BSOD Caused by a Symantec driver Win7 x64; NIS v. 20.4.0.40

Hello,

 

My HP Pavilion M6 laptop randomly crashes after booting up on certain occasions.

The problem began earlier this month and it has happened many times now.

I have confirmed with an external source that the cause is my NIS.

 

Here is a link for the dump files; please disregard the older dump files,

 

https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=31A515A4D887B0B9!209&authkey=!AMWPDJxOJjHONJw&ithint=file%2c.rar

 

BSOD details:

 

Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
  OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.768.3
  Locale ID: 4105

Additional information about the problem:
  BCCode: a
  BCP1: 0000000000000000
  BCP2: 0000000000000002
  BCP3: 0000000000000001
  BCP4: FFFFF800030D6C3F
  OS Version: 6_1_7601
  Service Pack: 1_0
  Product: 768_1

Files that help describe the problem:
  C:\Windows\Minidump\021314-35927-01.dmp
  C:\Users\user\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-131165-0.sysdata.xml

Read our privacy statement online:
  http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=104288&clcid=0x0409

If the online privacy statement is not available, please read our privacy statement offline:
  C:\Windows\system32\en-US\erofflps.txt

 

What do I need to do to my NIS to stop the problem?

 

Thanks


dpat94 wrote:

I have confirmed with an external source that the cause is my NIS.


Hi dpat94:

 

Welcome to the Norton forum.

Could you please use the free utility from Nirsoft called BlueScreenView to interpret and summarize Bug Check (BC) codes in the Windows dump files created after your BSODs.  This might give us more information about the specific driver or module causing the BSODs.

1.  Download BlueScreenView from http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html
2.  Unzip the downloaded file (no installation required) and double-click BlueScreenView.exe to run
3.  When scan is completed, go to Edit | Select All
4.  Go to File | Save Selected Items and save the report as a text file named BSOD.txt
5.  Attach BSOD.txt to your next post (see here for instructions)

When you post back could you also explain what "external source"confirmed that this problem is caused by a Symantec driver?  If you posted about this problem in another forum could you please provide a link to the thread so that we know what other troubleshooting steps you've taken.

 

Thanks to delphinium for suggesting the BlueScreenView utility here in a previous thread.
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MS Windows 32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox 27.0.1* IE 9.0 * NIS 2013 v. 20.4.0.40 * BlueScreenView v. 1.52
HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo CPU T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS

Hi Imacri,

 

Attached is the BSOD.txt file.

 

And below is the link to the microsoft forum I posted in when I was not aware of what was causing the problem. Have a look and let me know.

 

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/0693d2c5-819e-4395-92cb-7168b1e67092/windows-7-x64-blue-screen-local-id-4105?forum=w7itproperf

 

 

Thanks

Hello dpsat94

 

I just went to look at your Forum link and it is requesting that I sign in. I don't know if I have to sign in to see your Forum or if you have to sign in to see your Forum. I haven't tried to sign in though.

Basically they said what they always say:

 

"Norton is a frequent cause of crashes, remove it and install MSE as a test, bla bla bla".

 

They say the dump files posted there point to netio.sys, and the ones here say ntoskrnl.exe.

I'm not knowledgeable enough to figure out the rest, maybe because Norton also starts with an n?

 

Dave

 

 

 

Hi dpat94:

I agree with DaveH's comments.  Norton community member cgreeley recently posted in the Microsoft Answers forum here about a BSODs that initially appeared to be caused by a Symantec driver, but when he uninstalled Norton as instructed and switched to Windows Defender the BSODs continued and were eventually traced backed to a problem with an out-of-date driver for his Intel Smart Connect Technology Agent (iSCTD64.sys).  It seems to be standard practice in the Microsoft forums to ask users experiencing BSODs to uninstall their security software if the manufacturer is Symantec, McAfee or any other non-Microsoft company.

I'm not an expert when it comes to troubleshooting Win 7 BSODs, but your BlueScreenView summary indicates that all four BSODs since 05-Feb-2014 have a bug check code of 0x0000000a (IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL) that involve your Windows NT kernel - see the MSDN support article here for more information regarding problems with faulty access to paged or invalid memory.  Since you're running NIS v. 20.4.0.40 I'll assume that you've had it on your system for a while (I updated from v. 20.3 to v. 20.4 back in June 2013) and haven't performed a major NIS update lately.  Both ntoskrnl.exe and netio.sys are Windows files and at this point I can't see any evidence in either of your threads that would clearly implicate a corrupted NIS installation as the cause of your BSODs.

Unfortunately, your BlueScreenView report doesn't point to a quick fix like a NIS re-install or hardware driver update that might prevent these BSODs so it might make more sense to continue troubleshooting in the Microsoft TechNet forum where they have more experitise with Windows problems.  By any chance did you run a Windows utility like Check Disk (chkdsk /r) or System File Checker (sfc /scannow) from an elevated command prompt  to see if these utilities could find and/or repair any probelms with you hard disk or Windows sytem files before you posted in the TechNet forum, or even a Norton AutoFix diagnostic from your NIS GUI (Support | Get Support) ?  I would advise against running these utilities now since you've already started troubleshooting in the TechNet forum, but I'm curious if you have the results of any of these diagnostics on hand.

 

Post back and let us know if team ZigZag manages to isolate the cause.

------------
MS Windows 32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox 27.0.1* IE 9.0 * NIS 2013 v. 20.4.0.40
HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo CPU T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS

Hi Imacri,

 

Will try that and see.

 

And just to make sure, is there any other chance it could have to do with NIS?

 

I've noticed the BSOD only occurs when NIS has not started up/is starting up after I log on. It never happens after the NIS logo shows up in the bottom right corner. It  has never blue screeened once NIS has started up.

 

Just something I noticed.

 

Let me know

Thanks,

 

Hi dpat94:

 

Never say never. :smileyvery-happy:  If your BSODs are related to NIS and version 20.4.0.40 has been on your system for a number of months, the most likely scenario would be that a recently updated Windows file, hardware driver, or new software installation (possibly software that also loads during your Windows start-up) is now conflicting with NIS v. 20.4.0.40 and causing your BSODs.

 

If I believed that a corrupted NIS 20.x installation was the cause of my BSODs, I would normally test that theory by either performing a clean re-install of NIS 2013 (v. 20.4.0.40)  using Phil_D's instructions here or upgrading to the latest NIS 2014 (v. 21.1.1.7)  using Tony_Weiss' instructions here.  That being said, please don't make any changes to your system without getting approval from team ZigZag since they've already invested quite a bit of time troubleshooting your BSODs in the TechNet forum.

 

There's nothing wrong with following team ZigZag's suggestion to uninstall NIS and wipe all traces of this software off your system with the Norton Removal Tool to see if that solves the BSODs.  The only concern I have with their appraoch is that if you install Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) for the duration of your testing and decide to re-install NIS at a later date, you will have to ensure that MSE is completely wiped off your system before re-installing NIS.  Any orphaned files and/or registry entries left behind by the MSE uninstall could potentially conflict with your re-installed NIS and create a whole new set of problems for you.

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MS Windows 32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox 27.0.1* IE 9.0 * NIS 2013 v. 20.4.0.40
HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo CPU T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS

Thanks Imacri.

 

Will let you know about the root cause once the issue is resolved

Hi dpat94:

If you're interested, there's a BSOD tutorial on the Help Desk Geek site here with lots of useful information.  This article mentions that the BlueScreenView report occasionally shows the incorrect driver as the cause of the BSOD because it assumes the last driver to load before the crash is responsible, but also note that the lower panel on the BlueScreenView GUI highlights the drivers found in the crash stack and lists all drivers loaded at the time of the crash.  Here's a screenshot of what BlueScreenView looks like on my system where a BSOD problem was fixed by updating the drivers for my NVIDIA graphics card.

 

BlueScreenView Sample.png

Your comments in message # 7 regarding the timing of your BSODs caught my attention.  I have Norton's Boot Time Protection (Settings | Computer | Real Time Protection | Enable Boot Time Protection) set to Aggressive to ensure NIS always loads early in the boot process and starts my malware protection as quickly as possible.   If team ZigZag traces your BSODs back to a Symantec driver, you might want to try adjusting your Boot Time Protection setting to see if loading NIS earlier (or later) in the boot process affects the frequency of your BSODs.

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MS Windows 32-bit Vista Home Premium SP2 * Firefox 27.0.1* IE 9.0 * NIS 2013 v. 20.4.0.40 * BlueScreenView v. 1.52
HP Pavilion dv6835ca, Intel Core2Duo CPU T5550 @ 1.83 GHz, 3.0 GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS

Thanks for all the help Imacri.

 

I will give it a try when I get a chance.