Bewildering randomish BSOD on otherwise VERY stable system...

[Ajkiwi]

...oh, now this is embarrassing to have as a first post. With minidumps attached, no less.

My otherwise rocksteady XP based Opteron driven PC has developed an odd habit of BSODing on (a) a couple of games (b) large computational operations on media files (like editing video or converting DVDs to AVIs) (c) uninstalling or reinstalling some large programs.

I've tried more or less EVERYTHING to fix it, and I'm preparing for a complete windows reformat and reinstall at the moment... but one of the things I need to do before that is backing up some large files to my USB drive, and *surprise* the machine BSODs on that too, as a large file operation.

The weird thing is that the computer benches through torture tests without even breaking a sweat - EVEREST, SANDRA, MEMTEST86+, NTune system test - it'll run any of these overnight, without any errors or even more than a couple of degrees in heat. I can run HL2, and other similarly demanding games, without even a blink. Though NWN2 crashes it every time, interestingly enough. I'm wondering if it's a dual core issue. Or HDD.

I'm stumped.

I've reseated the CPU, changed RAM slots, eased off RAM timings, checked my new 520Watt Enermax PSU's rails, checked all the wires and circuits, installed dual core patches, uninstalled dual core patches, the works. I've removed the pagefile, defragged, reinstalled the pagefile, blown dust out, checked the pins on the CPU and contacts on the RAM... you get the idea.

System:
CPU: Opteron 180
Chipset: MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
GPU: Geforce 7800GS AGP
HDD: IDE Quantum Fireball 12GB, IDE Samsung 160GB, SATA unknown brand 300GB
PSU: 520W Enermax

Anyone? All I need is it to be stable enough to run backups to the USB HDD. Recent minidumps attached.

 

[peterdiva]

All the dumps are crashed by nvatabus.sys (nvidia chipset driver. IDE driver?). See if there's an update available, or try reinstalling it.

You've also got some left over Norton files that you should get rid of.

BugCheck A, {bab67000, 2, 1, 806eaaa2}
Probably caused by : nvatabus.sys ( nvatabus+1450 )
ba617000 ba62a600 nvatabus nvatabus.sys Fri Jun 04 01:40:44 2004 (40BF629C)

a8870000 a888cdc0 SYMEVENT SYMEVENT.SYS Sat Sep 16 13:48:19 2006 (450B9023) <-- Norton file.
a88f5000 a88fd6e0 NPDRIVER NPDRIVER.SYS Thu Jan 31 02:03:01 2002 (3C582745) <-- Norton file?

 

[almcneil]

Sounds like you're low on memory. If you're using a high end video card, you should be using at least 1 GB of RAM.

As proof, try disabling your anti-virus and then try something with a large file.

 

[Ajkiwi]

Sounds like you're low on memory. If you're using a high end video card, you should be using at least 1 GB of RAM.

As proof, try disabling your anti-virus and then try something with a large file.

Running 2GB of RAM, so unlikely... but I'll give it a crack!

 

[Ajkiwi]

Nope, not the memory.

Trying to find old/new versions of the nvidia IDE/SATA driver now.

 

[Ajkiwi]

SOLVED.

Went into control panel, add/remove software, nvidia drivers. Comes up with ticky box - which nvidia drivers do you want to remove? (Graphics, IDE, sound, etc, please tick as appropriate.) Ticked ide drivers. Removed. Rebooted. Windows installed standard windows IDE drivers on reboot.

I've tested all the things that we creating crashes, and the machine is now working problemless. Troubleshooting success.

Thanks to Peterdiva for the quick response!

Now, where did I put that backup drive?