Freshly-installed G73Jh experiencing random BSoD, please help - info included

Hi there. First off, i wanted to say "thank you!" in advance for taking the time to look here and read about my situation. Any advice would be greatly helpful, but I appreciate the fact that you took a look at all.

Now to cut to the chase. I recently did a fresh install of my G73Jh, following most of the guides found right here in these forums. I'll make a list later of the things I made sure to do. Point is, I am now experiencing BSoD's seemingly at random. Doesn't matter if I'm trying to launch Steam or just sitting there at the desktop with nothing launched, and can happen shortly after powering on or after a few hours of operation has passed... it'll eventually throw a BSoD, list some info while doing the memory dump, then try to reboot.

The BSoD doesn't list any particular drivers or error name, but it lists the following stop codes...

*** STOP: 0x0000007F (0x000000...08, 0x0000000080050031, 0x0000000...6F, 0xFFFFF80002E8FEC0)

After the BSoD and attempted auto-reboot, a black screen with white text says the following...

Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause. To fix the problem... (3 suggestions listed here)

If you do not have this disc, contact your system admin or computer manufacturer for assistance.

Status: 0xc000000e
Info: The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible.

I'll then press "Enter" to continue. I'm then prompted to how I want to start Windows 7, whether I want to try booting to Safe Mode, start normally, etc. If I start normally, it's a ticking time bomb till it repeats itself. Safe mode has been quite stable during the few hours I've spent pouring through the Event Viewer (in Control Panel > Administrative tools > Event Viewer, and looking in the Windows Logs > System), if that matters.

Now, regarding what I've done to fresh-install the system...

1. Flashed BIOS to v211
2. Flashed vBIOS to the latest one that Chastity supplied in the " how to fix your BSOD woes" thread
3. Reinstalled Windows 7, generally following the "how to do a fresh install of windows 7" guide in these forums
4. Installed the latest drivers from the ASUS support page for the G73Jh, with 3 exceptions
4a: Installed latest Catalyst drivers (10.12)
4b: Installed Realtek R2.55 audio drivers
4c: Used the Creative 1.0 drivers from the driver disc, following my own guide on that here

After that, I installed my variety of programs I use, such as ZoneAlarm free firewall, Avast! free anti-virus, Firefox, Chrome, Adobe CS4, and various multimedia players.

Now, I looked into the BSoD stop error. According to Microsoft's page here, the 0x0000007F code means it's a UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP and lists more about it. In particular, the next code (0x00000...08) indicates a "double fault", which is described to mean...

A double fault occurs when an exception occurs while trying to call the handler for a prior exception. Normally, the two exceptions can be handled serially, however there are several exceptions that cannot be handled serially and in this situation the processor signals a double fault. The two primary causes for this are hardware and kernel stack overflows. Hardware problems are usually related to CPU, RAM, or bus. Kernel stack overflows are almost always caused by faulty kernel-mode drivers.

Well, that's as far as I can figure out. I'm not at all sure what to do at this point, but the machine is pretty much unusable at this point. What should I do next? Would checking the memory help (and if so, what software would you recommend to use)? Could this be a software fluke, and another fresh install of Windows 7 perhaps fix this?

Anyone that can offer advice or even a point in the right direction will have my undying gratitude.

 

The article I found (from MS) suggests starting with RAM. While software checks exist, a simpler (though longer) process is to simply check the ram sticks individually. This poses a bit of a problem considering there are 4, one of which is deep inside the laptop. I'd start with testing the easy 3, removing them all, and then plugging them back in individually to see if you experience the problem with a new stick. If that is the problem, well, easy fix.

That being said, when I see something like "the boot selection" I'm thinking about hard drives. If its just an HDD dying, no big deal (as far as replacing), but it could potentially be an issue with the motherboard.

Following up on that, I'd hate to suggest a fresh install, but if the system is running stable on Safe Mode, it could be something simple like a driver issue, and a fresh install is just faster than testing various drivers. You could start with working backwards by uninstalling the software you listed.

Try the easy stuff first.

 

Here's a little utility that may help. It's the current Intel INF in a self-extractor, that will autorun the setup with -overall. So just download, use the default settings, and it will do a forced full install.

 

I did a fresh install a couple of days ago. I had two BSODs on New Year's Eve while I was away from the computer. They occurred exactly one hour to the minute apart. I assumed it had something to do with sleep or hibernate. After installing all of the windows updates the problem seems to be gone. Chastity's INF update works perfectly. (They always do.)

 

Thank you all very much for the help so far. I'll give those ideas a shot.

A little more info if this helps pinpoint the issue: the very first BSoD that occurred happened only a few days ago, whereas I did the fresh install about a month ago and it was running just fine until the plague of BSoD's broke out (again, just a few days ago).

When the first one happened, all I remember doing was running Steam, and downloading a game (Super Meat Boy). After the BSoD and restart, if I would try to launch Steam, it would fail to start and give me an error. If I left the error open too long, it would BSoD again. After this happened a few times, I launched Steam, took a screenshot of the error, then quickly closed it. No BSoD.

The error was something about a file needed was corrupted, something about a .blob file. A quick Google search explained it was indeed a corrupted file, but the fix was easy: just delete the file and re-launch Steam and it would re-generate it. Sweet. But when I did this and Steam was doing its thing, another BSoD.

After that, I tried Steam again, and it ran just fine. Downloaded my Meat Boy, it played well, did some other stuff, and later shut the laptop down without a hitch.

But, of course, the BSoDs are still coming. Due to the nature of the BSoD's, I really wasn't sure if it was steam or not, since they happen even without launching Steam. Thus my concern.

Okay well if that new info is a game-changer and offers new insight into the issue, let me know. In the meantime, I'm going to try uninstalling Steam and see what happens.

Two last questions: 1. Is there a memory test app you guys recommend? 2. What is the Intel INF? the chipset drivers?


Thanks again to everyone, I greatly appreciate all of it!

 

Do you have GFWL client installed on your machine? This program wreaked havoc on my machine and forced me to reinstall windows.

I know it's a pain, but you might need to try another new install of windows.

 

Intel INF is the chipset package, yes.

 

One of the first things I did when I bought my G73JH was download the ATI Catalyst suite. After getting the BSoD randomly a couple of times a day I uninstalled it and went with Asus' latest video driver from their site. I haven't had a problem since. I also can't imagine getting better performance than I'm getting with it. Smoking fps on the latest titles with ultra settings. I'm not sure what the problem is with Catalyst but you might try getting rid of it.

 

Ahh, venerable 10.1 drivers ... there are a couple of new titles that require newer Catalysts. Once you do the vBIOS upgrade, you can run the newer Catalysts.

 

Here's a little update, followed by a quick question:

After putting the G73Jh away for a little while (was on a holiday break), I set it back up again to continue troubleshooting.

As a recap from my 2 posts above, it was BSoD'ing all the time. I'm not sure what triggered it, things that had a high chance of correlating with a BSoD were: launching Steam, launching a Steam game, hooking the laptop up to a TV via HDMI for the first time (and after restarting, switching between the displays or adjusting the resolution each caused a BSoD), and occasionally just restarting and letting it sit there for a few minutes would eventually trip a BSoD.

Anyways, I'm home now. Plugged in the AC adapter, fired it up, and braced for BSoD's left and right, and...

...nothing. It's been running stable. Steam, games, watching DVDs, even hooking it up to our 40-some inch Samsung LCD TV via HDMI and switching displays and altering resolutions. Nothing.

I don't get it. At all. The only difference, was that when I was having the issues, it was plugged into an RV, which in turn was running off of electric hookup (so no inverters or generators, it was normal AC current). Our other 3 laptops, Xbox 360, TV, and other gadgets all worked fine, except for my G73.

Anyone have any ideas why it's fine now, but was nuts just a couple weeks ago? I'm stumped! And in the meantime, I'm nervous and skeptical of it's newfound stability; I expect it to be a ticking timebomb and go nuts on me at any moment. So if it does happen and I decide to reinstall Windows, at least I have all the latest drivers set aside (thanks to Chastity and her excellent updated driver thread).