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I recently made a build for a friend and things are running great, except he always gets bluescreens that indicate a hardware issue when interacting with the Steam platform. Bootscreens often occur as soon as he tries to download something (network adapter?) or after a few minutes of idle time (when having the Steam application running). Everything else, such as browsing, working (documents etc.), downloading games via the Origin (EA) platform and playing them on high graphic settings works flawlessly.
Rig
╔═════════════╦═════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ Item ║ Description ║
╠═════════════╬═════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ OS ║ Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro x64 ║
║ CPU ║ Intel Core i5 4570 Haswell 22nm @ 3.20GHz ║
║ Memory ║ 8,00 GB Dual-Channel DDR @ 666MHz ║
║ Motherboard ║ ASUSTek (Asus) B85-PLUS (Socket 1150) ║
║ Graphics ║ ATI AMD Radeon R9 200 Series (ASUS) 4096 MB ║
║ Storage ║ Samsung HD322GJ (SATA) ║
╚═════════════╩═════════════════════════════════════════════╝
Speccy dump with more detailed information: http://pastebin.com/VcAAhdeT
Bluescreens
There are bluescreens with different errors occuring. Mostly IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. Here's an example dump:
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║ Item ║ Description ║
╠═════════════╬════════════════════════╣
║ BCS ║ IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL ║
║ BCC ║ 0x0000000a ║
║ Parameter 1 ║ fffffa98`0375661a ║
║ Parameter 2 ║ 00000000`00000002 ║
║ Parameter 3 ║ 00000000`00000000 ║
║ Parameter 4 ║ fffff801`79b01e96 ║
║ Source ║ ntoskrnl.exe ║
║ Address ║ 1509a0 ║
╚═════════════╩════════════════════════╝
Solutions
I tried various things, including running several diagnostic utilities (both by Windows and vendor specific) which didn't indicate any problem, I updated every possible driver to the most recent ones (or replacing Windows included drivers with the ones directly from the HW vendor). I reinstalled the system, tried various things with hardware and/or peripherals detached/attached in numerous combinations.
What might indicate a problem is when I run the Windows Driver Verifier, I got a bluescreen after rebooting that the driver verification failed. But I don't really know how to intepret the bluescreen message and locate the driver that caused the verification to fail:
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║ Item ║ Description ║
╠═══════════════════╬═══════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ BCS ║ DRIVER_VERIFIER_DETECTED_VIOLATION ║
║ BCC ║ 0x000000c4 ║
║ Parameter 1 ║ 00000000`000000f6 ║
║ Parameter 2 ║ 00000000`00000748 ║
║ Parameter 3 ║ ffffe000`7cfd4080 ║
║ Parameter 4 ║ fffff801`7d3e55b9 ║
║ Caused by driver ║ 8b035329-1544-4cf3-ae4c-d29a11cdb4cf* ║
║ Caused by address ║ 8b035329-1544-4cf3-ae4c-d29a11cdb4cf+15b9 ║
╚═══════════════════╩═══════════════════════════════════════════╝
* looks like a GUID to me. Can I look up this somewhere? Googling resulted in nothing useful.
Link to the two crash dumps (IRQL & driver verifier): https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B886k8XW_l4LflV5YmRYNUNhLV9say01LUVjTi1adW9WSnpoMzQzOTMwN2MyODRjZzc0X3c&usp=sharing
Please let me now if you need any other information!
Thank you very much.
Edit: Fixed the tables. Why doesn't the StackExchange network have proper table markdown anyway :(
Edit 2: CPU-Z reports
Validator report: http://valid.canardpc.com/dpddx2
CPU-Z report: http://googledrive.com/host/0B886k8XW_l4LYWpXblpSVDNNNHM
artganify
Posted 2015-04-18T19:28:33.803
Reputation: 121
The dump shows a memory_corruption. Post some pictures of CPU-Z (Memory and SPD tabs). Also make sure the RAM is compatible with the board. – magicandre1981 – 2015-04-18T20:29:44.287
@magicandre1981 How can I verify that the RAM are compatible? The specs for the board mention compatibilty with 2-channel (4 DIMM) DDR3 lanes, which I have. Will post pics of CPU-Z as soon as I get access to the PC next time. – artganify – 2015-04-19T06:26:44.987
check if the RAM is listed in the ASUS docs: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/B85PLUS/HelpDesk_QVL/
– magicandre1981 – 2015-04-19T06:29:49.483@magicandre1981 The RAMs are indeed not listed on any of the compatibility reports, but other ones from the same manufacturer/series are. What does that mean? The RAMs aren't supposed to work with the MoBo or the manufacturer hasn't just quality tested them? – artganify – 2015-04-19T06:44:00.413
@magicandre1981 See my edit - I've attached several outputs from CPU-Z – artganify – 2015-04-19T08:23:16.803
a command rate (CR) of 1 can also cause such issues. Change it in the BIOS/UEFI to 2. – magicandre1981 – 2015-04-19T17:11:52.397
1Put memory on automatic / SPD then do a memtest86+ on the whole RAM, not a different utility but memtest86+. – JasonXA – 2015-04-19T18:29:41.100
@magicandre1981 Thanks, I'll try that one out. – artganify – 2015-04-19T22:42:09.263
@emm980 Already did memtest - everything seemed ok! – artganify – 2015-04-19T22:42:27.527
is the pC stable with the CR of 2? – magicandre1981 – 2015-04-25T07:01:55.703
@magicandre1981 Haven't got the chance to try it out yet, as the friend lives a bit far away, but I can report after this weekend. – artganify – 2015-04-25T07:39:57.570
have you told the friend to change the setting to 2? Does it fix the issue? – magicandre1981 – 2015-04-29T17:48:23.390
@magicandre1981 It did something. Now it takes longer for the system to crash (before, it crashed immediately, now it takes about 5 minutes before the bluescreen occurs.) I also installed RAMs which are on the compatibility list, but no luck. :/ – artganify – 2015-04-29T19:08:53.270
check again the RAM timings and that CR is set to 2. – magicandre1981 – 2015-04-30T04:12:37.743
@magicandre1981 I checked both, with a CR of 1 and 2 (and auto, which seems to result in 1). – artganify – 2015-04-30T04:49:47.527
so he also get crashes with CR of 2? Try to increase the RAM volatage a bit, but only bit!! – magicandre1981 – 2015-04-30T17:38:14.683
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What happens when he runs the system with the network unplugged and logs into steam in offline mode?
What happens if you run steam on this platform from a linux installation? a virtual machine?