Brand New Laptop Blue Screen!

Hi guys, I just bought a brand new Sony VPCCW27FX/B on Sunday. It is a great laptop, very suitable size with powerful processors (i5-520) and video card (GT330) for its size.

However, only after 3 days of usage with minimum new application installed (only firefox, unity player and partitioned), I experienced the blue screen of death! At the time, I was playing Tiger Woods PGA online, an online game using Unity Player with Firefox. After restarting, I experienced 4 crashes with the exact same error report:

BCCode: 7f
BCP1: 0000000000000008
BCP2: 0000000080050031
BCP3: 00000000000006F8
BCP4: FFFFF8000309BE60
OS Version: 6_1_7600
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 768_1
Files that help describe the problem:
C:\Windows\Minidump\042810-28392-01.dmp
C:\Users\Mike\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-69139-0.sysdata.xml

Every time it happened I was playing the Tiger Woods game. This happened with Google Chrome and Firefox, so I don't think it is a browser specific problem. Firefox does show me that Java Development Toolkit 6.0.170.4 might cause security and stability issues. Also, at the time of the first crash, I just installed Adobe PDF plug in and that froze firefox for a bit.

It might be the Unity Player, but I played the game for an entire day and half after getting the laptop without getting any crashes. It seemed to happen after the Adobe plug in was installed. After the first crash, I uninstalled Firefox and reinstalled it. Still, the problem persists. Just now, the computer crashed (same problem) by itself running only Firefox while I was in the shower.

This problem is really bugging me and has me worried. What seems to be the problem, and what should I do? I don't think it's a virus because I haven't browsed or downloaded anything harmful. I am considering reinstalling Windows 7 because there is practically nothing in my laptop and file backup should be quick. Do you think that would solve the problem? But without knowing what is the root of the problem this issue might pop up again after reinstallation. Thank you guys in advance for any help.

 

I would see if Flash is being updated, latest Java runtime being installed and check out games support sites for patches if there are any.

You might also want to run an update on Sony and Windows as well.

cheers ...

 

What antivirus do you use?

Here is something odd that happened 2 years agon on my SZ:
Brand new - with KIS installed KIS caused BSOD...
Use the recovery discs and suddenly KIS was no longer a problem...

 

Google search 0x07f

Second hit on the search is:
General causes of "STOP 0x0000007F" errors

Start running Memtest86+ or something similar, it could be as simple as faulty stick of ram.

 

download Who Crashed whick will give us a better idea of the dump codes.

 

Thanks MrD. I downloaded Who Crashed, and this is the report it gave me:

On Sat 5/1/2010 7:56:44 AM your computer crashed
This was likely caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe
Bugcheck code: 0x7F (0x8, 0x80050031, 0x6F8, 0xFFFFF80003082E58)
Error: UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP
Dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\050110-20826-01.dmp
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect, possibly the culprit is in another driver on your system which cannot be identified at this time.



On Fri 4/30/2010 6:19:56 AM your computer crashed
This was likely caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe
Bugcheck code: 0x7F (0x8, 0x80050031, 0x6F8, 0xFFFFF80003056E60)
Error: UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP
Dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\043010-20155-01.dmp
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect, possibly the culprit is in another driver on your system which cannot be identified at this time.



On Wed 4/28/2010 6:39:59 AM your computer crashed
This was likely caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe
Bugcheck code: 0x7F (0x8, 0x80050031, 0x6F8, 0xFFFFF80003090E60)
Error: UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP
Dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\042810-20124-01.dmp
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect, possibly the culprit is in another driver on your system which cannot be identified at this time.



On Wed 4/28/2010 5:35:47 AM your computer crashed
This was likely caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe
Bugcheck code: 0x7F (0x8, 0x80050031, 0x6F8, 0xFFFFF8000309BE60)
Error: UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP
Dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\042810-28392-01.dmp
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect, possibly the culprit is in another driver on your system which cannot be identified at this time.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conclusion
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4 crash dumps have been found and analyzed. Note that it's not always possible to state with certainty whether a reported driver is really responsible for crashing your system or that the root cause is in another module. Nonetheless it's suggested you look for updates for the products that these drivers belong to and regularly visit Windows update or enable automatic updates for Windows. In case a piece of malfunctioning hardware is causing trouble, a search with Google on the bug check errors together with the model name and brand of your computer may help you investigate this further.

Thanks, I will download it. I was on the website, and I'm not sure how you use it? Do you burn the program onto a disc and boot it from the disc during start up, or put it on a USB drive and boot the system from there?

 

dont know much about kernel only when its kentucky fried
if you get a blue screen again and it boots into safe mode try rebooting to Last Known Good Configuration. reading up on a few different sites they recommend this to be the first thing to try.

 

the ntoskernel error is a red herring because something else is causing a problem in it--most likely video and or audio driver.

As some one else mentioned, it could be RAM, but it is more likely video or audio due to the repeated failure while playing Tiger online (it could also be the game code).

RAM errors tend to be much more random

 

I think it's a video card driver problem too. Today I was playing the Tiger Woods game (I know, but it's just too fun for me to not play), and the game froze for a second. Usually when this happens the computer crashes. This time a message came up that says something like "NVIDIA video card driver 187.83 error and has recovered", and the computer did not crash. I looked online and found that this is a common problem with NVIDIA drivers and Windows 7 (or 64bit OS).

I found a link Hotfix posted for Nvidia/x64 USB transfer issues.
Do you think this is the source of the problem? I plan to reinstall the OS and update the video card driver because I'm not sure if anything else is corrupted. Do you think I should do a system restore to last known good configuration or a clean reinstall? Also, with a reinstall, would the freeware like Office trial and Norton trial be reinstalled as well?

 

Yes, just download the .iso file and burn it on cd. Then boot the system from the CD, software will launch automatically.

Take battery out (no reason to charge and overheat it) and let the test run overnight, sometimes no errors come at first pass but later when system warms up. If there's any red errors on screen it's bad, simple as that.

 

where did you get the 187.83 drivers from? was it ltv2g as they are not showing up on nvidias site.

 

I would simply just update the video drivers--not reinstall everything. A bad driver is not going to corrupt anything else, other than maybe a file system, which can be fixed in most cases with chkdsk.

I would, run chkdsk, uninstall old nvidia drivers, install newest video drivers (197.16)

 

197.16 blue screens for me on start up so ive reverted back to 186.81 and had no problems since.

 

That was what's on the message I got. The system check on NVIDIA's website also said it is this version.

I tried to install this version, but I keep on getting this message "nvidia setup program could not locate any drivers that are compatible with your current hardware". I also downloaded 196.34 from laptopvideo2go, but still I have the same problem.

I then did a stupid thing of deleting my current driver and tried installing in safe mode, but it did not work. Strange thing was that after I restarted the computer, the driver came back (187.83). Why is that?

So 197.16 is not stable for you? Is 186.81 a proven driver? It is older than my current one (that keeps giving me trouble), will performance suffer?

 

It came back because your old driver was not removed.

Where do you stand now?

 

Thanks Gerry. After looking through some of the other threads on this forum, I learned that I cannot install video card drivers (not sure about other drivers) from the manufacture's website. Instead, I have to install from Sony's website. I updated the driver to 188.67, and so far I haven't had any problems with crashes. I played a few rounds of the Tiger Woods online golf game which caused crashes (especially on a specific hole), and so far no problem. I think it should be fixed. I plan to install more games to test the video card, and do a check disk.

 

You can install a non Sony driver - you just need to modify the .inf file or use one from laptopvideo2go - I've not done either on my Vaio though.

 

...but as long as it is working, keep witht he driver you have.

Glad to hear all is better, though