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I've been running my system for about a year and a half, the only heat issues I had was with Battlefield 4. I noticed then that my CPU easily went to 80°C, so I cut back on the Anti Aliasing etc, no problems since.

Over the lifetime of my PC, I've primarily used it for gaming and have had no problems, except for 2 BSOD's with something like Hkey Exception - after browsing it was nothing serious.

The problem now is, I've had 3 BSOD's in the past week. Obviously I'm rather worried, and took note of the last one - a few hours ago - which had the error KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED. Now I've found various "solutions" to this, ranging from a virus/malware to hardware failure, but I'm beginning to think there could be a lot more to it.

What I've found to be common with the BSOD's:

  • After some time powered on, I can startup League of Legends, join a game etc. but it will BSOD at ~10 minutes into the game.
  • Rejoining the game has no issues whatsoever (normally another half hour playing).
  • This does not occur for any successive games.
  • This does not occur every time I play after rebooting.

I've started some testing; Windows RAM/Memory tests have not shown any issues, SMART (from command prompt) shows drive as healthy, and GPU has had no problems whatsoever with other games.

However, when I test my CPU with Prime95, the temperature immediately skyrockets to >90°C. I'm guessing this is part of the problem, but wouldn't it continually crash/BSOD if that was the root?

Here's some details:

My System:

  • NVIDIA GeForce 670
  • 2x Rip Jaw 4GB RAM, 1600MHZ
  • Intel Core i5 3570 3.40GHz
  • ASUS ATX P8Z77-V-LX Mobo

BSOD Key: KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED

Cut/Paste straight from the Event Viewer:

>Log Name:      System
>Source:        Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power
>Date:          16/11/2014 8:03:12 PM
>Event ID:      41
>Task Category: (63)
>Level:         Critical
>Keywords:      (2)
>User:          SYSTEM
>Computer:      XXXX
>Description:
>The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down first. This error could be caused if the system stopped responding, crashed, or lost power unexpectedly.
>Event Xml:
>
>  
>    
>    41
>    3
>    1
>    63
>    0
>    0x8000000000000002
>    
>    63162
>    
>    
>    System
>    XXXX
>    
>  
>  
>    30
>    0xffffffffc0000096
>    0xfffff80208fb2182
>    0x0
>    0x0
>    0
>    0
>    0
>  
>

Is there anything else that could help?

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7
  • If you suspect overheating then I recommend running a tool to monitor the heat. E.g. coretemp or something similar. Keep that open on one monitor and play the games on another monitor. Note that you may be right. CPU temperature while running prime95 should not be that high. A quick google search shows people running that benchmark with the chip not exceeding 75°C. Which is already over the chips maximum temperate which this site reports at 67°C
    – Hennes
    Nov 16, 2014 at 14:13
  • (Using that site since I failed to find it on ark.intel.com). In short: Yes, it might be heat. Monitor the heat with a tool. If the CPU exceeds 67°C then you might have a problem with the cooling. In that case check fans, remove dust. Possibly apply new thermal paste. Etc etc. Plenty of post on that here on Super User. Just first check if it indeed is heat related.
    – Hennes
    Nov 16, 2014 at 14:16
  • @Hennes thanks for the response, any ideas about why only this set of events apparently BSOD's my PC? Having seen the Result from Prime95, I'm planning to clean my CPU extremely well, even replace it if necessary. To measure temp, I'm using PC Meter with some port of the Windows 7 gadgets of CPU load etc, but how could I confirm that it's heat related?
    – Oman
    Nov 17, 2014 at 0:13
  • You can not really confirm it. But a CPU should not exceed Tjunction. (Which is an temperature which the CPU itself measures. It if exceeds that it takes measures. E.g. first it stops turbo'ing. If that does not help enough it moves to emergency solutions like clocking down, of clock gating or even shutting the whole CPU down (which will cause your system to just hang) while asserting the PROCHOT signal. More importantly, if the CPU is too hot (and 95°C is too hot for a modern CPU) then it might make errors. And those can cause blue screens or worse.
    – Hennes
    Nov 17, 2014 at 6:45
  • With worse I mean that it could corrupt data. E.g. open your CV. Edit it. >random corruction here<, save it. Welcome lost data on disk. Damage to the CPU itself is not expected though. The CPU should completely shut itself off before that happens. And that means either a hang (just the CPU down) or a full PC power down (if the motherboard triggers on PROCHOT)
    – Hennes
    Nov 17, 2014 at 6:51

1 Answer 1

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If the problem is indeed the heat flow from the CPU, you can try to replace the thermal paste between the CPU and the cooler. Had my CPU overheat once b/c of this, replaced it, and it's running smooth ever since.

Also: Make sure the CPU fan is plugged in and working.

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1
  • I'm planning on cleaning the CPU up anyway, but I'm looking for some suggestions as to why it may be a specific scenario that BSOD's my PC. I know there's probably something wrong with the cooling, but that doesn't seem to be the primary cause.
    – Oman
    Nov 17, 2014 at 0:02

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