Everything started with the following symptoms after I installed my new GTX 680 (I'll post full system specs at the bottom):
Random BSODs while gaming, games crashing with various error messages. The frequency of BSODs and crashes varied a lot, sometimes multiple on one day, sometimes a week or more between them.
The BSODs had the following bug check codes:
- 0x1A (MEMORY_MANAGEMENT)
- 0xC2 (BAD_POOL_CALLER)
- 0x10E (VIDEO_MEMORY_MANAGEMENT_INTERNAL)
- 0xC1 (SPECIAL_POOL_DETECTED_MEMORY_CORRUPTION)
- 0x19 (BAD_POOL_HEADER)
- 0x7E (SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED)
- 0x119 (VIDEO_SCHEDULER_INTERNAL_ERROR)
So I started testing everything I could think of:
- Memtest, 5 passes
- 17 hours of Prime95 for some additional CPU & RAM testing
- Furmark, as well as Furmark + Prime95 about an hour each
- 3DMark11 over night
- MemtestG80 (VRAM Memtest from the Folding@Home Site) for ~15 hours
None of this produced any errors, crashes or BSODs. Since I was still having the problems though, and with 1 or 2 exceptions during video playback, all happened while gaming, I figured it's most likely the video card (A MSI Twin Frozr III OC).
So I RMA'd it, and it got sent back to MSI, which took a few weeks.
Meanwhile, I installed my old video carf, a GTX 460, and all problems went away, so I was fairly certain that it must have been the card.
Well, until I heard from MSI, saying that there is nothing wrong with the card and that I'd get it back.
Since I wasn't really buying that as everything was working with my old card, I decided to try out another card, a GTX 680 DCUII TOP from Asus, and suddenly all the same problems appeared again.
There was one difference remaining between the old card and the new card, which was PCI-E 3.0 vs PCI-E 2.0, so I forced the Asus card down to 2.0 via the BIOS, but the problems persisted.
Now I can't really think of much other than PSU or MB. The problem I have with the PSU is that I didn't manage to reproduce any errors under maximum system load, so surely it can deliver enough power to the components. I also checked voltage stability on various load levels with OCCT, and it looked quite stable.
The problem I have with the MB is that everything was the same, except I changed the video card, but it's not the video card. I'm not sure how the PCI-E slot/lanes/?? might be broken, but no problems occur when a GTX 460 is placed in there. (Also I can't say that I'm very thrilled at the thought of replacing the MB...)
My system is:
- Asus P8Z77-V Pro
- Core i7 3770K
- Corsair 16GB DDR-1600
- Creative X-fi Platinum
- Asus GTX 680 DirectCU II TOP
- Samsung 830 SSD, 256 GB
- Seagate Barracuda Green 5900 RPM 2 TB
- PSU: Enermax Platimax 600 W
I can rule out overheating since my system has a very good airflow and I never measured any overly high temperatures.
I can also pretty much rule out software problems: I have reinstalled the Nvidia drivers countless times, including using things like safe mode, driver sweeper and whatnot.
I also re-formated and did a completely fresh Windows installation, only installed drivers and the progrems that I absolutely need for a while, and still had the same problems. I also ran file system checks and system file checker repeatedly, installed all drivers in their newest versions, and upgradey my BIOS to the latest release (which is from about 2 weeks ago).
Well, I am thankful if anyone has any more insight into this, and thank you for reading!
Random BSODs while gaming, games crashing with various error messages. The frequency of BSODs and crashes varied a lot, sometimes multiple on one day, sometimes a week or more between them.
The BSODs had the following bug check codes:
- 0x1A (MEMORY_MANAGEMENT)
- 0xC2 (BAD_POOL_CALLER)
- 0x10E (VIDEO_MEMORY_MANAGEMENT_INTERNAL)
- 0xC1 (SPECIAL_POOL_DETECTED_MEMORY_CORRUPTION)
- 0x19 (BAD_POOL_HEADER)
- 0x7E (SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED)
- 0x119 (VIDEO_SCHEDULER_INTERNAL_ERROR)
So I started testing everything I could think of:
- Memtest, 5 passes
- 17 hours of Prime95 for some additional CPU & RAM testing
- Furmark, as well as Furmark + Prime95 about an hour each
- 3DMark11 over night
- MemtestG80 (VRAM Memtest from the Folding@Home Site) for ~15 hours
None of this produced any errors, crashes or BSODs. Since I was still having the problems though, and with 1 or 2 exceptions during video playback, all happened while gaming, I figured it's most likely the video card (A MSI Twin Frozr III OC).
So I RMA'd it, and it got sent back to MSI, which took a few weeks.
Meanwhile, I installed my old video carf, a GTX 460, and all problems went away, so I was fairly certain that it must have been the card.
Well, until I heard from MSI, saying that there is nothing wrong with the card and that I'd get it back.
Since I wasn't really buying that as everything was working with my old card, I decided to try out another card, a GTX 680 DCUII TOP from Asus, and suddenly all the same problems appeared again.
There was one difference remaining between the old card and the new card, which was PCI-E 3.0 vs PCI-E 2.0, so I forced the Asus card down to 2.0 via the BIOS, but the problems persisted.
Now I can't really think of much other than PSU or MB. The problem I have with the PSU is that I didn't manage to reproduce any errors under maximum system load, so surely it can deliver enough power to the components. I also checked voltage stability on various load levels with OCCT, and it looked quite stable.
The problem I have with the MB is that everything was the same, except I changed the video card, but it's not the video card. I'm not sure how the PCI-E slot/lanes/?? might be broken, but no problems occur when a GTX 460 is placed in there. (Also I can't say that I'm very thrilled at the thought of replacing the MB...)
My system is:
- Asus P8Z77-V Pro
- Core i7 3770K
- Corsair 16GB DDR-1600
- Creative X-fi Platinum
- Asus GTX 680 DirectCU II TOP
- Samsung 830 SSD, 256 GB
- Seagate Barracuda Green 5900 RPM 2 TB
- PSU: Enermax Platimax 600 W
I can rule out overheating since my system has a very good airflow and I never measured any overly high temperatures.
I can also pretty much rule out software problems: I have reinstalled the Nvidia drivers countless times, including using things like safe mode, driver sweeper and whatnot.
I also re-formated and did a completely fresh Windows installation, only installed drivers and the progrems that I absolutely need for a while, and still had the same problems. I also ran file system checks and system file checker repeatedly, installed all drivers in their newest versions, and upgradey my BIOS to the latest release (which is from about 2 weeks ago).
Well, I am thankful if anyone has any more insight into this, and thank you for reading!