BSOD after reformat (memory the culprit?)

Status
Not open for further replies.
Long story short, I have been getting quite a few different blue screens over the past few weeks. It started out with 0x00000024 ntfs.sys. After I got fed up with googling for answers (everyone found a different solution), I decided to reformat. Everything was fine for a couple hours after reinstalling Windows so I decided to start reinstalling my programs again (very few programs like WinRAR, CCleaner, Firefox). Didn't bother reinstalling Kaspersky since I originally thought it was the culprit. I went to go take a shower only to come to a blue screen, again. I had a hunch it was the timings I set because after I installed the programs I adjusted the timings in the BIOS. I reverted my changes to the BIOS. Everything is running smoothly...

(About a week later...)

ANOTHER BLUE SCREEN.

Now I'm getting them every 20 mins, again. It's not even always the same error message either. So far I've gotten STOP 0x0000008E,0x00000050, 0x0000007E, 0x0000000A and a couple others. 90% of my blue screens say IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL and PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA.

Things I've tried:
-Reformatting
-Loading optimized defaults in BIOS
-Setting the timings and voltage according to manufacturer (which makes it worse)
-Checking temperatures
-Memtest
-Chkdsk
-Searching through eventlog (about the only thing relevant was The file system structure on the disk is corrupt and unusable. Please run the chkdsk utility on the volume C:.) <--- doing a chkdsk did not rectify the problem

Things I haven't tried:
-Running 1 memory module
-Anything that requires me to open my case

I have a feeling it is my RAM despite getting nothing in 4 passes with memtest. The blue screens originally started happening about 5 days after I installed my new RAM. I'm hoping someone here can decipher my minidumps and find the root of the cause.

Attached below are 2 minidumps and a logfile called bootex.log which appeared in C:\ after my most recent BSOD.

Thanks in advance. *crosses fingers*

EDIT: I've attached a third minidump after a BSOD while running a data lifeguard diagnostic scan.
 

Attachments

  • Mini012308-01.dmp
    88 KB · Views: 5
The argument for MemTest is between a minimum of either 7 or 10 passes; 4 passes isn't enough.

Dump 1 - 0x50: Requested data was not in memory. An invalid system memory address was referenced. Defective memory (including main memory, L2 RAM cache, video RAM) or incompatible software (including remote control and antivirus software) might cause this Stop message, as may other hardware problems (e.g., incorrect SCSI termination or a flawed PCI card).

Dump 2 - 0x7E: Memory Corruption.

* My suggestion is that you run MemTest on each stick of RAM you have individually for a minimum of 7 passes (I prefer 10). Let us know what happens.

* Also your boottex.log mentioned that your disk is in need of attention. Run chkdsk/r and chkdsk/f
 
Thank you for the prompt reply. I will take your advice and run memtest on both sticks, one at a time, for at least 10 passes. I'll also do a chkdsk/r (last time I did this I got a BSOD in stage 5) and chkdsk/f as you suggested.
 
winrawr said:
Thank you for the prompt reply. I will take your advice and run memtest on both sticks, one at a time, for at least 10 passes. I'll also do a chkdsk/r (last time I did this I got a BSOD in stage 5) and chkdsk/f as you suggested.

Hmmm, then I would say that it is quite possible that your HD disk has some possible defects. Do you know the make of your HD? If you do then I would as soon as possible go and download their harddrive diagnostic utility or run it while online. They are free. The Storage and Network forum here at TechSpot has a sticky that links to almost all the harddrive manufatures for this very purpose.

If the disk is going then back-up all your important info A.S.A.P. via CD/DVD/Flash Drive.
 
My OS drive is a Western Digital Raptor 150gb and my secondary harddrive is a Western Digital Caviar 500gb. I'll download their Data Lifeguard Diagnostic ASAP.
 
winrawr said:
My OS drive is a Western Digital Raptor 150gb and my secondary harddrive is a Western Digital Caviar 500gb. I'll download their Data Lifeguard Diagnostic ASAP.


Great! You'll be glad you did if for nothing else for some peace of mind. That is a nice utility. I run it on my WD harddrive periodically. I also run Segate's utility on my Seagate SATA. Let me know how it turns out. Now I think I am going to go and get some sleep. Tomorrow is now today.
 
Well, I was about an hour into the extended scan on my 500gb drive with under an hour left until I got hit with another BSOD. :(

PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

STOP: 0x00000050

I've attached the minidump to my original post. Now I'm going to attempt to run an extended scan on my 150gb drive, if I BSOD again I'm going to sleep. When I wake up I will run chkdsk along with memtest.
 
OK, I did an extended scan on both my drives and managed to make it through both of them without any errors/BSODs so I assume it's not a hard drive problem? I did a chkdsk /r and chkdsk /f afterwards and the /r switch managed to "fix" some things. I will be running memtest shortly.

Side note: Any idea why my device manager and network connections are blank? I've tried a couple suggestions I found by searching (mostly dealing with changing permissions in the registry and checking if Plug and Play service is running) to no avail.
 
I wonder if what was "fixed" solved the issue. As for your side note, I have never heard of that before.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back