Bsod at startup - driver or Bios or Win7 reinstall?

[gerrard]

Hello,

Please somebody help me to solve my BSOD.

I have it for a few months. I upgraded from Win XP to 7, changed the antivirus system to Comodo CIS from Avast, updated drivers and did other things (check disk, win update etc.). After changing 1 module of RAM 512 MB, some crashes disappeared, only bsod at boot time remained. I deleted existing settings at Driver Verifier, and after that (I suppose that was the reason) the crashes disappeared. I didn't have BSOD for 2/3 weeks.

Now I have them again in the last week. The bluescreen view showed almost always different messages (this week): pfn list corrupt, memory management, driver irql not less or equal, apc index mismatch. Earlier: memory management, driver veriver dma violation, special pool, bad pool header. The address of the crash is ntoskrnl.exe.

It would be good to know, that is it a driver failure (if so, which one), or BIOS update (but I couldn't find a proper new one) or a Win7 reinstall? Or could it be the Comodo Internet Security?

Thank you very much for any answer

Gerrard

 

[gerrard]

Is it possible that the problem is the paging file? By default it was handled by Win7 and the size was 1 GB (like the amount of RAM). I modified it manually between 1,5 and 3 GB. Any ideas?
Thanks

 

[amaltom61]

paging file can cause no problems because i have deleted mine and rebooted to see if there was any problems and there was none.Windows created a new paging file

 

[amaltom61]

BIOS has nothing to do with it,if anything was wrong with the BIOS,there will be no BSODs.That means Windows will not even start to show any BSOD.

 

[Shintaro]

Welcome to the W 7 forum.

I hope that we can help you with your problem.


It appears that the COMODO Firewall Pro Sandbox Driver is crashing your computer.
Please look for an update.

SYMBOL_NAME: cmdguard+e9a8

FOLLOWUP_NAME: MachineOwner

MODULE_NAME: cmdguard

IMAGE_NAME: cmdguard.sys

DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP: 4f5d0e2b

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: 0x1_SysCallNum_15e_cmdguard+e9a8

BUCKET_ID: 0x1_SysCallNum_15e_cmdguard+e9a8

Let us know how you go.

Hope this help.

 

[Shintaro]

Also please check your RAM with Memtest86+. https://www.w7forums.com/memtest86-memory-testing-t9067.html

Hope this helps.

 

[gerrard]

Hi Shintaro,

The Comodo IS is automatically updated, I don't know how to update the Sandbox driver manually. Maybe it would be easier to turn off or uninstall.
I hope that RAM is not the problem because I changed 1 module 2 months ago, and the other is just only 1,5 year old (both have the same serial number: Kingmax MPC ... etc.). But I will make memtest after the next Bsod.

Otherwise, as I mentioned earlier, I set higher the size of paging file and no crashes for 2 days. (?)

 

[Shintaro]

Are you able to remover the Sandbox part of Comodo and leave the firewall in place?

But if you can please test your RAM.

Hope this helps.

 

[gerrard]

I can only remove the firewall part of Comodo (including the sandbox).
Last night I made memtest86 run and found no errors after 6 passes.
I think I will uninstall the firewall.
But what do you think of Driver Verifier? I deleted the default settings and after that less BSOD, about every third boot. (before: almost every startup crashed)

 

[gerrard]

continued: maybe because of CIS Sandbox driver...

 

[Shintaro]

Maybe just download just the free firewall. You should at least have a firewall.
If you could enable driver verfier that would be good.

 

[Shintaro]

Sorry I was out last night and stuck on a Android device.
Below is the procedure for enabling Driver Verifier.

I'm not sure if it will tell me anything as the system is crashing during startup, but there are other ways to get to that information.

Driver verifier (Borrowed from ZigZag's post)

I'd suggest that you first backup your stuff and then make sure you've got access to another computer so you can contact us if problems arise. Then make a System Restore point (so you can restore the system using the Vista/Win7 Startup Repair feature).

Procedure:

• Go to Start and type in "verifier" (without the quotes) and press Enter
• Select "Create custom settings (for code developers)" and click "Next"
• Select "Select individual settings from a full list" and click "Next"
• Select everything EXCEPT FOR "Special Pool", "Force Pending I/O Requests" and "Low Resource Simulation" and click "Next"
• Select "Select driver names from a list" and click "Next"
• Then select all drivers NOT provided by Microsoft and click "Next"
• Select "Finish" on the next page.

Reboot the system and wait for it to crash to the Blue Screen.
If it doesn't crash for you, then let it run for at least 36 hours of continuous operation.

Reboot into Windows (after the crash) and turn off Driver Verifier by going back in and selecting "Delete existing settings" on the first page, then locate and zip up the memory dump file and upload it with your next post.

If you can't get into Windows because it crashes too soon, try it in Safe Mode.
If you can't get into Safe Mode, try using System Restore from your installation DVD to set the system back to the previous restore point that you created.

 

[gerrard]

Hi again,

after two weeks of normal working: bad pool header.
I removed the firewall part of Comodo: bsod again (ntoskrnl.exe)
I removed the full Comodo (including antivirus): irql not less or equal (halacpi.dll)
Maybe Comodo was OK?

 

[Shintaro]

Mate,

Could you please post the files from the crash dump directory each time you get a crash.

 

[gerrard]

Yes, of course.
Here they are:

 

[Nibiru2012]

I noticed that your hardware is extremely out of date! By about 10 years or so.

Your Epox EP-8KHAL+ motherboard is that old, the CPU an AMD XP2000+ is ancient too. In addition you are only using 1GB of RAM.

I know I can most assuredly tell you that depending on how many hours per day the motherboard was powered-on, the capacitors on the mobo have probably aged way past their estimated lifespan. In addition to just old aged capacitors, there are probably a few leaking or burst ones too. This motherboard has/had a reputation for the caps going bad.

(A problem that wasn't just only Epox's issue. Many mobo makers and OEM computers suffered these problems.)

Check out this Wikipedia article and photos to see if your mobo may be the culprit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor_plague

Windows 7 was NOT designed and/or engineered to operate on such hardware regardless of the capacitor issues. The drivers for the chipset and such are not available for Windows 7.

In addition, the 1GB of RAM is the ABSOLUTE MINIMUM MS recommends for the 32-bit (X86) version of Windows 7.

I would highly recommend you upgrade your hardware if you want a truly stable install of Windows 7.

 

[gerrard]

Hi again.

Ok, the hardware is a bit of old. I could not afford nowadays to have a new one (and to update only some parts of it - not too much sense).
I did the proposal for driver verifier that mentioned earlier (Zigzag post): after that no bsod but restart during boot 2-3 times shortly (or freezing during Starting Windows screen). When I delete existing settings: normal boot (and yes, sometimes bsod, similar as earlier).
Nibiru2012: are you sure that this is not about a driver problem? Or if it is hardware, I am thinking to backroll Win XP.

 

[TrainableMan]

Well the truth is that a machine with only 1GB of RAM would run better with XP than with W7 so if you can go back then it isn't a bad idea to do so.

As for Driver Verifier, it is not a solution, it is simply a tool. Yes it is likely slower because it is recording more information. Shintaro needs the extra data to try and figure out the problem. If you want to keep trying with W7 then please post the latest DMPs.

 

[gerrard]

I would go back to WinXP but I'm not sure that the problem will disappear. (Few months ago I upgraded to Win7 and no change (but then it was a RAM problem at last - I hope so). So it would be very good to know what is the cause. I've read some people using Win7 with similar old hw and use it with older drivers or other settings etc. I can put one more 512 MB module in it (1,5 GB is the max. capacity) but I don't know it's worth it or not.
I attach the .dmp files, they are dated before the Driver verifier settings were changed (3-4 days ago), since then only restart at boot (or freeze). 1-2 dmp files caused by Nvidia vga driver backroll and RAM upgrade (+256 MB) but I removed both.

 

[TrainableMan]

Even 500MB would improve performance if you only have 1000MB currently, but it is NOT likely to cure the current issue, so I wouldn't add any now. If the existing 1GB is bad that could definitely be the problem but it is not likely "insufficient memory" is your issue, suddenly, after a few months. If you are concerned about problems with the existing RAM sticks you should run Memtest86+.

Since your W7 was working, it could be a new driver that has messed things up. Other possibilities include: a virus, hardware failing, etc. Shintaro can usually notice odd files in the DMP if it is a virus though.

Hopefully Shintaro picks something up in the latest DMPs.