BSOD reboot every 20 minutes

Status
Not open for further replies.

joeydvivre

Posts: 7   +0
So I don't have a lot of expertise with this so please speak in little words...

Anyway, I have an iMac running Bootcamp and windows XP (along with Leopard). It works fine on the Mac side but on the windows side, I get a nasty BSOD literally every 20 minutes and an immediate reboot. It doesn't seem to depend on what I am doing at the time. I've attached a minidump file (which I can't read). Any ideas on how to start figuring this out? Thank-you so much for your time.
 
Your error is a 0x7F and can be due to (1) Hardware failures. (2) Software problems. (3) A bound trap (i.e., a condition that the kernel is not allowed to have or intercept). Hardware failures are the most common cause and, of these, memory hardware failures are the most common.

However, since this is only occuring on the Windows side and that your minidump cites atimtag.sys which is an ATI Radeon miniport driver I suggest try updating this driver and see if it brings stability.
 
Alas - I reinstalled all my drivers on the original bootcamp CD (they worked prior to yesterday) but the problem persists. I can't download drivers from ATI because of some Apple OEM conspiracy. So this bug literally happens every 21 minutes - not on average every 21 minutes. Any clues before I wipe out the partition and spend two days getting my software up and running again?
 
Download the free Driver Cleaner Pro. Dowload ATI's latest drivers to desktop. Uninstall everything ATI. Reboot into Safe Mode and let DCP do its thing; if it doesn't find/clean anything that is okay. Reboot but don't let Windows Wizard install any drivers. Then install the ATI drivers you have saved to your desktop.

Let us know how it goes.
 
I did that and it didn't help either. I have three minutes to reboot. Any other ideas? It really does seem like there is some renegade piece of software doing something every 21 minutes, but I have a pretty clean machine (Norton running, HijackThis looks clean). The computer runs fine in safe mode for long periods of time.
 
Norton Internet Security 2008 which when shut-down resolves the problem but when turned back on starts the problem up again. Damn. I've wasted 1 1/2 days of my life on this. I feel like I hired security guards and got mugged by the guards I hired. What do I do now?
 
Norton is notoriously known for for the issues you are having. If you decide to uninstall make sure you use their tool to have a complete uninstall. The tool can be had at their website.

There are better security solutions than Norton.
 
Well I am no "expert" (!), but I do know that Kaspersky has the best antivirus rate in the business plus they have a full security suit as well if that is how you want to go.

NOD32 is another excellent $ version. I run it but the initial set-up takes time but it has a very light footprint.

Avast and AntiVir have very good free versions on anti-virus software. In fact Avast has 50 million people using their free home user anti virus and it even has a rootkit. I have it on my second rig and my daughter's laptop.

Two free firewalls are Comodo and Online Armor has a free version that even has HIPS. They also receive the highest ratings in many tests. And, yes, they really are free.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back