the temperature did not exceed 44*c.

Now it's too early for me to start getting all triumphant about this, but the only leeway we've made with this problem has been when temperature is considered, the crashes became rarer and now temperature is much lower than before. I'll post again if I get another crash but I thought that, as things are going pretty well, I ought to post our progress just in case others have a similar problem to myself. It appears that cleaning out the heatsink and reapplying the paste helped tremendously in reducing the CPU's temperature.


----------



## Jonathan_King (Apr 3, 2010)

*Re: Windows 7 random restarts and the odd BSOD*

Well thanks for the report Henners. Hope you remain BSOD-free!


----------

