I have had recurrent blue screen events with a Dell 8400 PC for the past 4 months - I had only owned it for about a month when they started. They seem to happen quite often now. I have attached the minidump files in the hopes that someone may be able to read them and suggest a course of action. Most of the error codes have been 0x00008086 - last week I saw one with a 0x00000007e code as well. Any suggestions or input would be most appreciated!

Hello and welcome to Techspot.

Your main culprit is iaStor.sys. This is your sata/raid driver. Look HERE for a possible solution.

The scond culprit is tfsnifs.sys. This is Drive Letter Access Component from Sonic solutions/Veritas software.

Look HERE for a possible solution to the tfsnifs.sys problem.

Regards Howard :wave: :wave:

Thank you so much for your reply - I greatly appreciate it.

I noticed that Intel has two versions of the iastor.sys file, version 5.0.0.1032 and version 5.1.0.1022, seemingly appropriate for my system. My current iastor.sys is version 4.0.0.6211 - any opinions regarding which of the two newer versions I should install?
And any idea as to what about my current version would cause this BSOD issue?

Secondly, does the tsfnifs.sys issue imply that I should never use DLA on this system?

Thanks again!

Unfortunately I can`t give you any advice. This is because I`ve never used a sata/raid system, and secondly because I`ve never used dla either.

Maybe other Techspot members will have suggestions for you.

Regards Howard

Well I've installed version 5.0.0.1032 and the computer booted back up - we'll see.... But if anyone has any ideas about whether I'd be better off with the newest version (5.1.0.1022) or why the older version would cause BSOD's, I'd really like to know. This computer has crashed so much in the past week I now have zero confidence in it at this point.

Rich123,

We had the same issue with our Dimension 8400 with the 0x00008086 error and also the tfsnifs.sys error.

We upgraded to the new version of iastor.sys (5.1.xxxx) and we've been blue screen free for 5+ weeks. We have a Dimension 9100 also and it has the 5.0.xxxx version and it has been trouble free out of the box for 2 months. I suspect you will be fine with either. We were involved in a thread at the Dell forum which you can find at: http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=dim_other&message.id=256587#M256587

On page 6 of that thread you can see a reply I got from Intel regarding updating from version 4 to version 5.

With regard the tfsinfs.sys error: we had that only one time and it was when we tried to install an old game meant of Windows 95/98/Me. I don't know if it was something on the disc that caused it or what. This happened before we updated iastor.sys. But before we updated iastor.sys we had weird things with our CD drive. Sometimes it would spin up really fast and then the system would crash and we would get the 0x00008086 error. I don't know for sure but the tfsinfs.sys error may be related to the iastor.sys error. We have been trouble free on all fronts since the update. Our CD drive works normally and we can install software and play games, etc. Although we are no longer going back to games meant for 95/98/Me. Just chicken I guess.

Good Luck.

Hi, The3Bs, I actually have posted on the Dell forum in that thread as well (recently - I am the one who suggested forming a Dell Dimension 8400 survivors club), my name there is RP43 - I suppose I should have made the names the same for cross-communications purposes. We all seem to have gravitated to the same forums.

I actually had done some research and it seems as though tfsinfs.sys is related to Sonic DLA (which I use every day). I have only had that Blue Screen message one or tow times and I am hoping that the iastor.sys upgrade will help with that as well. There is so much that goes on inside the computer that I suppose if there is a problem in one driver it might have some sort of cascading effect.

Good to here from you.

Ooop, I'm sorry, I meant The4Bs (I forgot to look at your post while replying).

It won't happen again!