Replies

From the post, it looks like MB Premium and Defender at least.
I don’t use FaceBook/social media but my girlfriend does so am curious what drew you to the link Bruce.

Duh…I was never good at reading things carefully. Well this is depressing; it’s the same software I’m using although I’ve upgraded to MBAM 3.0 premium; maybe it’s a bit more diligent.

Just out of curiosity, are you running any AV or anti-malware software?

The Windows Club site has an article about this software:

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/ransomfree-free-ransomware-protection-software

It seems intriguing.

Rob

Adding System Files added merely a few KB.

Still waiting for Maintenance to finish. I’ve got my doubts, thinking I may have to abort the process. I’ll give it a few hours unless I’m told that’s much too long to wait.

On my system it can take 20-25 minutes to run.

My temporary internet files folder, C:UsersDesktopAppDataLocalMicrosoftWindowsINetCacheIE, is “empty.” Empty is in quotes because when hidden files are exposed, there are a few amounting to less than 2 MB. What is more than a little bothersome is that Window’s own Disk Cleaner reports 1.75 GB of temporary internet files. Further, it doesn’t “delete” these apparently non-existing files. Is this a real problem, or might I be messing up?

Dapster: Try this: Control Panel -> All Control Panel Items -> Security and Maintenance
Click on the Maintenance pull-down.
Click on Start Maintenance

When maintenance finishes, try Windows Disk Cleaner again.

Rob

I’m going to mark this thread as solved and thank satrow for his help. I’m having an issue on my machine; I’ve got 4 DIMM sockets and when one of them is populated, I get memory errors. All 4 of my DIMM modules check out error-free when tested in pairs so I’m pretty confident it’s not a problem with the actual memory. I don’t know if this is the source of all of my BSOD issues but it can’t be a good thing.

Rob

Satrow: I think I’m having RAM issues. I’ve got 4 DIMMS of 8GB RAM; if I test the machine with all 32GB, I get errors (Memtest86, Memtest86+, and Windows built-in memory test). I’ve taken 16GB out of the machine and tested again with no problems so I need to narrow this down.

Satrow: Attached is the data gathered from the Sysnative tool. Many thanks for looking into this (again).

Rob

Satrow: Thank you so much for plowing through the dump. I uninstalled the Intel driver (it’s the latest one for my Intel motherboard which unfortunately is no longer supported) and let Windows install an earlier driver (December 2015). Now I’m a bit on the fence about this. I’ll let the machine cook for a few days to see how stable it is; maybe I’ll put my Nvidia graphics card back in the machine; at least Nvidia is still creating drivers for it. I’m going to rebuild the machine in a week or so anyway so it doesn’t matter at this point.

One thing that kind of blew my mind is the HWiNFO64A.SYS driver; I have no idea why that’s on my system. I did some poking around and found it’s part of a freeware package at hwinfo.com. I know I never installed it. Furthermore, I noticed that sometimes when I would start DV right after a fresh boot, that driver would show in the list of drivers and other times it didn’t. It never shows up in Sysinternals Autoruns.

I did uninstall another piece of software; an Intel motherboard monitor which according to their site only supported Windows up to 8.1. The oldest driver, BrUsbSIb.sys, is for my Brother USB printer and it’s the latest driver from Brother and supposedly supports Windows 10.

Anyway, here’s hoping that reinstalling Windows will help.

Thanks again.

Rob

I’d much prefer to have more data to work from, the BSOD collection app. here makes a fine job of collecting it, attach the zipped folder here and I’ll take a look at it.

DV can be dangerous – really only if you don’t have a Restore Point or an alt. method of reverting, the instructions here should ensure you’re safe if you use it, the results from a verified crash dump can save a lot of time.

Satrow: I got my BSOD but no thanks to Driver Verifier. The machine crashed with a SYSTEM SERVICE EXCEPTION error. I got a minidump but for some reason no memory dump. In any case, I used the Sysnative tool to collect the crash data and I’ll upload it if you want to take a look at it.

The crash happened while I was creating a slideshow with “Memories on TV”; I was not burning a DVD; just creating a disk image. This crash has happened at least a few times while running this program. I contacted the vendor (the program hasn’t been updated in years) they don’t have any record of this being a problem with their product.

Using the Sysnative DV settings is probably the best, Rob.

Then that’s what I shall do!

Thanks.

Only because DV (with possible over enthusiastic settings) flagged it to call the crash.

DV would not normally crash immediately on reboot, it usually takes some hours, maybe as much as 24 – 36 (much more than that gets into the false positive realms) to lean on and flush out a bad driver.

Satrow: Can the settings be “over enthusiastic”? Trolling the Web, you find all sorts of advice on how to use it. When I set it up according to the Microsoft blog (all tests checked except for DDI compliance (which is weird…I’d think you’d want that) and low-resource utilization, my machine BSOD’d immediately on rebooting…each time it did it, I removed the software associated with the driver (first Mozy, then Virtual Box). The third time, when it flagged my Intel video driver, I rethought the whole thing because the Intel driver is the only one available for this motherboard.

Currently reinstalling Mozy, then I’ll reinstall Virtual Box…then I’ll restart DV using a combination of settings I found from two different sites and let it cook. Then, if all else fails, I’ll upload the files for review if I can stop myself from throwing this computer off a bridge.

Rob

I’ve never used Windows Backup for file level – they go onto USB sticks.

You may get the same error if you try to install that on top of your current version, so best to uninstall first.

Ugh. The plot thickens. After uninstalling Mozy, I rebooted with Driver Verifier. This time, it complained about a Virtual Box network driver during reboot, so I did my system restore, uninstalled Virtual Box, set up Driver Verifier again and rebooted. This time, it complained about my Intel video driver during reboot. At this point I’m thinking that all of my drivers can’t be having problems. The way I was setting up Driver Verifier was from a Microsoft blog that tells you to check-off every test except for DDI compliance checking and randomized low-resource simulation. A blog entry on tenforums tells you to only check I/O verification, force pending I/O requests and IRP logging. I set-up DV with just those seetings, rebooted. No problems. I then referenced a blog from another thread on this site (Sysnative) which has you checking-off these tests:

Special Pool
Force IRQL checking
Pool Tracking
Deadlock Detection
Security Checks (new as of Windows 7)
Miscellaneous Checks
Power framework delay fuzzing (new as of Windows 8)
DDI compliance checking (new as of Windows 8)

I set up another DV test with those settings, rebooted, and no issues so far. My next step will be to reinstall Mozy and Virtual Box which may have been victims of too-aggressive testing with Driver Verifier (if that’s even possible).

Nothing’s easy any more.

I just use and always have, used Windows own system image and only ever had one fail, but use more than one external HDD as a fall back.

The older version that is available would probably generate prompts for updates, but would have thought their newer version would have been available as a direct download, unless that is their starter version.

When you install an OS – they don’t come with the latest updates.

Does the program have a check for updates facility ?

I should probably spend some time learning about Windows’ built-in backup. I used to use NTBACKUP a million years ago; I liked its flexibility. When Microsoft removed the ability to run their backup tool to backup files at the file level (not a disk image) I went to third-party products. Having said that…I did hear back from Mozy; they want me to install a backleveled version of the program (was sent a direct link to the file) so I’ll try that. The program does have a “check for updates” facility and I don’t believe you can shut it off but it does prompt you to update the program and you can dismiss the prompt without updating.

Rob

When you get that, you would uninstall first and then download – http://support.mozy.co.uk/articles/en_US/FAQ/Clean-uninstall-reinstall-of-Mozy-on-Windows

I prefer my back ups to be on terra firma in external HDDs.

What antivirus program are you using as that could be playing a part in this.

Sudo: I’m using Windows Defender and Malwarebytes Anti-malware (commercial version). Thanks for the link; I was on Mozy’s web site last night and the only version of the client software I can find (including your link) is a version older than what I’m already running. I’ll wait to see if they respond to my problem ticket.

As far as backups go, I use both Mozy (well, maybe not for long if they can’t fix this) and NovaBACKUP for my terra-firma backup to an external HDD. I’m a belt-and-suspenders type when it comes to backups; must be because I’m an old mainframe guy.

Rob