Blue Screen of Death

[princesheril]

Dear nihil,

Apologies for undermining your super expertise. As my jubilation was short lived, my call for celebration has to wait for long.

This BSOD issue still persists and my sincere request for its solution still stands before you and all other Antionline members.

Please tell me if I could provide any other information to cure this problem.

Regards

[nihil]

Hi there princesheril,

Don't be too disappointed just yet, as you have made progress. The McAfee problem that Whocrashed reported earlier was real, this is a new issue. What I suspect was happening was that the McAfee driver was causing a crash before this one had a chance to.

Firstly, this doesn't look like a temperature related issue, as 48C isn't that hot for a laptop.

I am not familiar with their use of terminology, but I think that Whocrashed is saying that this isn't a physical hardware problem but one related to a software driver. I guess that could be a driver for hardware though.

First thing I would do is reboot into the BIOS and disable memory caching and shadowing. At lest that will give us a level playing field so to speak.

Then you should go into Control Panel and Device Manager and check through all your hardware items to see if they are reporting an IRQ conflict.

Would I be correct in thinking that this only happens when you are running bittorrent?

Incidentally, how are you connecting to your internet hub/router............. is it wireless?

Also, has this always happened when you have been using bittorrent. Probably not a terribly likely cause but I guess it wouldn't harm to reinstall the bittorrent software?

Please let us know how you get on

[ua549]

I much prefer using Microsoft Security Essentials than any other anti-virus software.
It is free. It is light weight and doesn't interfere with normal operations.
IMO McAfee and Norton cause more problems than what they solve.

[nihil]

I much prefer using Microsoft Security Essentials than any other anti-virus software.

Well, in theory that should be good, at least from a systems performance viewpoint, given that it comes from the OS providers themselves.

I have certainly fixed quite a few issues in the past few years by getting rid of Norton. In particular the expired "trial" versions that ship with a new computer.

In fact, I try to get rid of all expired application trials as they can only cause issues and are doing no good at all.

I forgot to mention to princesheril that it would be a good idea to check if he has any other trial software packages on his machine and uninstall those as well.

By the same token, I would look at what is starting up and running, and disable (set to manual start) anything that you don't really need.

The idea is to clear out as much as possible so it will be easier to find the culprit.

If this actually removes the problem then re-enable the startup options (if you want to) one by one, until you identify the culprit that way.

EDIT:

I have a sneaking suspicion that the problem might be with the driver for the NIC/Wireless card, so I would check that I have the latest one. this might well be separate from other drivers on the manufacturer's website?

[princesheril]

I'll check for any trial/bloatware programs and revert.

I share similar suspicion with nihil. Under Network Adapters in Device Manager I have following 3 branches:

1. Atheros AR5B97 Wireless Network Adapter
2. Broadcom Netlink (TM) Gigabit Ethernet, and
3. Microsoft Virtual WiFi Miniport Adapter

I'll see updates for each on google and check if problem is fixed.

[Wazz]

Hey princesheril,

Looks like someone's spawning a remote bind shell on you or a similar exploit that's coded poorly....do a full Malwarebytes scan and a full scan with Hitman Pro. Then from an elevated command prompt run - sfc /scannow to repair any compromised system files.

The fact that bitorrent triggers it tells me it's something naughty.....happy hunting


Actually, the more I think about this ("Bug check description: This indicates that a kernel-mode driver attempted to access pageable memory at a process IRQL that was too high.") and the weird 0x80000002 error code is definitely a buffer overflow exploit, it's not hardware.......may wanna format the MBR too to kill the rootkit.....

[nihil]

Hi Wazz,

That's a thought that never occurred to me but it does fit the circumstances. I sort of associated the strange 0x8~ error with a coding problem, so badly written malware would fit that.

@ princesheril:

Your Atheros is an onboard wireless chipset (if it's like mine). The Broadcom is a standard 10/100/1000 cat5/RJ45 cable network connection, and I guess that the other one is for a wireless miniport adapter. If it's like the UK that is where I would plug in the Telco's "WiFi anywhere" adapter.

The updates for those should be included in the OEM's updates with the possible exception of the miniport; but that doesn't mean that they are

At this point I think that Wazz's suggestion of a "rat hunt" is going to be the most profitable.

I guess you will need to check your laptop documentation to find out about sfc /scannow, as Windows will normally ask you for a Windows installation CD, which OEMs don't ship these days. There will doubtless be some way to do it through their recovery partition and disks?

Good luck!

[princesheril]

Apologies for my delay in writing, but I was waiting to see if BSOD returns. Miraculously it didn't and I can call a party now!

I did sfc scan, tested with Hitman Pro, deleted all suspicious files, and updated all drivers from their specific vendors websites. I really can't isolate which one of them did the trick. I'm glad my problem is fixed.

Loads of thanks to nihil, ua549 and Wazz. You guys are angels to me.

Cheers

[Wazz]

Excellent!!! Glad you're all set.......and you are welcome, anytime my friend!!!

[ua549]

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