My Y580 BSOD'ed twice?

Hey guys,

Today my Y580 BSOD'ed twice, and after each time went to Intel PXE where it would hang on the "no bootable disc" line.

After turning the laptop off via power button and booting up again it boots to windows fine. The first time it happened I was in Guild Wars 2. The second time I was away from my computer at the desktop.

I really don't know what to look for here. Maybe it's because I changed my drives up? I put my 500GB 7200 RPM in the ODD bay, I put a 128GB OCZ Vertex 4 in the HDD bay, and I have a 64GB Crucial M4 mSATA as my system drive. However, it has been nearly 2 weeks since switched my drives around and I haven't had a single problem until today. As this has only happened today, I can think of a few factors that might of lead to the BSOD.

1.) All day my computer has been "locking up" where it freezes for a few seconds. I am able to move my mouse during some of the lockups, just not click on anything. It locked up once while I was typing this actually. I have never had this happen to me before.

2.) When I turned my computer on this morning, I got a driver failed notification. The driver that failed was "avast! Firewall NDIS Filter Miniport #466." (I use avast internet security 2012) Every time I have restarted I get that notification.

3.) I have been gaming a lot lately, and my M4 (my system drive) has hovered around 65C constantly, reaching as high as 66-67C. My Vertex 4 has my games on it, but it doesn't have a temperature sensor. I can only imagine though, since it is right next to my M4 and because how hot my HDD got, that it's getting the same temps as my M4.

4.) I have been downloading Phantasy Star Online 2 (Japanese mmo, everything is in Japanese) all day (before the first BSOD) via it's installer. Really don't know if that has anything to do with it, but the first BSOD started maybe an hour after I started downloading it. Then the second maybe 2 hours after that.

If you need any more info, please let me know. I really don't know what to look for or if I should be concerned so I really appreciate the help!

Thanks!

Edit: Another question. How can I tell if it is my M4 or my Vertex 4 giving me issues? My system is locking up a lot now. Just now, it froze, then went to a black screen where I couldn't do anything but turn the power off. Since I only have my games stored on my Vertex 4, do you think this probably is coming from my M4 where Windows is stored?

I cannot upgrade my firmware (at least on my OCZ SSD, I tried) because I have to be in IDE mode (only settings for me are AHCI or Compatible. When I boot off of my firmware disc it doesn't even detect any drives in AHCI, when I boot in compatible it detects them but fails to write anything).

Just want to make sure, but these lockups and BSOD's have nothing to do with Avast! or any viruses, correct? Thanks again.

 

look at Event viewer and see what system errors get logged.

also, it sounds like those errors might be network related. I think i had a pxe error ages ago. It was some network error.
You game off the wireless connection?
if so, maybe try the ethernet connection for a while and see if you get the same problem.

is avast 2012 bloatware? I have avast, but only the antivirus portion. Windows built-in firewall is strong and customizable enough. You don't need 3rd party firewall garbage.
I would try uninstalling that avast bloat too.

there are too many variables. eliminate things one by one.

 

It BSOS'ed again, I was able to catch it in time to take a picture:

Don't know if that helps, but let me know if you need to know anything more!

 

on system properties startup and recovery, uncheck restart automatically so that you can catch future bsods.

since ocz drives suck usually, you should try to eliminate it from testing. The hdd bay gets really hot during gaming, so who knows, maybe the ocz is starting to fail.

remove the ocz, and move the 500gb back to the hdd bay, and go about your business.

process of elimination.

 

Thanks, I'll give that a try. I just took out the OCZ and it appears to have air bubbles under the sticker. Not sure if this is a sign but take a look:


Maybe the OCZ couldn't handle the HDD bay heat. D No lockups or BSOD's yet after I removed the OCZ. o you think I should RMA it?

Also, I game on an ethernet connection, but I'm at university. Whenever I boot it connects to wireless first so I have to disconnect it for it to stay on ethernet.

I don't know why it went to PXE.

Avast is pretty lightweight so I'm not sure. Is Windows Firewall good by itself? I always thought of it as basic, and that if you wanted full protection you need a third party software.

 

give it some more time without the ocz drive just to be sure.
do whatever you usually do in the meantime.

i have no idea why the label would have bubbles, but you'd better hope ocz doesn't see it as abuse.

ask ocz if they have any diagnostic tools you can run to see if it's a bad drive.

 

I have no more BSOD's but I just get a lockup every once in a while. So that leads me to believe it affected my M4 somehow. I'm going to try a system restore to a point before I had these problems. Unfortunately, the last point I have is 2am yesterday morning. It's before I started having problems, but don't know how it will react to a drive taken out and files missing from what was originally there in that point in time. Hopefully that will fix it. If not, I'll have to look into it more.

 

Sorry for the double post but here's an important update. I stumbled across this page:
You receive various Stop error messages in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2 when you try to resume a computer that has a large SATA hard disk

Which is the same error I got with my BSOD. I then remembered in my Lenovo Energy Managment app I had this feature:
Smart Power Saving Hard Disk: When the system is not reading or writing from the disk, the hard-disk will enter a power saving state.

It was on, so I switched it off. I then ran ChkDsk on the HDD to check for any bad sectors on the disk. I dismounted it, it ran for about a minute, then, BSOD! I'm not sure if this was being caused by both my OCZ and my HDD, but I'm going to take my HDD out, and put my OCZ back in and see what happens. In the meantime, what can I do with my HDD? Maybe this problem is being caused by since it is in a HDD caddy in the ODD bay and the SATA connector is loose?

At least I now know what the problem is. Still, I wonder if the bubble under the Vertex 4 label are going to give me problems in the future and if that's a sign alone to RMA it.

Edit: I took the HDD out of the caddy in the ODD bay and put my OCZ there (to make it cooler for my M4- my hdd bay is empty). So lockups yet. I think I'm gonna leave my HDD out because of this. How bad does this look?:


Is it ok to leave my SSD in a caddy that was meant for HDD's? It fit fine. Sorry for the many questions!

 

how do you know it's your hdd? did you get bad sectors reported?
you can't judge a hdd by what it looks like on the outside.

if i were in your shoes, I would take out the ssd's, and make a partition on the hdd, and clean install windows on it, and run it off the hdd alone for a while.

that way you'll know for sure if it's the hdd or not.

 

Well it BSOD'ed when I ran ChkDsk on it and the BSOD error pertains to the HDD. After I removed the HDD I had no lockups. HOWEVER, I did get one BSOD (error 0x00000f) when I left the HDD out. So I had enough, backed up my data, and did a clean install of Win 7.

And I thought bad sectors on the disk are a result of physical damage?

Wondering if I should put my HDD back into my laptop or to leave it out for a while. I am afraid that if I put it back in the ODD bay I'm going to run into the same problem. Speaking of which, is it ok to put the SSD in the HDD caddy in the ODD bay? I think the bubbles are because the HDD bay gets so hot, and both SSD's are cooler this way. Obviously, if I put my HDD back in my OCZ will go back into my HDD bay.

 

yes, it's ok to put the ssd in the odd bay.


however, right now, you don't even know which drive is giving you bsod.

maybe clean install will fix it. But if not, you should only have one drive installed so you can rule each one out individually.

 

Well I've been using my M4 and V4 for over a day now without my HDD. No lockups or BSOD's. And it BSOD'ed when I ran ChkDsk on the HDD and the BSOD error pertained to the HDD.. so I think it is safe to say my HDD is causing the problems.. Now the only questions is, what should I do with my HDD?

Is there a way I can contact Seagate (my HDD manufacturer) directly to get it RMA'd instead of Lenovo? I don't want to have to put all my drives back the way they were and have to ship the entire laptop back just to get one small part replaced.

On a side note, I looked up if it is okay to have my SDD in a caddy in the ODD bay, and I didn't see any reasons not to, but I asked on the OCZ forums and this is what a rep told me:

I really don't know what kind of problems would occur, but I moved my SSD back to my HDD bay to keep it safe.

 

you have a samsung/seagate drive?

you can't rma back to seagate because it's an oem drive.

you should be able to send the hard drive back to lenovo for replacement. call them.
maybe they'll let you exchange without proving it has bad sectors.