BSOD caused by pci.sys when starting 1 specific game

[mtlife]

Hello,
I'm having trouble launching "Heroes of Newerth", which previously always worked fine. (But crashed sometimes, randomly) Now it crashes my pc before it gets to the menu, S2Games logo is visible, after that it goes blank. The way my pc crashes is also strange, its ALWAYS first my monitor goes blank (sound still works, and I can even talk to people on skype) and a few seconds later it reboots. Seems to me something is wrong with the video card, so I updated the drivers, also updated sound drivers, network drivers and reinstalled directx. I even tried to disable sound card via the bios, and downclock my memory via the bios. Nothing worked, same errors.

System:
AMD X2-64 4200+
MSI - K9VGM-V
ATI X1950 Pro Pci-Express
2 gig ram
WD500
NEC DVD Writer and LG DVD Rom
Coolermaster G-Lite 400Watt

ps. Crashed the same way on COD Modern Warfare 2, but rarely!

 

[Archean]

Here is brief description of your minidumps:

1st file:
Process: speedfan.exe / pci.sys
BugCheck: 10000050
PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA (50)
Invalid system memory was referenced. This cannot be protected by try-except,
it must be protected by a Probe. Typically the address is just plain bad or it
is pointing at freed memory.

2nd & 3rd, 4th & 5th
BUGCHECK_STR: 0x50
PROCESS_NAME: hon.exe
IMAGE_NAME: pci.sys

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: 0x50_pci!PciExternalReadDeviceConfig+85

This can be either a sign of failing hardware or a faulty driver. First thing I would ask you to do is, run memtest (for atleast 10+ passes), and OCCT to stress test your graphics card.

If you have multiple RAM modules, and if memtest finds errors, please run it on each module separately to isolate the stick which may be causing this.

Please update about the test results, and let me know if I could be of any further assistance. Regards

 

[mtlife]

I ran memtest and occt, memtest returned with 0 errors on 2200% (2 processes), occt did crash the pc a few times but for some strange reason there are no new minidumps in the minidump directory. First I ran occt gpu (cant test gpu mem, because my chipset doesnt support cuda?) with default settings, and it crashed. Again tried default settings, crashed again. Then I decided to build it up a bit, ran it for 6 minutes first, no crash, then 20 minutes, no crash. Again with 30 minutes, no crash and eventually 60 minutes and now crash. I changed the shader complexity to 8, while default is 0 and ran the default test of 1 hour again, no crash. Then I changed it back to default shader complexity and it crashed after 35 minutes or so.

I attached the latest succesful ran test. Seems like there is something wrong with my video card, but what? Bios settings, driver settings, bad drivers, conflicted drivers?

 

[Archean]

You need to run memtest for atleast 10 or more passes, as sometimes it need all that time to find errors. Even more ideal would be to run it for the whole night.

And yes, at this moment your graphic card seems to the culprit; when was the last time you cleaned out your PC? if you can service it with air canister (removing all dust etc.) and also ensure the car is seated properly in the PCI-E slot. Regards

 

[mtlife]

Ok, memtest did run overnight, thats why the 2000% (20 passes?) with no errors. I cleaned out my pc, vacuum cleaner and everything and used a straw to get to the hard to reach places on the video card. Removed it from the pci slot, cleaned out the slot and did the same with the memory. Then tried to boot, start HON with no succes, again a reboot occured.

Next I resetted the bios settings to default and tried to load it with that, still the same. Logo shows, then reboot after the mouse cursor changes and the menu loads (sound of menu animation plays, but then it reboots). I already updated the drivers, maybe a complete reinstall of the drivers? I already reinstalled the game without succes.

 

[Archean]

I am unsure its a drivers re-installation issue, but there is no harm in trying it either, don't forget to clean out any remaining traces of older drivers with Driver Sweeper or Driver Cleaner, before installing latest drivers.

 

[mtlife]

Mmm seems like it wasn't a driver problem, I did find out something else though. When I reinstalled the driver (and cleaned it with driver sweeper), before I changed my desktop resolution to 1600x1200 I was curious if it helped, so I booted HON. And too my surprise, HON started normally but only in 640x480. I changed the resolution, to 1280x1024@75hz and boom. Crash. That is, all in fullscreen. The game seems to boot windowed, but crashes as soon as it goes fullscreen in 1280. Very strange behaviour if you ask me...

 

[Archean]

Which version of HON you are using by the way? is it beta?

 

[mtlife]

yes its the open beta, but for as far as I know software and computers, if there is something wrong in the program the program crashes and not windows.

 

[Archean]

That is the case usually, but at times such situations do causes the whole OS to crash, and as its a beta software, most likely many of the bugs has not yet been ironed out, so if the system works perfectly stable in all other situations, than you have your suspect i.e. HON.

 

[mtlife]

mmm I will contact their tech support and also link them to these forums. Still seems strange to me though, will let you know what their answer is.

 

[Archean]

Alright, goodluck. Regards