Welcome to the site Whalebat.

Our BSOD team will usually need to see some .dmp files... http://www.pchelpforum.com/blue-scr...w-post-your-blue-screen-death.html#post168982

Thank you, a BSOD analyst should be along to take a look...

Have confirmed that Viahduaa.sys is the cause of your stop errors, have you tried to update this driver at all?

The original driver (VIA HD Audio) can be downloaded from: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. - Motherboards - ASUS M2N68 - which contains the latest (Aug 2009) version of the driver.

Hi Whalebat,

Those are no small questions really.. stop error analysis can go pretty deep depending on the type of stop error, which can be detected by software (Windows Kernel) or by hardware in the form of an MCE (Machine Check Exception) reported by the CPU. See also: Machine Check Exception - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I see you were already familiar with the "lmvm" command within the debugger, which is just one such command you can use to find information about a particular driver. You would normally be able to get more information than this from drivers which have been digitally signed by Microsoft, and for that reason will also have it's own symbol. Symbols are used to debug drivers, so for example, say if I was do the same thing with my audio driver "hdaudio.sys", I see much more detailed info:

Code:

fffff880`0f06f000 fffff880`0f0cb000   HdAudio  \SystemRoot\system32\drivers\HdAudio.sys
    Symbol file: HdAudio.sys
    Mapped memory image file: C:\Program Files\Debugging Tools for Windows (x64)\sym\HdAudio.sys\4A5BCC235c000\HdAudio.sys
    Image name: HdAudio.sys
    Timestamp:        Tue Jul 14 01:06:59 2009 (4A5BCC23)
    CheckSum:         0005D09C
    ImageSize:        0005C000
    File version:     6.1.7600.16385
    Product version:  6.1.7600.16385
    File flags:       0 (Mask 3F)
    File OS:          40004 NT Win32
    File type:        3.9 Driver
    File date:        00000000.00000000
    Translations:     0409.04b0
    CompanyName:      Microsoft Corporation
    ProductName:      Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
    InternalName:     HDAudio.sys
    OriginalFilename: HDAudio.sys
    ProductVersion:   6.1.7600.16385
    FileVersion:      6.1.7600.16385 (win7_rtm.090713-1255)
    FileDescription:  High Definition Audio Function Driver
    LegalCopyright:   © Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Your logs were very easy. If you see all of your logs showing "Probably caused by" one particular driver (in this case viahduaa.sys), then you can bet that this driver was cause. The fact that it was unsigned also means that it hasn't gone through Microsoft Logo Program, which is designed to ensure drivers are properly tested. Drivers need to be tested because they run in what is known as "Kernel Mode", which gives them privileged access to hardware resources. Your day to day "User Mode" software, such as Microsoft Word doesn't have direct access to hardware, and therefore should never cause this kind of problem.

See also: Windows Programming/User Mode vs Kernel Mode - Wikibooks, open books for an open world

Other logs are not quite so easy, and often require further digging to get to the root of the problem. It does help if you have C++ programming experience. Other times, especially when hardware is suspected, further investigation is required outside of Windows Debug, such as using the Event Logs, Performance Monitor and Data Collectors, System Information reports, as well as using 3rd party tools such as Memory Diagnostics (common), HDD Diagnostics, CPU-Z, Speedfan and perhaps even Stress tests.. it really depending on what problems are suspected.

In terms of testing, usually time will tell. However, the driver can be tested using Verifier. To use driver verifier:

- First make sure you can access Safe Mode (with Networking preferably), by tapping [F8] during startup. If verifier detects a problem, you may not be able to start in normal mode.
- Go to Start and in the search bar type in verifier
- At the start of wizard, click Next.
- Click Automatically select all drivers installed on this computer (or use it to simply verify the Viahduaa driver) followed by Finish, and then restart the PC.

If you receive any BSOD's during the course of using verifier, the logs will contain the results of any driver problems. To turn off driver verifier, simply go back to the verifier wizard again in Safe Mode, and select Delete existing settings.

See also: Using Driver Verifier to identify issues with Windows drivers for advanced users

You can delete previous logs either by simply deleting them out of the \windows\minidump folder, or you can run the Disk Cleanup tool (My Computer, right click on your local disk and go to Properites and you'll find the Disk Cleanup tool here).

There are several articles which can help you diagnose problems based on error code:
- Bug Check Codes (Windows Driver Kit)
- Troubleshooting Windows STOP Messages
- Windows XP Stop Errors

Eventually, the following threads will also help:
- Ntdebugging Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs
- Memory Dump, Software Trace, Debugging and Malware Analysis Portal | Patterns for Structural and Behavioral Analysis of Software

Several books which you may also be interested in:
- Welcome to Advanced Windows Debugging, windows debugging portal,ntsd,cdb,windbg,kernel mode debugging, user mode debugging,windows debugging,Debugging Tools for Windows,application verifier, appverifier,app verifier, umdh, leakdiag, debugdiag, gflags
- X64 Windows Debugging by Dmitry Vostokov - Reviews, Description & more - ISBN#9781906717568 - BetterWorldBooks.com
(^ who also owns the dumpanalysis web site).

Full training in this thread is a little out of the scope here, but if your interested in helping others in this area, please let me know via PM.

heeeehehehe, thanks for the picture Whalebat.. will treasure it forever.

Will mark this one as solved.. thanks again for the update.

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This thread is now marked as Solved and has been closed.

If the problem re-occurs, please start a new thread. If for any reason it has any bearing on your original thread then please state this and a member of staff will supply the link to the original post.

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