NP8278-S BSOD's

A little background. Laptop has run fantastically as configured from the factory (1TB HD, 1 stick 8GB RAM), but ever since I put a Samsung 840 Pro 256GB and G.Skill 32GB RAM I have had random blue screens.

At first BSOD I immediately thought bad RAM. Did a few Memtest runs that all passed (each run included at least 2 passes). Tried running them at different times of the day, with SMP enabled/disabled, every time it passed but BSOD's kept happening.

Formatted the SSD again and loaded drivers from Sager's website (which is missing a Windows 8 fingerprint driver so I used the driver on the CD). Still BSOD's. Formatted again, this time using MBR instead of GPT. Still BSOD's... Formatted again, using ONLY CD drivers. Still BSOD's. Tried disabling all of the drivers that could potentially cause problems (1394 adapter, fingerprint driver, touchpad driver, audio drivers). Still BSOD's.

I don't have all of the bugcheck codes, but this latest one is 0x0000003b (0x00000000c0000005, 0xfffff803c136bc32, 0xffffd000237bade0, 0x0000000000000000). 2 seconds before the BSOD, "The driver \Driver\WUDFRd failed to load for the device USB\VID_1C7A&PID_0603\6&27ff8b77&0&3." which I believe is the fingerprint driver.

As more happen, I will report back, but I am at a loss as to what my next step is, short of returning everything I've bought and deal with slower boot/load times. Please Help!

 

Download and install WhoCrashed, it will create a dump log pointing you to whats causing it. After the next BSOD check what it says, it may even pick up on the previous ones.

 

What voltage is the ram as haswel systems can only take 1.35 volts and any more can cause crashes as it has happened many time on this forum

 

Never mind it says its low voltage ram

 

Have you tried one stick at a time with mem test?

 

Also test the ram slots with a good stick because the slot might be faulty

 

doesnt the P170SM only take 1333mhz or 1600mhz ram and not 1866mhz that you posted above.

 

2 more BSOD's since last post. Disabled a few drivers again to see if that would help, but it obviously hasn't. I attached the WhoCrashed report as a screenshot.

I haven't. I figured if it passed multiple passes on multiple tests that ruled out the RAM. I'll try with my stock stick individually in each slot when I get a chance. Would 2 passes suffice?

Typically when I've bought RAM, if I get a higher speed than the Mobo/Processor are rated at, it will clock down to the fastest supported or surprise me and run at full speed without issues. I'd like to save replacing all 4 sticks as a last resort, but that's a good point I haven't thought of. Thanks for your suggestion.

 

just had a look at the manual and that could well be the problem.

my supplier only has 1600 available but xotic has 1 option of 1333

 

As mentioned previously, if the mobo doesn't support the faster speed it will simply downclock the ram. I've plugged 1600 MHz memory into my 3 year old Toshiba before and it booted and ran fine by clocking the ram to 1066 MHz.

I remember reading about faulty ram passing Memtest so I wouldn't rule that out completely at this stage. Just based on what you described it sounds like either a bad stick or a bad slot on the mobo.

 

I've not played with downclocking memory like others in this forum have, but I could swear that there was something involved with changing the timings of the memory to make it stable if it was being downclocked.

Am I remembering that wrong? And if so, would that be part of the issue with the stability issues sparetire is running across?

 

If the JEDEC timings for lower ram speeds are present, then I think it's a simple plug and play affair.

 

Yes, it should be able to use a lower rating, if they are there, it does vary by supplier.

 

In CPUZ it looks like the G.Skill sticks can go all the way down to 651 MHz (1333 Mhz DDR) and the respective timings are 7-7-7-23-30, so I'm not sure why they would cause errors from being clocked too high. I've attached screenshots of the CPUZ reading for both sticks.


I have been running with the stock memory stick (Kingston 8 GB 1600 MHz) and slowly adding G.Skill sticks with a memtest run each night after the addition (I still have to be able to use the laptop for work during the day. No BSOD's, but all of the memory is clocked at 1333 MHz instead of 1600 MHz. I have one more stick to add tonight and I'll be back at 32 GB, but using 1 Kingston stick instead of the G.Skill stick. If that is stable, I'll swap the Kingston for the last G.Skill and see if it: A, Bumps the speed back up and B, gets BSOD's again.

If I get BSOD's I'll put the Kingston back in, swap one of the other G.Skill's for the leftover G.Skill stick, and check for BSOD's and a memtest. I'm thinking that when the speed bumps up from all the G.Skills, I'll get BSOD's again, but as long as that stock stick is in there forcing the downclock of the memory, things will stay stable.

Has anyone else experienced problems from higher clocked memory in their Sager/Clevo? I find it to be an odd issue if the memory supports downclocking.

 

CPU-Z is not the most reliable program to detect lower ram timings I have found.

The free version of Thaiphoon burner can read the timings exactly if you want to be sure.