BSOD up to every 30 minutes! :(

I have been having ongoing BSOD issues with Vista 64 ultimate for a few months, and been trouble shooting but have run out of ideas.

I have a homemade PC with gigabyte s series mobo, intel quad cpu q6600, nvida 9600gt, 8 gig of corsair ram (4 x 2gig) and 5 hdd (3 x 250gb, and 2 x 750)

Over the last few months, I have tried lots of things to fix these bsod, most recently, and relevantly:
- binned a pci serial card
- upgraded to the gfx card to the 9600 from a 7600
- had all of the ram replaced under warranty
- reformatted and reinstalled windows

I have attached the most recent memory dumps, taken since reformat; I have to admit that I don't really understand them I have looked at tutorials for debugging, but I am stumped
The crashes seem to come at anytime, from working in Adobe Lightroom to just browsing the web in IE8, I don't even have flash player installed.
Before the reformat having the latest versions of drivers didn't seem to help, and since the reformat going with the ones vista found doesn't either!
I have attached the latest 5 dumps, any ideas?
thanks
Steve

bsodcollector said:

I have been having ongoing BSOD issues with Vista 64 ultimate for a few months, and been trouble shooting but have run out of ideas.

I have a homemade PC with gigabyte s series mobo, intel quad cpu q6600, nvida 9600gt, 8 gig of corsair ram (4 x 2gig) and 5 hdd (3 x 250gb, and 2 x 750)

Over the last few months, I have tried lots of things to fix these bsod, most recently, and relevantly:
- binned a pci serial card
- upgraded to the gfx card to the 9600 from a 7600
- had all of the ram replaced under warranty
- reformatted and reinstalled windows

I have attached the most recent memory dumps, taken since reformat; I have to admit that I don't really understand them I have looked at tutorials for debugging, but I am stumped
The crashes seem to come at anytime, from working in Adobe Lightroom to just browsing the web in IE8, I don't even have flash player installed.
Before the reformat having the latest versions of drivers didn't seem to help, and since the reformat going with the ones vista found doesn't either!
I have attached the latest 5 dumps, any ideas?
thanks
Steve

Click to expand...

How well matched are those RAM modules? Did you buy them as a 4 x 2GB set (do they sell those? ), or was it two separate purchases of 2 x 2GB?

At first glance, your minidumps look rather indicative of a hardware problem. The one with TCPIP.SYS and the "timer wheel" in particular. Have you tried running just 2 x 2GB for a bit?

Yes. Please run memtest86+. Maybe bad memory, bad dual channel, or other hardware issue on mobo.
Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool

Hi guys, thanks for getting back to me

the memory is 2 x matched pairs, all of the exact same make and model, bought at the same time from the same shop, I have also only had it for 3 days, as it was replacement for some RAM which was showing memory errors. The current memory went through an entire pass in memtest and did not find any errors, compared with the old stuff that would find an extra error every 5 minutes or so. Is that good enough to assume that there are no memory problems?

I nearly forgot there were too more crashes since my first post!

number 6 does refer to memory corruption, is that likely to be physical due to the chips or software?

But number 7 throws somehting new into the mix and blames Rtlh64.sys, which is apparantly my onboard network, I have updated the driver... but is there really a chance that a little thing like that could cause so much trouble???

ha! got another just after posting previous dumps! seems even less helpful (to me)

bsodcollector said:

I nearly forgot there were too more crashes since my first post!

number 6 does refer to memory corruption, is that likely to be physical due to the chips or software?

But number 7 throws somehting new into the mix and blames Rtlh64.sys, which is apparantly my onboard network, I have updated the driver... but is there really a chance that a little thing like that could cause so much trouble???

Click to expand...

Corsair are notorious for varying their memory specs between batches of the "same" part number in their catalog. Even when the timings are the same, which is by no means assured just because it's the same part#, the memory from different packs may not be sufficiently closely matched for reliable operation. To rule out that possibility, I'd suggest you test what happens when you revert to 2 x 2GB from the same (matched) pack.

To try to answer some of your other questions...

"Memory corruption" from the debugger's point of view doesn't necessarily mean a hardware problem. In fact, it can be excruciatingly difficult to tell from a minidump whether the cause of a particular crash is hardware or software. I like bizarre analogies ... it's like looking at a single photo of the aftermath of an automobile accident and trying to decide whether the cause was driver error (software) or defective brakes (hardware). Old coppers can get good at that sort of thing, but for most of us mere mortals it's best not to try to read too much into these errors.

NIC drivers cause their fair share of BSODs. The job they perform is complex, and they have full access to everything in the OS, so when something goes wrong in a NIC driver, or indeed any other type of driver down in kernel-mode, the results can be very nasty.

Unfortunately, there's no guarantee that memtest and other utilities of that sort will readily detect a hardware fault. If you think about it, the OS and all the apps are together one big memory test suite, and yet for crashes which are intermittent it can be many hours, days, or even weeks in between errors. It's not uncommon for memtest to give the "all clear" after several initial passes, only to report an inconsistency later when it's been running for days. Hence, it's always gratifying when memtest doesn't find anything, but that doesn't necessarily prove that there's nothing there to find.

exact specs of mobo and make and model number of ram chips? , it could be your ram operates at between 2.0 to 2.2v and your mobo will be set at 1.8 default

you can normally get away with it if you only have 2 modules but never with 4 , you may just need to up he voltage to your ram by .1 .2 of a volt

i can help you with that if that turns out to be the problem

oh and whats your power supply make model?

i wont be back till later tonight but i expect somebody else could talk you through it too , if it turns to be the issue