Solved BSOD while gaming - CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED 0xef

Hi, I just built a gaming rig and I have Windows 8 64bit installed. After stress testing my system to ensure it was stable and running well, I jumped into a few games on Steam. During anything else, like Unigine Heaven or any other benchmarking software, it runs like a dream. However, while gaming, my screen locks up and my sound starts stuttering over time, sometimes recovering back into the game, others not at all, and often resulting in a Critical Process Died BSOD with a reference to ntoskrnl.exe. I'm a bit perplexed at this issue, as this is all brand new, high end hardware on a 2-day install of Windows.

I am currently running at stock speeds on an i5 4670K, although I was stable at 4.5 to 4.6GHz before setting back to defaults in BIOS to see if I could narrow down the problem.

Zippyshare.com - Minidumps.zip

I have uploaded my minidump files in case anyone would like to check them out for me. I'd really appreciate some insight into this. Thanks in advance, and please let me know if you need anything else from me to help you better understand my situation.

I just saw the sticky on using the SF Diagnostic Tool, and uploaded it to this thread. Hope this helps! My apologies for not doing this from the start.

Hi,

Uninstall this software:

CorsairLINK_HardwareMonitor CorsairLINK_HardwareMonitor.sys Sat Jul 26 09:29:37 2008 (488B26C1)

Let us know how it goes. We'll fix it up if that doesn't.

While you're at it though, update from ASUS in Downloads/Utilities:

AsIO AsIO.sys Wed Aug 22 05:54:47 2012 (5034AC67)
AsUpIO AsUpIO.sys Mon Aug 02 22:47:59 2010 (4C57835F)

ATK Package, Probe II

It actually could be a faulty PSU, which is what I thought initially. But then I saw that Corsair driver, so....

Thanks for the reply, Master Chief. What exactly is happening with the driver that is causing issues? The Link software is used for my water loop, need it to control fan speed and the like, but I've heard only bad things with Windows 8. I have ran extensive testing and benchmarking so I'm sure my PSU is handling the load very well. I will be able to get to my PC later tonight, I will uninstall it and update the ASUS drivers then and get back to you.

So, it seems after uninstalling the Link software, I am 100% stable while in-game. Hopefully Corsair fixes any issues with this software in future, but for the time being, I can live without it knowing that my rig is finally stable.

Thank you very much for your help, and I will be sure to come back and update you in the near future if any other problems do happen to arise! Appreciate it!

Good deal, yup, I figured. Enjoy!

Have you checked for latest software for that, that hopefully has 2013 or newer drivers (instead of what came on CD or DVD?)

Yep, that was the latest right from the website. Never install off disk lol. But yeah, apparently 8.1 has introduced a ton of issues with it so I'm unfortunately not able to do anything about it until corsair releases a fix.