[Solved] Frequent BSODs whenever using a torrent client.

[Jay Owen]

I've been getting lots of bluescreens lately for the past few weeks, and I managed to figure out that they seem to happen the most while a torrent client is open. I used to use Deluge, but uninstalling it and installing qBittorent made the time between the crashes spread out, but didn't stop them from happening. I've also tried limiting my maximum connections to 200 (This kept me from bluescreening for about 6 days) and my maximum half-open connections to 10 to no avail. I've tried updating every driver I could find, running driver verifier, disabling startup apps, running memtest, and pretty much everything short of flashing my BIOS. And even more troubling, lately Windows hasn't been saving Minidumps (I've checked the recovery setting and my pagefile setting, and both seem to be right), and qBittorent's settings reset to default every time I crash.
Here's my speccy: http://speccy.piriform.com/results/iPek ... QOgPTnguNE

[Nemo]

BSODs are mainly hardware problems and as far I know isn't caused by qBIttorrent, im almost 100% sure about it.

[Jay Owen]

I'm sure there's some sort of connection between torrent clients and my bluescreens. I've done a clean boot, and if I have any torrent client I have open, I'll crash within a few hours. I clean booted, and didn't run qBittorent and I didn't crash for days until I ran qBittorrent. I usually have a lot of torrents in my client, and I don't think my network card can handle the connections being made. Are there any settings I can use that could help with this?

[ciaobaby]

Network cards are the first suspect when bittorrent clients are the catalyst for a fatal exception, the "blue screen" will say what actually caused the conflict.

What OS is this on and have you "patched" tcpip.sys to increase the M$ default of 10 'half-open' connections?

What anti-virus and Internet Security are you using?

[Jay Owen]

[quote="ciaobaby"]
Network cards are the first suspect when bittorrent clients are the catalyst for a fatal exception, the "blue screen" will say what actually caused the conflict.

What OS is this on and have you "patched" tcpip.sys to increase the M$ default of 10 'half-open' connections?

What anti-virus and Internet Security are you using?
[/quote]I'm on Win7 Ultimate, SP1, I haven't done the patch you mentioned, and I'm using MSE.
Edit: I ran the patch, and it said it wasn't required on my version of Windows.

[ciaobaby]

I only added the patching for completeness. It is only required for pre Vista OS releases.

As Nemo stated qBitTorrent is not the cause of the blue screen event, but it is the catalyst for the event. Knowing the driver or process that is named on the blue screen will help in identifying what and why.

In the meantime if it is the network card/driver, you should experiment with connection settings in Tools -> Options -> Connection. The 'best' settings depend on how many jobs your client will normally be handling and 'more' is not always 'better' so start off with what seems low at around 50 global and 5 - 8 per torrent and if that stops the exeptions, if it does you can increase the numbers until they re-occur. Then back the values down 5% and you have your ideal for your current system.

Also in Tools -> Options -> Advanced, set "Maximun number of half-open ..."  to 30 or less, don't 'play' with that setting until you have found the ideal connection limits.

[Nemo]

Would too many connections be the cause for a BSOD? There is a small chance to that; too many connections will cause lag or disconnect completely (or hang for seconds/mintues) and if lucky come back later, or your router can restart things like that. Only one thing that makes me think is that the network drivers are not correctly working and giving errors resulting to BSOD. As far I can read is that this happens most of the time when he is using a torrent client (any) which makes connections and then causing BSOD. He says '''seem to happen the most while a torrent client is open'', so even if he isn't using a client he gets randomly a BSOD so its not caused by torrent clients (which im 100% sure about it like I have said earlier).

If you can somehow capture the code or file that is shown when there is BSOD that can help to clarifiy this situation that would be great.

Also ciao gave you some great advices try them out too, just play a bit with your settings to get the best that works for you.

[Jay Owen]

[quote="Nemo"]If you can somehow capture the code or file that is shown when there is BSOD that can help to clarifiy this situation that would be great.[/quote]I attached my minidump folder with dumps from the past few weeks in the OP.

[ciaobaby]

According to the minidumps you have a rogue program called SpyWare Terminator.

[Jay Owen]

[quote="ciaobaby"]
According to the minidumps you have a rogue program called SpyWare Terminator.
[/quote]How did you get that from the minidumps? There's nothing in my Programs in Features or in either of my Program Files folders that I don't recognize.

[ciaobaby]

You have to find the driver or file that actually caused the exception then find out what application is associated with that particular file.

There's nothing in my Programs in Features or in either of my Program Files folders that I don't recognize.

Have you run HijackThis to see what is running that you don't know about? These 'useful' program are not always apparent once they have made a home in your machine.

It's a bit like having mice in the house, you only know they are when the crap starts appearing.!

[ironcross]

I don't think Spyware Terminator is a rogue program. It's offered by Filehippo, Softpedia, Kaldata and others; as far as I know, they don't spread malicious or rogue software.
In the last 3 dmp files the problem maybe comes from the Flash player, Borderlands 2 and Firefox. It can be RAM or HDD problem.

[Jay Owen]

I definitely don't have Spyware Terminator. Here's my HJT log: http://pastebin.com/c5N4G3va

[ciaobaby]

Not 'Rogue' as in the malware/PuP, but 'Rogue' as in the "Interfering with data" rogue

It's offered by Filehippo, Softpedia, Kaldata and others; as far as I know, they don't spread malicious or rogue software.

So are "Spyware Hunter 4" and  "Driver Update" but I wouldn't want either of those on my machines.


The HJT log shows a few possible system file problems,  you may want to the "System File Checker" (type sfc /scannow into an elevated command window) to eliminate or rectify them.

Also I suggest you remove the "Windows Sidebar" component, it has been discontinued and removed by Microsoft because of "Security Concerns", which in MS speak means it has more holes than the average teabag.

[Jay Owen]

Updating my BIOS fixed it. It's been 5 days and I haven't crashed at all.