Repeated Desktop Crashing

[Augsburger]

Hopefully some of you more experienced desktop people have a solution for this problem. We have a nearly two year old Intel I7 Ivy Bridge desktop computer. It has 16G of ram, 180 GB SSD HD and a 1 T external HD with the cpu running slightly overclocked. Core speed is 4398 MHz, Multiplier X 44, Bus speed is 99.98MHz. For the past six months while gaming and often times doing nothing taxing to the cpu, we have experienced the blue screen crash with the "windows detected hardware error".

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think we need to back off the CPU speed a bit but after reading the Google searches and bus recommendations, I am not confident I can do this correctly. Any suggestions you can provide would be appreciated.

Edited June 22, 2014 by Augsburger

[grawk]

I recommend a clean os install.

[Augsburger]

Ugh! I was hoping you would not say that, but I knew that would probably be the best way to go.

 

Thanks Dan.

[Torpedo]

Any way to check the SSD for integrity? I used to have those crashes before a HDD died.

[Augsburger]

Despite the fact that it is not quite two years old, we did some rudimentary checks when we first started experiencing these crashes. Perhaps a more thorough run might find something...then again maybe not.

[roadtonowhere08]

Generally speaking, here are the three main culprits of a BSOD:

 

1. Corrupt .dll, crappy software/drivers, or messed up OS install

2. PSU failing or not up to the task

3. Overclock

 

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4. Bad RAM

 

From what I have read, a 0x00000124 is hardware based, so the first thing to do is focus on the overclock.  Either back off or add a bit of voltage to see if that helps.  After that, start looking at your PSU if it still persists.  I have never had issues with RAM, but that could possibly be it, but my money is either the OC or the PSU.

 

 

Edit:  A long step by step from microsoft's forum:

 

Stop 0x124 - what it means and what to try

Synopsis:
A "stop 0x124" is fundamentally different to many other types of bluescreens because it stems from a hardware complaint. 
Stop 0x124 minidumps contain very little practical information, and it is therefore necessary to approach the problem as a case of hardware in an unknown state of distress.

Generic "Stop 0x124" Troubleshooting Strategy:

    1) Ensure that none of the hardware components are overclocked. 
Hardware that is driven beyond its design specifications - by overclocking - can malfunction in unpredictable ways.

    2) Ensure that the machine is adequately cooled. 
If there is any doubt, open up the side of the PC case (be mindful of any relevant warranty conditions!) and point a mains fan squarely at the motherboard. 
That will rule out most (lack of) cooling issues.

    3) Update all hardware-related drivers: video, sound, RAID (if any), NIC... anything that interacts with a piece of hardware. 
It is good practice to run the latest drivers anyway.

    4) Update the motherboard BIOS according to the manufacturer's instructions. Their website should provide detailed instructions as to the brand and model-specific procedure.

    5) Rarely, bugs in the OS may cause "false positive" 0x124 events where the hardware wasn't complaining but Windows thought otherwise (because of the bug). 
At the time of writing, Windows 7 is not known to suffer from any such defects, but it is nevertheless important to always keep Windows itself updated.

    6) Attempt to (stress) test those hardware components which can be put through their paces artificially. 
The most obvious examples are the RAM and HDD(s). For the RAM, use the in-built memory diagnostics (run MDSCHED) or the 3rd-party memtest86 utility to run many hours worth of testing. 
For hard drives, check whether CHKDSK /R finds any problems on the drive(s), notably "bad sectors". 
Unreliable RAM, in particular, is deadly as far as software is concerned, and anything other than a 100% clear memory test result is cause for concern. Unfortunately, even a 100% clear result from the diagnostics utilities does not guarantee that the RAM is free from defects - only that none were encountered during the test passes.

    7) As the last of the non-invasive troubleshooting steps, perform a "vanilla" re-installation of Windows: just the OS itself without any additional applications, games, utilities, updates, or new drivers - NOTHING AT ALL that is not sourced from the Windows 7 disc. 
Should that fail to mitigate the 0x124 problem, jump to the next steps. Otherwise, if you run the "vanilla" installation long enough to convince yourself that not a single 0x124 crash has occurred, start installing updates and applications slowly, always pausing between successive additions long enough to get a feel for whether the machine is still free from 0x124 crashes. 
Should the crashing resume, obviously the very last software addition(s) may be somehow linked to the root cause.

If stop 0x124 errors persist despite the steps above, and the hardware is under warranty, consider returning it and requesting a replacement which does not suffer periodic MCE events. 
Be aware that attempting the subsequent hardware troubleshooting steps may, in some cases, void your warranty:

    Clean and carefully remove any dust from the inside of the machine. Re-seat all connectors and memory modules. 
Use a can of compressed air to clean out the RAM DIMM sockets as much as possible.

    9) If all else fails, start removing items of hardware one-by-one in the hope that the culprit is something non-essential which can be removed. 
Obviously, this type of testing is a lot easier if you've got access to equivalent components in order to perform swaps.

Should you find yourself in the situation of having performed all of the steps above without a resolution of the symptom, unfortunately the most likely reason is because the error message is literally correct - something is fundamentally wrong with the machine's hardware.

Edited June 22, 2014 by roadtonowhere08

[TMoney]

I would try taking off the overclock entirely and see if you still have problems. If things go back to normal, start dialing it up again slowly.

[HeadphoneAddict]

Yeah, if not the over clock I'd look at the RAM

[spritzer]

Definitely switch to stock speed and see what happens.  This is normally done in bios but some motherboards (all? I stopped doing this in 2002...) can do it in Windows. 

 

Could also be a failing capacitors somewhere.  Most motherboards have stopped relying so heavily on electrolytics but the PSU still has them. 

[Augsburger]

Thanks for all the suggestions.  We have tried about half the diagnostic recommendations and found no RAM issues, the cpu runs relatively cool even right after the crash and the box is cooled with six fans, cleaned vents and an external fan for added cooling. The drivers were updated, not sure about the BIOs.  We will try to back off the over clocking and see what happens before we move to DefCon 3.

 

Thanks for taking the time to help.

[roadtonowhere08]

Thanks for all the suggestions.  We have tried about half the diagnostic recommendations and found no RAM issues, the cpu runs relatively cool even right after the crash and the box is cooled with six fans, cleaned vents and an external fan for added cooling. The drivers were updated, not sure about the BIOs.  We will try to back off the over clocking and see what happens before we move to DefCon 3.

 

Thanks for taking the time to help.

 

That's good about the RAM.  Pain in the ass to diagnose that one sometimes.  As far as the OC, temperature is not a good indicator of whether it is solid or unstable.  The temp is more of a function of TIM application/effectiveness and/or voltage applied.  You could easily have a cool CPU and an unstable OC just by bumping the clock speed and not the voltage if the CPU is not up for it.

 

 

In all honesty, unless you are doing rendering on a time crunch, I bet you would not even notice if you took your OC and went to stock clocks, since gaming is mostly GPU bound anyway.  I have a 6 core 1366 Xeon from an ebay server pull running a measily stock 2.13 GHZ, and it chews through all A/V and photo rendering quickly.  Most people OC just cause, but CPUs are so fast right now that most software really does not take advantage of it.  It's the SSD that has really caused the speed increase of computers for the average person.  I have no idea what you do on your computer, but there are my two cents anyway.

Edited June 24, 2014 by roadtonowhere08

[Augsburger]

Since it is my son's dedicated desktop I would say gaming and homework, in that order.  

 

I will try to back off on the over clocking and we shall see what happens.  If that doesn't solve the problem then a clean re install of Win7.  performed a number or Google searches trying to source the problem before I posted here but never found anything close to what you provided.  I guess I asked the wrong questions. 

[roadtonowhere08]

Good luck.  Let us know how it goes