BSOD and how to troubleshoot this?

[beavereater]

I started getting them.

I did a scan of my Win HD and there were no errors.
I scanned my other drives and there were no errors.
My CPU temps are 40C.
No over-clocking.
I've been updating my drivers all week now just in case.

Sometimes, it restarts and then it takes time to load windows again. It stays black with my cursor and then 30 seconds later everything pops up. Other times it just won't start and I have to manually restart.

Using BS viewer I get the error ntokrnl.exe as the culprit but I'm not sure how to read into that.

I'm hoping it's just bad memory, and easy fix. BUT I don't want to buy new memory just to have another BSOD.

I built this PC last year. I have it on all the time and have never had this happen. Not much as far as new software.

Any help?

[newpball]

BSOD is very often caused by drivers as they have access to low level OS features and thus when they mess up they can actually crash the OS.

Make sure your drivers are up to date and suspect problems with unsigned drivers first.

Driver verifier can check for driver errors but make sure you have a system backup because the tool may be confusing for the uninitiated and if you screw up you may not be able to boot.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/244617

[TreeTops]

Could you by any change misspelled ntoskrnl? IF so did you see this solution?

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1982448/ntoskrnl-exe-driver-bsod.html

[Bjs]

Bluescreenview ... there's a link on site down the page that helps setup saving dumps before system restarts. Use it to determine drivers which appear to be the cause.

Drivers supplied with original hardware are better than latest updated drivers ... later drivers are a good source of bsod's especially released for end of line products may include enhancements which the original hardware in a series did not support and most of the time this is where bsod's appear.

The ntoskrnl could be the issue with the black screen ... I'd look into the health of the mft table ... if there's corruption then backup, reformat and reinstall the os.

Q: What av is used ?

[beavereater]

Bluescreenview ... there's a link on site down the page that helps setup saving dumps before system restarts. Use it to determine drivers which appear to be the cause.

Drivers supplied with original hardware are better than latest updated drivers ... later drivers are a good source of bsod's especially released for end of line products may include enhancements which the original hardware in a series did not support and most of the time this is where bsod's appear.

The ntoskrnl could be the issue with the black screen ... I'd look into the health of the mft table ... if there's corruption then backup, reformat and reinstall the os.

Q: What av is used ?

Panda Free for AV

I thought I had it under control but just got another BSOD while watching some news clips.

[beavereater]

Could you by any change misspelled ntoskrnl? IF so did you see this solution?

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1982448/ntoskrnl-exe-driver-bsod.html

I did misspell it. I'll look into that one.

Bluescreenview ... there's a link on site down the page that helps setup saving dumps before system restarts. Use it to determine drivers which appear to be the cause.

Drivers supplied with original hardware are better than latest updated drivers ... later drivers are a good source of bsod's especially released for end of line products may include enhancements which the original hardware in a series did not support and most of the time this is where bsod's appear.

The ntoskrnl could be the issue with the black screen ... I'd look into the health of the mft table ... if there's corruption then backup, reformat and reinstall the os.

Q: What av is used ?

Panda Free for AV

I thought I had it under control but just got another BSOD while watching some news clips.

I used the app and it shows the ntoskrnl.exe

[joeandmarg0]

There is an extremely comprehensive BSOD section on sevenforums.com,which may cover your problem.Sad to say,updating drivers manually is a health hazard

[beavereater]

I'm going to run memtest before I go to work. Hopefully that'll show some errors and I can just replace the RAM. I really do hate having to reinstall Windows.

How does one check if the mft is corrupt?

[bevills1]

Twice over several years I've discovered bad memory by running memtest. If memory checks out okay, it could be certain hardware drivers causing problems if you recently installed any new hardware in which case Windows reinstall won't help. Recently I had this kind of problem in Win8.1Pro after installing certain PCI/PCIe wireless adapters. The only fix for this I could find is to get a different adapter that doesn't cause these problems.