BSOD keeps occuring late at night

Hi all

My machine keep getting BSOD between 11ish at night and 1 in the morning, often when I'm watching tv on it.
I've tried reinstalling software/drivers with no luck
I've run a memtest86+ over night and got 7 passes with no faults

I get IRQL_less_than_or_equal page_fault_in_non_paged_area and bad_pool_caller as when my machine bluescreens

I'm running
WinXP SP3
ZoneAlarmPro8
NOD32 v3
Firefox 3.0.6
MSN
GoogleTalk
4onDemand

my hardware
asus p3n32e sli nforce 680i
intel q6600 @ 2.4GHz
4GB DDR2 533MHz
geforce 9600GT
80GB maxtor HDD
500GB Hitachi HHD
650watt hiper psu

please help

8 of your 9 errors are 0x50: PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

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).

Other than citing Windows drivers that are too general to help nothing definitive was noted.


The one remaining error is C2: BAD_POOL_CALLER

A kernel-mode process or driver incorrectly attempted to perform memory operations. Typically, a faulty driver or buggy software causes this.

The driver cited is vsdatant.sys and this is a driver for Zone Alarm. Many people have issues with this driver.

Try this: First disable ZA and see if that brings stabiltiy. If not, update the drivers. If that still doesn't work do a full uninstall of ZA.

* Get back to us with the results.

Thanks for your help so far

My system was fine, then after a recent XP reinstall the issues came, and after running stress tests and memtest I'm pretty sure my hardware is fine

I have uninstalled ZoneAlarm and run ccleaner to remove any trace, and reinstalled it, I'm not keen on not having a firewall. For the moment my system is stable, but I'll try to recreate the crash conditions this evening and see if the problem is sorted. Otherwise I'll try a different firewall

thank you for your help

I understand about not wanting to go too long without a firewall. Two options that you might consider if ZA does not work out for you are COMODO (free and one of the best) or Online Armor (both free and $; also one of the best).

Thank you for the suggestions. I'll post later with or without BSOD, hopefully it'll be fixed now.

By the way, how do find what driver caused the issue? I am keen on learning how to trace such bugs, and I have looked through the minidumps but don't know where to start

just got another BSOD.
I've attached the minidump

if this is anything to do with ZA, I'm gonna wave goodbye to it

Can you please have a look at the minidump and let me know what went wrong, thank you

When reading minidumps they first give the error code with description of said error code and then below they will cite the problem as "Probably caused by:" and then give the faulting driver or hardware.

As for your error it is 0x50 which the same as before but again it could not read the faulting driver.

Question: Can you think of anything specific that you wer doing. i.e. gaming, net surfing, when these BSODs occur or is always at night between 11 and 1? Also, is any of your software scheduled for automatic updates at this specified period of time?

this one has occurred at 9pm, so it's not following the pattern
previously I've had BSOD while watching tv on my pc via channel4ondemand in their software or BBCiplayer through Firefox.
This time I was talking on msn when it cut out

antivirus (NOD32) checks for updates hourly, I can't find anything else that auto updates

I'm gonna ditch ZA see if that helps any

Have you tried updating the drivers for any of the devices you have mentioned?

Here is something you might try. Disable ZA before 11 and check it the next day. Any BSODs? Of course you don't want to have your PC connected to the internet during this time.

just uninstalling/reinstalling the mentioned software

I often watch streamed video, so no firewall is a risky one

I am pretty close to just reinstalling XP again

I left my pc on with ZA running after uninstalling 4ondemand software and it's been sat alone from 10 till 2am with no issues

could it be 4od that's causing the issue?

I would see how your system functions without it for a few days. ZA and their software may have issues.

okay, that didn't help, my computer had a BSOD right after boot, logged in and then bang, BSOD

attached is the minidump

thank you

0x8E error and it cites the same ZA driver vsdatant.sys to go along with your earlier error C2: BAD_POOL_CALLER and vsdatant.sys.

I've ditched ZA for online armour and so far no BSOD, some what annoyed my firewall was killing my system

Honestly, you have joined the ranks of many who have had trouble with ZA. I can recommend two free firewalls that are, believe it or not, two of the best.

COMODO and Online Armor (as long as you are running XP). OA even has HIPS. I personally run the $ version of OA on my main rig. Both have active and very helpful communities.

thank you for all your help, I hope this will be the end to my BSOD troubles

You're welcome and I too hope its the end of your BSOD issues. I had Sunbelt's firewall at one time and through 5 different versions I kept getting BSODs due to the same driver over and over -- on two different PCs no less.

When I contacted their tech support and cited the driver they told me they knew about it but had no answer for it. True. I have their emails to prove it.

The BSOD came back

I got a paged_error_in_non_paged_area stop

BCCode : 10000050 BCP1 : FFFFFFFB BCP2 : 00000000 BCP3 : 8054BD58
BCP4 : 00000000 OSVer : 5_1_2600 SP : 3_0 Product : 768_1

I'm using Online Armor now, so it can't be an issue with ZA like before, I hope anyway

please help