Bluescreen intermittent crashes Win XP SP3

[FungalGrowth]

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   

[patio]

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.

[Allan]

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.

[FungalGrowth]

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.

[ninjatex]

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.

[FungalGrowth]

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]

[patio]

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.

[ninjatex]

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

[FungalGrowth]

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

[phil_crawford]

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

[ninjatex]

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)