Crashes, BSoD's,.. While playing The Witcher 3! Help requested.

[Jahalon]

Crashes, BSoD's,.. While playing The Witcher 3! Help requested.

So, today i ran into the third BSoD while playing The witcher 3.. It's been crashing on me every hour (has been every 10 - 20 minutes) Until i played around with the full screen to borderless to windowed, vsync and framerate settings. I noticed quite a lot of people have issues with the game crashing on them, so i didn't get into it furthermore, took it as my PC needed to get all it's drivers and system updates still (Probably interesting to note that i built this pc about 2 weeks ago).
Also funny is that, over the 2 weeks, i've had none of my other games crashing on me with the exception of Rocket League (which crashed twice).
When i look into this issue and open a program i use called BlueScreenView, to look deeper into my minidump files.. I made the discovery that my 3 BSoD's are caused by the same driver: ntoskrnl.exe which apparently has something to do with my windows..
I will provide a screenshot underneath, for you guys to see for yourselves, as i'm not that familiar with this kind of stuff. (Never experienced blue screen errors or a big amount of crashes before on any of my gaming rigs so...).
Me, myself i think it may be my windows itself being installed in a wrong way.. or maybe some files are corrupted.. The company that helped me build my pc used the windows of my old rig. Also the RAM and hard disk i took from my old rig and have never caused any issues for me on it.

My PC specs are:

Intel core i5-4690
Nvidia GeForce GTX 960
Kingston 8 gb RAM 1333MhZ
MSI z97 gaming 5 motherboard

Here's the screenshot from BSV where i discovered the faulty driver:

I'm strongly hoping you guys could help me out of this mess, has been unable for me to enjoy the game this way, on a newly build rig that i know can handle it without any issues.. or well.. It should handle it without any issues..

 

[PrincessMassacre]

check your ram using memtest86+ (you can double-check with windows memory diagnostics - WMD, but only support 4gb at a time). perform at least 2 full passes.

also, chkdsk c: /R to check your disk for errors and also sfc /scannow (may need your windows with service pack dvd) if it found errors in system files, may need to do a repair/reinstall in rare cases.

oh, if they just moved your hdd into this system without doing a proper sysprep mini installation, it could cause issues with system devices not being properly updated with drivers.

 

[Jahalon]

Alright, will try this. Thanks in advance!

Edit: Is there any way to check if they did a mini installation? Might do it myself then, if it isn't all too hard.

 

[PrincessMassacre]

i suppose i should mention, before a repair/reinstall you can try 'sysprep.exe /shutdown' in this instance.

see this article: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd744330(v=ws.10).aspx

what this does when you reboot windows, is re-launches the mini-setup, which occurs when you normally install windows, and it will re-detect and install all system drivers. you will still have to update them when it's done. also, it can potentially mess your system up, so be prepared for that with backup (but if you plan to reinstall then no harm done anyways).

oh, as far as i recall, win7 has the additional requirement that you remove all user accounts except the built-in admin account before you can run the sysprep command, so it does wipe you user accounts settings in that sense too (of course, you have to remove the accounts manually yourself). may just be a brain fart... or not...

 

[Jahalon]

Hmmm, i'll await the tests first.. If i have any errors there it's likely my hardware is faulty.. Right? If not, well i suppose i'll try the sysprep then.

 

[Jahalon]

I've encountered 0 errors in any of the tests. Tried memtest first to test for errors in my RAM, nothing.. Then i tested my hard disk and 0 errors there.
i wonder if there is any other option then to reinstall my windows7.. As i don't really feel like doing that.

 

[Throumbas]

The errors have nothing to do with the witcher or any game. From my experience its probably a faulty hard drive connection. Maybe one of your sata cables is either not plugged in correctly or its somehow broken.

 

[Jahalon]

Hmmmm, that would kind of make sense to me.. I did have to return it to the shop when i first got it because it wouldn't boot (cable to HDD wasn't plugged in).
After doing some more research on the error code 0x000000f4 i noticed that it really does have something to do with HDD or RAM being faulty. So i'll open up my case, try to look at it myself (as little knowledge i have about it) Thanks for the answers so far guys! Really appreciate it.

 

[PrincessMassacre]

Hmmmm

well, often times, those things can manifest as IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL as well...

but even these can be faulty hardware/drivers too, not necessarily ram/hdd. that's why i suggested reinstalling all the system drivers.

however, the next most likely thing is a defective gpu/driver or motherboard (assuming motherboard and gpu are new, then its prob a driver issue in that regard).

also, have you changed the pagefile size?

also, just a random suggestion, are you using gamepad? try disabling windows power options, like monitor power off. not sure but 10-20 minute interval sounds suspect, and monitor power is not handled properly by the game. it minimizes it, and that 'may' crash on some setups.

disable antivirus too according to some posts.

 

[dilbaja]

same pc spec and same problem
need some neww solution

 

[dragonbird]

same pc spec and same problem
need some neww solution

Sorry, but BSOD probably means it's also the same solution, i.e. a hardware or low-level driver problem. Go through the suggestions given in this thread, and if it doesn't help, then please give more details of your spec and the problem you're encountering, and what you've already tried.

 

[SigilFey]

same pc spec and same problem
need some neww solution

Can you check (by physically opening the case) to ensure that you have a matching set of RAM chips installed? If the memory scans came back clear, and you don't experience any wacky HDD thrashing or crashing or warnings for the processor specifically, I would imagine it's the RAM. A mis-matched set can create timing issues that can lead to a BSoD even though nothing is "wrong" with the RAM itself.

 

[dilbaja]

thanks for not helping but i got my own solution on deskdecode

 

[SigilFey]

thanks for not helping but i got my own solution on deskdecode

No problem...I'll be sure to not help again if you should need it.

What was the solution? (There are many possible fixes on that page.)

 

[dilbaja]

i tried first three and fixed it