Computer Hope
Microsoft => Microsoft Windows => Windows XP => Topic started by: FungalGrowth on October 07, 2012, 10:19:48 PM
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Hello everyone, I'm a longtime ComputerHope lurker, my first time in the forums.
My computer at work has long been having intermittent Bluescreens. I dont have any spare parts available for testing. I've tried updating the drivers for all hardware.
Not sure if its a hardware / software issue. Below are my computer specs and posted bluescreen errors from BlueScreenView software I downloaded from computerhope.
Could anyone could offer any help or opinion on what might be going on?
Here are my computer specs taken from Speccy
MS Windows XP Professional 32-bit SP3
CPU
Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 @ 3.16GHz
Wolfdale 45nm Technology
RAM
4.00 GB Dual-Channel DDR2 @ 266MHz (4-4-4-12)
Motherboard
Penryn1600SLI-110dB (CPUSocket) 36 °C
Graphics
Default Monitor (1920x1080@60Hz)
Default Monitor (1920x1080@60Hz)
256MB GeForce 8600 GT (Leadtek) 48 °C
Hard Drives
488GB Western Digital WDC WD5000AAKB-00YSA0 (PATA) 30 °C
Optical Drives
TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S202H
SAMSUNG DVDWBD SH-B083L SCSI CdRom Device
Audio
Realtek High Definition Audio
The information from BlueScreenView ( I downloaded from computerhope );
Ntfs.sys Ntfs.sys+dff0 0xb7db3000 0xb7e3f600 0x0008c600 0x48025be5 14/04/2008 6:15:49 AM Microsoft® Windows® Operating System NT File System Driver 5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2111) Microsoft Corporation C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\Ntfs.sys
ntoskrnl.exe ntoskrnl.exe+22f5f 0x804d7000 0x806e5000 0x0020e000 0x4fa3cc43 4/05/2012 11:32:03 PM Microsoft® Windows® Operating System NT Kernel & System 5.1.2600.6223 (xpsp_sp3_gdr.120504-1619) Microsoft Corporation C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
hal.dll 0x806e5000 0x80705d00 0x00020d00 0x4802517f 14/04/2008 5:31:27 AM Microsoft® Windows® Operating System Hardware Abstraction Layer DLL 5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2111) Microsoft Corporation C:\WINDOWS\system32\hal.dll
kdcom.dll 0xb85a8000 0xb85a9b80 0x00001b80 0x3b7d8346 18/08/2001 7:49:10 AM Microsoft® Windows® Operating System Kernel Debugger HW Extension DLL 5.1.2600.0 (xpclient.010817-1148) Microsoft Corporation C:\WINDOWS\system32\kdcom.dll
ACPI.sys 0xb7f79000 0xb7fa6d80 0x0002dd80 0x480252b1 14/04/2008 5:36:33 AM Microsoft® Windows® Operating System ACPI Driver for NT 5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2111) Microsoft Corporation C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\ACPI.sys
pci.sys 0xb7f68000 0xb7f78a80 0x00010a80 0x480252bb 14/04/2008 5:36:43 AM Microsoft® Windows® Operating System NT Plug and Play PCI Enumerator 5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2111) Microsoft Corporation C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\pci.sys
isapnp.sys 0xb80a8000 0xb80b1180 0x00009180 0x480252b8 14/04/2008 5:36:40 AM Microsoft® Windows® Operating System PNP ISA Bus Driver 5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2111) Microsoft Corporation C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\isapnp.sys
ohci1394.sys 0xb80b8000 0xb80c7100 0x0000f100 0x480254fa 14/04/2008 5:46:18 AM Microsoft® Windows® Operating System 1394 OpenHCI Port Driver 5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2108) Microsoft Corporation C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\ohci1394.sys
1394BUS.SYS 0xb80c8000 0xb80d5080 0x0000d080 0x480254fa 14/04/2008 5:46:18 AM Microsoft® Windows® Operating System 1394 Bus Device Driver 5.1.2600.5512 (xpsp.080413-2108) Microsoft Corporation C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\1394BUS.SYS
pciide.sys 0xb8670000 0xb8670d00 0x00000d00 0x3b7d83e5 18/08/2001 7:51:49 AM Microsoft® Windows® Operating System Generic PCI IDE Bus Driver 5.1.2600.0 (XPClient.010817-1148) Microsoft Corporation C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\pciide.sys
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When i see many varied bluescreens like that my 1st guess for the culprit is the PSU....
See if you can borrow one of the same or greater wattage for a day or 2 and swap it in there.
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If it's not the psu it could be the motherboard or even the cpu (though my guess would be the mobo). Let's make sure it's not something simple like the ram though:
To check the ram, download memtest (http://memtest.org/). Burn it to a cd using a dedicated .iso burning utility (http://www.petri.co.il/how_to_write_iso_files_to_cd.htm), make sure the cd drive is at the top of the boot order in bios, then boot to the newly created cd and run the utility.
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Thanks Patio and Allen for the reply.
Currently I'm doing Memtest, its at 30% with no errors so far.
I will bring in a known good PSU I have at home. Thanks again for replying. I'll keep you guys posted. :)
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A great way to pretty much rule out hardware issues is to boot a different operating system -- I suggest getting the Ubuntu Live CD from Ubuntu.com and booting from that. If that gets to the desktop without issues, your likelyhood of having a hardware problem is pretty insignificant.
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Hi, Ninjatex, unfortunately the big problem with figuring what causes the BSODs is how intermittent it is. Sometimes it happens several times a day, and other times about a week or two...
A little update, I ran Memtest86 over night. I've attached the picture. From a quick google, it seems that red means bad.
I tested each RAM module by itself with Memtest86. I couldnt run the test for long (up to test #4 without failures) The RAM is 2 2GB sticks and there's 4 DIMMS on the motherboard. For now I've moved the RAM from DIMMS 1 and 3, to 2 and 4.
Thanks for all assistance everyone :)
[year+ old attachment deleted by admin]
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Unfortunately it's the RAM...
You will need to test 1 stik at a time to find the bad one...or if its economical just replace all 4.
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Unfortunately it's the RAM...
You will need to test 1 stik at a time to find the bad one...or if its economical just replace all 4.
Agreed, one of your memory sticks has gone bad (an Ubuntu live CD would likely have run into problems b/c of this I might add...). Swap them out until you no longer get errors with MemTest
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Thanks to all that helped!
It has been a bizarre situation, I've been using high-memory programs like the Adobe CS, millions of firefox tabs. That sort of thing.
So just to recap, I have 2 2gb ram modules and 4 dimm slots on the motherboard. The ram modules were in slots 1 and 3, I moved them to slots 2 and 4.
So far it hasn't crashed yet, if it does I'm going to get them replaced. I'll keep you guys posted either way.
Thanks again :)
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I had either the same or similar problem on my Toshiba Tecra A8 laptop. I also use Windows XP w/SP3. I thought the HDD was failing, vs. memory or mainboard failure. Id upgraded & maxed out the memory (4GB) w/in the year & the Tecra models have reasonably reliable mainboard architecture, vs. the lesser Satellite Pro/Satellite/Portege models. I just paid $75. to correct the problem-partially. The laptop was intermittently blue-screening, the desktop icons & internet icons (Status Bar-lower right) took exceedingly long to initialize at start-up & then Outlook failed to open correctly. The problem was Viruses had entered the Boot Sector. The shop quarantined the Viruses, retrieved the critical data in Outlook & moved it to my Seagate GoFlex 1TB external HDD. I don't know if yours has other symptoms. These were mine. Blue-screening, I found out the hard way, isn't always a component failure. I'll ask the Shop Mgr what the Viruses names were & report back. Also, which Anti-Virus protection software they used to quarantine mine with. Best of luck. PC
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I found out the hard way, isn't always a component failure. I'll ask the Shop Mgr what the Viruses names were & report back. Also, which Anti-Virus protection software they used to quarantine mine with. Best of luck. PC
If the original posters memtest results are showing memory failure, it can be one of three things:
1. The memtest software is wrong (I have never seen this)
2. The memory has gone bad
3. Something in between the software and the memory has gone bad (such as some part of the mainboard, I have also never seen this in a situation where memtest could run)