Reformatted, still having problems

[Pulse]

Well as you may recall I've had countless problems with my computer that have dragged on over the past year or so, as displayed here and here. Today I thought I had elivated them all by successfully reformating my hard drive- oh if only that were the case.

I reinstalled windows fine, downloaded SP2, got all the updates, updated all my drivers etc. and then BAM! A blue screen of death makes it first of many appearances on my brand new install! :cheese: At this point I just wanted to pick the rig up and hurl it out of my window, as it seems no matter what I do now I am unable to create some form of stability with this miserable pile of various metals and wires.

I'm 99% convinced now that it is a hardware issue; most likely directly related to my RAM.

Would purchasing new RAM sticks solve my problems? After a year of putting up with these bastard blue screens I'm very seriously considering getting a new rig now, I'm not even bothered by the specs, I just want something that is stable and will run HL2 and source games to a decent standard for a decent price.

Anyway back to the point, new RAM; will it make a difference?

 

[Sedako]

If definitely sounds like faulty hardware is causing you to bluescreen. It could be any of your components, not just the RAM. Let's see if we can pinpoint it though. First you'll want to start out by downloading Memtest 86+:

http://www.memtest.org/download/1.70/memtest86+-1.70.iso.zip

Extract the .iso and burn it to a CD as an image, then have your PC boot to that CD. Give it time to run though the tests (probably overnight) and if there are any errors with the RAM, it should detect them. If it doesn't, we can see if any of the other components are causing the blue screens.

 

[MRG]

"BSOD" or Blue Screen Of Death, can be the cause from several factors. RAM is one of them like mentioned above & testing them is a good idea. Have just one stick in at a time & see how things run.

Does the problem happen more so under certain conditions?

When you reinstalled windows, did you use the quick format option or did you go with the other option? Also when you reinstalled windows, did you delete the partition and then create a new one to install windows on?

You said you updated your drivers, which is good, but are you sure you got them all? Video card? Sound Card? Motherboard Chipset & Bios? Have you installed any new hardware that your motherboard might not fully support? Any single piece of hardware can cause issues if your motherboard does not provide full support. Perhaps check to see if there is a Bios update for your motherboard.

BSOD is often caused by faulty media on your Hard Drive. Do you have SMART enabled in the Bios by chance? Also are you using any "Beta" drivers of any kind?

A Blue Screen of Death (also known as a stop error, BSOD or bluescreen) is an error screen displayed by certain operating systems, most notably Microsoft Windows, after encountering a critical system error which can cause the system to shut down to prevent damage. Bluescreens can be caused by poorly written device drivers, faulty memory, a corrupt Registry, or incompatible DLLs. Bluescreens have been present in all Windows-based operating systems since Windows 3.1; OS/2 and MS-DOS suffered the Black Screen of Death, and early builds of Windows Vista displayed the Red Screen of Death after a boot loader error.

In Windows XP, stop messages generally take one of five forms:

1. Software errors during Windows operation. Software or device drivers installed in your computer may have errors or problems which cause a stop error, either constantly or under certain conditions.

2. Hardware errors during Windows operation. If a hardware device malfunctions or is removed during the operation of Windows, or if your hardware does not fully support the operations that XP expects it to support, a hardware stop error will occur. Outdated BIOS information on older computers might also be an issue.

3. Installation errors. The Windows XP installation process is the most sensitive time for hardware and disk errors. If there is a problem with your computer's hardware configuration or the media you are using to install XP, a stop error will likely occur.

4. Startup errors. Corrupted system files, hardware and driver errors can all cause Windows XP to halt with a stop message without correctly booting into Windows. An error of this sort will almost always require troubleshooting before Windows can be loaded correctly.

5. Intermittent errors. The most irritating type of stop message, these crop up consistently but apparently randomly. The most likely culprits for this include: defective system memory, an overheating processor, dead or dieing hard drive or faulty software and device drivers.

Sorry for the copy & paste, here is the full article.
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1647

When it happens to you, what does it say on the BSOD? It'll normally tell you where the problem was found.

Give us some more info, once you progress further.

-MRG

 

[Operational]

RAM would be my first guess too, but it could be something else

 

[VirusType2]

I don't think I've had a blue screen of death on any of my PC's since the 1990's. I may be stating the obvious, but it's not normal for it to happen at all, in case you thought that it occasionally just happens to everybody.

I would guess RAM or compatibility problems.

 

[Operational]

I may be stating the obvious, but it's not normal for it to happen at all, in case you thought that it occasionally just happens to everybody.

Yeah consistent BSODs means that there is definitely something wrong.

Are the BSOD messages the same each time? You might want to google the error message(s).

 

[Pulse]

Well I foolishly went out and bought new RAM today and replaced the previous 2x 512mb PC2700 DIMM DDR 400mhz sticks with 2x 1gig DIMM DDR 400mhz PC2700 and I'm still getting blue screens during gaming.

The blue screens have been the same for the past year or so now and I spent most of the summer googling the error messages and trying various fixes to no avail.

I've decided to give in now, after over a year of tampering with this thing it just doesn't want to be fixed. May sound very defeatist of myself, but I'd rather not waste anymore money on this rig and instead save up for a new one. God knows when I'll be able to afford one, but hey we'll see. In the mean time this'll be good enough to do uni work on I suppose, I'm just very frustrated that I can't maximise its potential any longer and the fact that it still remains unstable after a complete reformat. Good thing I have a 500gb external hard drive to back everything up on.

tl;dr - Bollocks.

"BSOD" or Blue Screen Of Death, can be the cause from several factors. RAM is one of them like mentioned above & testing them is a good idea. Have just one stick in at a time & see how things run.

Does the problem happen more so under certain conditions?

When you reinstalled windows, did you use the quick format option or did you go with the other option? Also when you reinstalled windows, did you delete the partition and then create a new one to install windows on?

You said you updated your drivers, which is good, but are you sure you got them all? Video card? Sound Card? Motherboard Chipset & Bios? Have you installed any new hardware that your motherboard might not fully support? Any single piece of hardware can cause issues if your motherboard does not provide full support. Perhaps check to see if there is a Bios update for your motherboard.

BSOD is often caused by faulty media on your Hard Drive. Do you have SMART enabled in the Bios by chance? Also are you using any "Beta" drivers of any kind?

Sorry for the copy & paste, here is the full article.
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1647

When it happens to you, what does it say on the BSOD? It'll normally tell you where the problem was found.

Give us some more info, once you progress further.

-MRG

The BSOD's I experience most frequently occur when I try to play any game and sometimes even when I'm viewing flash videos, a number of times it has crashed when viewing a youtube video for example. The BSODs often look like the ones found in that article;

Sometimes as shown, sometimes with just the 'IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL'. Since I first experienced the BSODs I have replaced the following;

Video card - Upgraded from ATI Radeon 9800 to ATI Sapphire x1650 pro
Sound card - Upgraded from standard onboard audio to Creative Xtreme Audio Soundblaster
RAM - Upgraded from 2x 512mb PC2700 DIMM DDR 400mhz sticks to 2x 1gig DIMM DDR 400mhz PC2700

and yet the BSODs remain, despite my PC improving in performance.

My motherboard is an AMD Athlon 64, 2400 MHz (12 x 200) 3400+ which I'm pretty sure is capable of running the above. If anyone has any suggestions, feel free to throw them in here.

 

[No Limit]

Not that this will help you much now since you already bought the ram but next time if you suspect a ram issue and you have 2 sticks in there take one at a time out and see if you still get a blue screen.

What stop error are you getting exactly? Have you checked your event log which is located under control panel > administrative tools > event viewer?

Disable any unneeded drivers you have installed which would be printers, usb devices, etc. The easiest and most effective way of doing this is to go in to your msconfig console by going to start > run and typing msconfig. From there you can select which programs and services you want to start on an individual basis but I would recommend for troubleshooting to turn them all off by selecting the "diagnostic start up".

Try all this out, it will help you identify the problem. This could be a serious hardware issue with the motherboard, hard drive, or anything else for that matter and in the end it might be easier to get a new PC, but don't give up on it so soon.

 

[Pulse]

Another thought just occurred to me; since I have practically rebuilt 'half of a PC' in a sense, wouldn't it just prove easier now to buy some other components, such as a new motherboard, new PSU and hard drive, get a case and assemble a new computer together?

I currently have the video card, sound card and RAM available; would it be viablae for me to start getting the other components and starting from scratch? It would prove to be a lot cheaper in the long run and since I'm essentially half way there...

Thoughts?

Also here some of the info contained in the crash dump that I managed to obtain via windbg:

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (a)
An attempt was made to access a pageable (or completely invalid) address at an
interrupt request level (IRQL) that is too high.  This is usually
caused by drivers using improper addresses.
If a kernel debugger is available get the stack backtrace.
Arguments:
Arg1: d7a3bebc, memory referenced
Arg2: 00000002, IRQL
Arg3: 00000001, bitfield :
	bit 0 : value 0 = read operation, 1 = write operation
	bit 3 : value 0 = not an execute operation, 1 = execute operation (only on chips which support this level of status)
Arg4: 804ff1c3, address which referenced memory

MODULE_NAME: nt

FAULTING_MODULE: 804d7000 nt

DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP:  42250a1d

WRITE_ADDRESS: unable to get nt!MmSpecialPoolStart
unable to get nt!MmSpecialPoolEnd
unable to get nt!MmPoolCodeStart
unable to get nt!MmPoolCodeEnd
 d7a3bebc 

CURRENT_IRQL:  2

FAULTING_IP: 
nt+281c3
804ff1c3 8903            mov     dword ptr [ebx],eax

CUSTOMER_CRASH_COUNT:  1

DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID:  WRONG_SYMBOLS

BUGCHECK_STR:  0xA

LAST_CONTROL_TRANSFER:  from 804ff34b to 804ff1c3

STACK_TEXT:  
WARNING: Stack unwind information not available. Following frames may be wrong.
f7a3bfa4 804ff34b 897c25d0 00000001 ffdff000 nt+0x281c3
f7a3bfd0 80540d5d 80551f80 00000000 0000a509 nt+0x2834b
f7a3bfd4 80551f80 00000000 0000a509 00000000 nt+0x69d5d
f7a3bfd8 00000000 0000a509 00000000 00000000 nt+0x7af80


STACK_COMMAND:  kb

FOLLOWUP_IP: 
nt+281c3
804ff1c3 8903            mov     dword ptr [ebx],eax

SYMBOL_STACK_INDEX:  0

SYMBOL_NAME:  nt+281c3

FOLLOWUP_NAME:  MachineOwner

IMAGE_NAME:  ntoskrnl.exe

BUCKET_ID:  WRONG_SYMBOLS

Followup: MachineOwner
---------

kd> lmvm nt
start    end        module name
804d7000 806cd280   nt       T (no symbols)           
    Loaded symbol image file: ntoskrnl.exe
    Image path: ntoskrnl.exe
    Image name: ntoskrnl.exe
    Timestamp:        Wed Mar 02 00:34:37 2005 (42250A1D)
    CheckSum:         001F632B
    ImageSize:        001F6280
    Translations:     0000.04b0 0000.04e0 0409.04b0 0409.04e0

 

[No Limit]

It would be cheaper for you to do that but before you know what the problem is this could be risky as I can't imagine how frustrated you would be if you still had an issue. Plus you will have to make sure all the new hardware is compatible with your old hardware, finding pc2700 mother boards now a days isn't as easy as you would think.

Try all of the following.

You have 2 sticks of ram in there, remove one try it and if you still have a problem put that one back in and remove the other one. The important thing here is to test both memory slots on your motherboard (assuming you only have 2).

Disable all the drivers from msconfig as I recommended. Also, since your errors are related to memory try turning off the page file. To do this go to Control Panel > System > Advanced. Under performance click on settings then choose the advanced tab. Under virtual memory select change and select no page file on your c drive and any other drive you might have in there. You will need to reboot for this to take effect.

But again, the most important thing will be to disable all your drivers, if I had to bet on it I would bet on a driver conflict as most IRQ errors relate to drivers.

 

[Operational]

Try getting your motherboard to load its default settings.

 

[MRG]

Well I foolishly went out and bought new RAM today and replaced the previous 2x 512mb PC2700 DIMM DDR 400mhz sticks with 2x 1gig DIMM DDR 400mhz PC2700 and I'm still getting blue screens during gaming.

Perhaps it's just my eyes playing tricks on me, but did you say that you installed PC-2700 RAM into your PC? PC-2700 RAM is @ 333mhz not 400mhz. PC-3200 is 400mhz (2x200mhz) If you have the wrong RAM installed, then thats the first step to fix. If you push RAM beyond it's stock limits, it can easily cause your problems.

A simple way to check is to download CPU-Z and it'll tell you the speed of your RAM. You can also just check when the computer boots too. The diagnostic tool "SANDRA" will tell you as well.

Let us know.

-MRG

 

[Hectic Glenn]

Just throwing something else in there...considering you've upgraded your graphics and added a sound card to your machine, is your PSU coping ok? What's the wattage on yours? I assume a failing PSU could knock out components from operating properly, they just start to fizzle out after a while.

 

[Barney Fife]

Well as you may recall I've had countless problems with my computer that have dragged on over the past year or so, as displayed here and here. Today I thought I had elivated them all by successfully reformating my hard drive- oh if only that were the case.

I reinstalled windows fine, downloaded SP2, got all the updates, updated all my drivers etc. and then BAM! A blue screen of death makes it first of many appearances on my brand new install! :cheese: At this point I just wanted to pick the rig up and hurl it out of my window, as it seems no matter what I do now I am unable to create some form of stability with this miserable pile of various metals and wires.

I'm 99% convinced now that it is a hardware issue; most likely directly related to my RAM.

Would purchasing new RAM sticks solve my problems? After a year of putting up with these bastard blue screens I'm very seriously considering getting a new rig now, I'm not even bothered by the specs, I just want something that is stable and will run HL2 and source games to a decent standard for a decent price.

Anyway back to the point, new RAM; will it make a difference?

In your symptoms; there are two main suspects in cases like the one your experiencing.

1) (And this is most likely suspect #1) A defective, dead or dying hardware.

2) After hardware reformat; we all do the routine software installations. Right there; there must be user program which may causing the BSOD, usually: Shareware, virtual drive and disk image emulators.

Scan your system hardware and user programs to flash out any may-be-a-suspect.

Good Luck.

 

[Asus]

Do you know the model of your motherboard? Printed in white between the slots. Seems like a lot of errors relating to IRQ.

 

[StardogChampion]

Go to independant computer store - give them your comp for a day or too - it will return fixed

 

[Pulse]

Go to independant computer store - give them your comp for a day or too - it will return fixed

Anywhere/anyone you could suggest? I saw that PC World do maintenance and recovery services, but they seem far too rather broad and overpriced for my liking. I suppose it's worth a shot either way.

@ Asus:

Motherboard Name: MSI K8MM-ILSR (MS-6741)

Motherboard Chipset: VIA VT8380 K8M800, AMD Hammer

 

[Barney Fife]

Go to independant computer store - give them your comp for a day or too - it will return fixed

And be charged $50.00 minimum for System Restore? How unenthusiastic of you.

 

[Pulse]

And be charged $50.00 minimum for System Restore? How unenthusiastic of you.

After over a year of no success with this thing, I'm about as unenthusiastic as it gets. I'd happily pay to have this thing fixed to perfection, within reason of course.

 

[Rico]

Does this only happen during graphically intensive things?

it could be something as simple as your computer overheating, the fact that you say this only happens during gaming/watching flash/videos raises a flag relating to your videocard. You should post your temperatures here to make sure they're within acceptable ranges.

Failing that, it could be a motherboard problem, if not that, then my next suspect would be your PSU.

 

[No Limit]

After over a year of no success with this thing, I'm about as unenthusiastic as it gets. I'd happily pay to have this thing fixed to perfection, within reason of course.

Have you tried any of the following?

You have 2 sticks of ram in there, remove one try it and if you still have a problem put that one back in and remove the other one. The important thing here is to test both memory slots on your motherboard (assuming you only have 2).

Disable all the drivers from msconfig as I recommended. Also, since your errors are related to memory try turning off the page file. To do this go to Control Panel > System > Advanced. Under performance click on settings then choose the advanced tab. Under virtual memory select change and select no page file on your c drive and any other drive you might have in there. You will need to reboot for this to take effect.

 

[Pulse]

Have you tried any of the following?

Tried them all to no avail I'm afraid.

 

[Pulse]

Edit: Nevermind!

 

[Pulse]

Edit: double post lol sorry D: