Random bluescreens/crashes

[DivineRage002]

Heres my computer:

Case: Antec P180 ATX
Processor: Intel Quad-Core Q6600
Motherboard: P5N32-E SLI
Memory: Corsair XMS2 2x1Gb DDR2-800 4-4-4-12
Video card: EVGA 8800GTX
Hard drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB
Power supply: OCZ GameXStream 700W
Heat sink: Zalman CNPS9700NT
OS: Windows Vista Home Premium


Here's the problem I'm having.

As you can tell from my computer, I'm a gamer. And when gaming I often come across some random bluescreen errors such as "IRQL Not less or equal" or some other random stuff (I'm not an expert, and I have no idea what the *censored* that thing stands for)

Also I often come across some "X program stopped responding, Windows is looking for a solution..."

Any idea what could cause these errors?

I'm thinking it might be bad memory, though I could be completely wrong.

Funny thing is, sometimes it will work fine for hours, and sometimes it will crash within 10 minutes of gaming.

[Deerpark]

Well it can be a lot of things but with random blue screens my initial suspect would also be the memory.

Download memtest86 and burn it to a cd. Restart your computer with cd in the drive and boot from it. Let the program run through all its tests at least one time.

[DivineRage002]

Hmmm, I dont have any burning software installed, but do you think that instead, I could take the memory off my old computer and put it on this one, see if it works, and get my answer that way? Or is it more complicated than that?

[Deerpark]

There will be a certain degree of uncertainty and you'll need to make sure the memory form your old machine is compatible of course. But yeah you could try that. Personally I'd  do the memtest though.

Ohh and I've just remembered that with memtest86+ (basically the same as memtest86) you can get a floppy version.
http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

[DivineRage002]

Hmmm, when I try to extract the zip of memtest86, it says "The requested operation requires elevation".

[Deerpark]

Hmm it shouldn't say that just for extracting a zip file.
First try to re-download it just to make sure it wasn't a bad download.
If that doesn't work what did you extract it with?

[DivineRage002]

Winrar.

Edit: And it still doesnt work.

[DivineRage002]

[Deerpark]

Okay try this then. find your Winrar shortcut. Right click it and select 'Run as administrator'. Then open the zip file in Winrar and extract the content.

[DivineRage002]

Got it! I get a folder with two files in it.

BOOT.CAT
MEMTEST.IMG


I burn these two on a CD, and boot from it?

[Deerpark]

Lol you want to burn it know... I gave you that other link because you didn't have burning software installed.
But it doesn't seem to be the right version you've gotten.

Get this one if you want to burn to a cd:
http://www.memtest.org/download/1.70/memtest86+-1.70.iso.zip

And this one if you want to make a diskette version:
http://www.memtest.org/download/1.70/memtest86+-1.70.floppy.zip

For the cd version, burn the iso file as an image or a saved project. Your burning software should have an option for this.

For the diskette version, run the install.bat. You might need to run as administrator.

[MrMikeinVegas]

It is possible that it is a memory problem but I'll bet you 50 doughnuts its a sound card problem either and irq conflict or driver -are you using a wannabe soundblaster?

[DivineRage002]

I'm actually using onboard.

Edit: DONT HIT ME PLEASE!!! I know its really stupid! But I tried saving money thinking that the onboard could get the job done. And I really though it did.

[Deerpark]

I think you should disregard the comment from MrMikeinVegas. Many, many people use onboard sound cards without any problems at all.
Did you give memtest a try?

[DivineRage002]

So yeah, I copy the .iso file directly on the CD, then I just boot on it, and it should work?