Vista - Blue screen while gaming - Have a look please.

Hello, I found this forum while googling for my problem with no look.

I recently upgraded from Windows XP Professional 64 to Windows Vista Ultimate 64 - and I love Vista!

What kills the whole experience is that I can't play my favorite game (Grand Theft Auto IV) cause it ALWAYS get a BSOD within 20 minutes of playing. I don't think i Have a hardware problem as everything worked just fine in XP. The BSODs came the same day as I installed Vista, but only in GTA IV. See BSOD message and screenshot below.

I don't know if this is a problem isolated to GTA IV, but it's the only time I've seen it happen. I've played World of Warcraft and Left 4 Dead for hours without any hangups at all.

The error code:
0x00000101(0x0000000000000061.0x0000000000000000.0xFFFFFA60005Ec180.0x0000000000000001)

Computer specs: (Nothing is overclocked.
CPU; AMD X2 6000+ 3.0 GHz
Graphics; 8800GTS 320 MB
RAM; 6 GB pc6400 800MHz (2x1GB + 2x2GB, both matched and in dual-channel)
MB; MSI K9N Platinum SLI
HDD; Western digital 500 GB
Sound; Realtek High Definition Audio

Any help at all will be greatly appriciated!

BSOD:

From Microsoft:

From that, I'd conclude that your processor is busy dying. It may just be pure luck that this error happens only when playing GTA4 because the game may be using features of the CPU that no other programs are.

Do you have the latest non-beta Vista x64 (not XP x64) drivers installed for your motherboard and the CPU?

hmm ive done some research and apparently the issue can be put down to amds cores drifting out of sync with each other, AMD have released a program to combat this called TSC (time stamp counter) which keeps the cores in sync with each other in dual core and quad core optimized systems during gaming. here is a link http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/cont...es/TscSync.zip

Thanks for the replies guys.

Dzomlija - Woulnd't I have noticed that my CPU was dying in XP too? Everything was working perfectly in XP Pro 64; no crashes, no BSOD, no nothing.

MrNeeds - thanks I'll check that out!


About drivers and Vista.. I was surprised to see that all motherboard drivers had installed themselves when I booted Vista for the first time. I checked with a driver tool and it said theyr were all up to date.

Can vista install drivers automaticly or have I dont something wrong?

I would start by checking the heatsinks on the CPU for problems. It could be overheating. Try cleaning out all the heatsinks and GPU fans. Check to see if your motherboard has a BIOS fix the includes CPU erratas to fix issues. Check your power supply for issues. A flaky power supply or something sharing on its circuit can cause power issues. Considering its only one game after 20 minutes of play, I doubt the CPU is going bad. You could get diagnostics software.

What driver tool was used ? ?

Update:

I cleaned my computer from dust and istalled the TCM dual core optimizer - I ran GTA IV and got the BSOD again after ~40 minutes of online multiplayer gaming.

I used the free version of Driver Detective to scan my drivers. It showed all as up-to-date.

Thanks for all the help so far!

EDIT: I ran a system stability tool in the Nvidia Control Panel for an hour too see if it could produce the same or an other BSOD. But it came out with no problems at all.

Vista does have an extensive driver database, but it still wouldn't hurt to go to the motherboard manufacturers website to download others.

Unless the "Driver Check" tool actually comes from any respective manufacturer, I do not fully trust any tool that claims to check my drivers. I always do so manually.

I have now checked with the manufactures websites for driver updates and everything is up to date.

Is there any other helpful information I can get in any logs or so on my computer or so? I'm not very good at things like this.

Lets just face it, Rockstar games suck. GTA3 worked just fine but since San Andreas the games has been totally worthless (speaking of compatibility). This is what you get when the priority goes to consoles. Even the thought of games for consoles are stupid. Computers has the better technology and is so much better in anyway. Even the hand-held controls are stupid...

Until the developers starts putting the priority on PC's, games will always have problem running.

I'm on the same mainboard (MSI K9 570 SLI), GTX 260, AMD 6400+. I can run any game without the slightest problem. But when it comes to rockstar games, my computer crashes. GTA IV shouldn't even require that much performance... It doesn't look that very good, the textures has bad quality, for a DX10 game the overall experiance is very low and I can't stand that when trying to turnaround quickly the character makes a ****ing 10meter radius turn getting stuck in some corner or behind a lightpole...

I'll update my mainboard next to see if that'll fix the problem. But I doubt it.