Folding Forum

Hi All,

I've searched for a thread with similar problems but apparently I'm special. About a week ago my computer started randomly crashing (no BSOD) when I had FAH running. It worked fine if I turned it off. This was right around the time that I had a NVIDIA update, so my first attempt was just to roll back the drivers on my GeForce GTX 660 Ti. No fix. So I re-installed the update and ran an update on my BIOS. Still having problems. I updated all of my other drivers...still having the problem. So then I set my BIOS and CMOS to fail safe defaults. Now my computer randomly freezes if I run FAH. I did a clean install of my GeForce, still having freezing problems. I've cleaned my registry and defragged because why not. I'm running out of ideas at this point. Would really appreciate some help.

Thanks!

The first place I would look would be in the system log in the Windows event viewer. Errors there may give some clue as what's failing.

The second place to look is for cooling problems. Is it possible that your heatsink has accumulated some dust or that a fan is no longer turning?

Had you previously been overclocking? Even if not, computer parts can fail; memory sticks can go bad, power-supply rails become inconsistent, any chip - motherboard, cpu, gpu - can fail.

Each can be identified but the process can be slow and tiresome.

Run "memtest" to check RAM. Run Prime95. Get a PSU tester. Never easy to pinpoint a fault without lots of spare parts and elbow grease.

Please don't recommend Prime95. While it's a tried-and-true benchmark to validate the stability of x86 (integer-based) code, I strongly recommend both StressCPU and FAHBench. Both are based on the code that FAH uses and are much better at finding problems that only occur with FAH code, which makes heavy use of FP instructions, either x87 or SSE* or OpenCL.

Can you give some info on hardware and software you are running.It's a real stab in the dark without it. As example:I had crashing for almost a week at almost regular 6-8 hour intervals.Turned out it was my Gigabyte update manager updated itself and installed Gdrv.exe.Problem both hardware AND software specific. Like what Nvidia update did you install? and how? etc.

Well after I re-installed the card, it installed with the latest drivers that were released for BF4, and all of the other new games, so the Oct. 30th release. Yes, I had previously been overclocking, but like I said, I stopped when I started have the crashing issue. My heatsink and fan are all completely functional. I run EVGA precision X to manage my cooling and its about 36 degrees Celsius, getting up into the 40s occasionally. Oh the system event log, that's a real nightmare. I checked it initially and I am getting flooded with event 7036, its happening literally every 2 seconds, sometimes for the course of 15 minutes! I am also getting the power kernal 41 log but that is directly after the crash. Beyond the 7036 flooding, I can't identify anything in the log that would be cause the crash. Gimpy, I am running the NVIDA GeForce 660 Ti and an AMD FX 8120 processor. I run evga precison x as I mentioned, and norton and FAH are the main programs that run on the computer. We use it for other things, but pause FAH at that time to free up the processor. I'm going to try swapping out the graphics card today with a spare to see if it's a hardware issue.

GPU: Geforce GTX 660Ti
CPU: AMD FX(tm)-8120 Eight Coure
Memory: 8GB, 7.98 useable
Driver Version: 331.65
Windows 7 Pro

I ran the windows memory diagnostic, no errors were found

Event 7036 is a status report of a service that is changing states. See: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/libr ... 08(v=ws.10).aspx as an example.

It is not normal for any service to do that, so it is a good bet that it is related to your problems. What is the service that is flooding the event log? It will be in the form "The %1 service entered the %2 state".

The power kernel 41 message is just a report that Windows booted unexpectedly. The cause is not normally specified: It could be a BSOD, the power failing, or you pressing the reset button.

331.65 have been reported as being bad for folding. I would uninstall and revert to an older version.

So I reverted to v.327.something and thought I had success for about an hour, then I was back to the random crashes. I swapped my 660 with a 470 to see if the card itself was bad, still having crashes if I let FAH run (and sometimes have crashes if I try to do a lot at once...like have word, excel, and firefox all working...)

I have some 530 cases of event ID 7036 in the last hour alone.
Some examples
Window Error Reporting service entered the stopped state
The Windows Media Center Receiver Service service entered the stopped state.
The Multimedia Class Scheduler service entered the stopped state.
The Windows Update service entered the running state.
The Security Center service entered the running state.
The Software Protection service entered the running state.
The Google Update Service (gupdate) service entered the stopped state.
The Google Update Service (gupdate) service entered the running state.
The Microsoft .NET Framework NGEN v4.0.30319_X64 service entered the stopped state.
The Microsoft .NET Framework NGEN v4.0.30319_X64 service entered the running state.
The Microsoft .NET Framework NGEN v4.0.30319_X86 service entered the running state.
The Windows Media Center Scheduler Service service entered the stopped state.
The Background Intelligent Transfer Service service entered the running state.
The Windows Error Reporting Service service entered the running state.
The Windows Server Media Center TV Archive Transfer Service service entered the running state.
The Windows Media Center Receiver Service service entered the running state.
The Windows Media Center Scheduler Service service entered the running state.
The Microsoft .NET Framework NGEN v4.0.30319_X86 service entered the stopped state.

These all happened between 11:28:00 and 11:29:08

Thanks for the input everyone, I really appreciate it.

On my XP machines the service control manager error writes to log because I have services disabled. Like "server","computer browser" etc. It means nothing at all. You can enable all the services you don't use to stop it but boot slow. Since it started under load I have 3 suggestions. 1.Uninstall driver. Boot into "safe" mode. Run Driversweeper (available at Guru3d.com or a registry cleaner like Eusing free.(Google it). Re-boot and install 327.23 driver, clean install. 2.Check power supply by substitution. 3.Card faulty. It's my opinion it is most likely 2or3 but 1. easiest and cheapest to try. These are my suggestions from my experience and don't mean to discount anyone elses advice. I apologize for layout. Can't get proper spacing with cursor, tab, shift nothing. Bad keyboard or? Hope this not to hard to read. If mod wants clean my mess , I wouldn't ne offended. Good luck.

Mod Edit: Formatting Issues Resolved - PantherX

Are you auditing services in a security policy for it really looks like you are? If so, that will generate lots of 7036 messages which have no relationship to freezing or crashing. You can safely turn that off unless for security reasons you need that information.

You might find it useful to filter the system log to only view critical or error events (those 7036 messages should be informational).

That all looks pretty normal to me except your NET.framwork starting and stopping,+ I agree with P5_133xl.Did you un-install and re-insta;ll driver as suggested or over-write install? Getting desperate here.Did you try dis-abling harware accelleration and write combing?Checked your harddrive lately?If it's failing or corrupted you"ll have a ghost in machine drive you crazy.Just trying to help.If someone jumps in here with better suggestions,great.If not I'll slug away with you.

Have not tried disabling hardware acceleration and write combing. We are starting to think its the memory or CPU, just haven't quite managed to establish which. Some memory tests come back perfect normal...other create an instant crash. At this point, I uninstalled FAH on the computer we are having the issue with (there are 5 others still running it) and I am leaving it in the hands of a professional. I've reached the end of my abilities.

Thanks for all the help! I'll show him your suggestions.