Getting a BSOD minutes into spawning in

[Indy (DayZ) 0]

So I've been playing DayZ for the past two weeks and I'm really enjoying it so far. Although one issue I've came across recently is that I'm getting a blue screen of death now just minutes after logging and spawning in to a server. The BSOD becomes more persistent by the day now and it's really starting to get on my nerves. I've updated drivers, ran windows update and downloaded a bunch of stuff there, and I also reseated my RAM. I would do a system restore but I don't have a restore point saved before the problem started happening, and I REALLY do not want to do a clean reinstall of Windows 7.

I also ran a program called BlueScreenView and the BSOD seems to be caused by the same .exe file (ntoskrnl.exe), just in different variations. The most recent minidump file seemed to be caused by ataport.SYS but previous ones have mainly been caused by ntoskrnl.exe. I'm also getting the same error on the BSOD every single time, noted as "DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL".

Here is the information from my most recent minidump file.

Dump File: 080412-38313-01.dmp

Crash Time: 8/4/2012 5:36:24 PM

Bug Check String: DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

Bug Check Code: 0x000000d1

Parameter 1: fffff800`014a3521

Parameter 2: 00000000`0000000d

Parameter 3: 00000000`00000008

Parameter 4: fffff800`014a3521

Caused by Driver: ataport.SYS

Caused by Address: ataport.SYS+3e32

Processor: x64

Crash Address: ntoskrnl.exe+7f1c0

Full Path: C:\Windows\Minidump\080412-38313-01.dmp

Processors Count: 4

Major Version: 15

Minor Version: 7601

Dump File Size: 291,392

If there are any BSOD experts on this forum then some help to fix this would be nice. If it helps the only programs I have running when I play DayZ are TeamSpeak, Steam, and then the game itself obviously.

[Sgt.Asshat 607]

Try updating you GFX card driver

[Indy (DayZ) 0]

Try updating you GFX card driver

I've updated drivers

[Tag (DayZ) 2]

I've had BSOD happen once in DayZ. It was because my rig over heated/needed new thermal paste. Fixed that and haven't had a problem since. o.o

[Indy (DayZ) 0]

I've had BSOD happen once in DayZ. It was because my rig over heated/needed new thermal paste. Fixed that and haven't had a problem since. o.o

Interesting. I noticed when I was going to reseat my RAM that my computer was pretty hot. I got this CPU fan in my computer right now a few months back and it came with thermal paste, so I may try that.

[@ndreas 15]

... since using Win XP I never encountered a BSOD again, now I use Win 7, haven't had any of them yet, only freezes.

But the heat could be the cause for your BSOD, you may want to look at your mainboards temperature, because that is some bottleneck (most BIOSs have clean shut-down enabled for CPU-overheating, and nowadays GPUs tolerate a lot of heat, so often the northbridge is the compound that causes a freeze due to overheating - every hot compound in you PC, especially GPU and RAM, can lead to overheating the mainboard.

You should not get temperatures on your mainboard near 60°C, better stay around 50°C or a freeze will be likely occur.

[SmokingAce 0]

Had BSOD for sometime before, always after gaming for just couple of minutes. It turned out that of the my RAM sticks was damaged. Nothing visual seen by eye.

I suggest running 'memtest' for a night to see if there's a problem in there. (Alternative option, but also good to check even if memtest doesn't detect any faults)Try playing around with one RAM stick at a time and see what happens (incase you have more than one).

Before buying randomly new stuff and putting money on trying things out, try figuring where the fault lies.

And I also suggest downloading 'CPUID Hardware Monitor' for temperatures your computer is running at, as fault might lie there as well.

[Indy (DayZ) 0]

Alright, so I put in new thermal paste last night and so far no issues. Played for about an hour and a half last night after applying the new thermal paste and I didn't get a single BSOD. Not sure if it fully fixed my problem but if it doesn't I'll be sure to come back here.