Why the random BSoDs?

[BabyFaceLee]

Hi everyone
I really hope you can help explain my random BSoDs as they're interfering with my work and driving me nuts!

My hardware comprises:
ABIT AN8 32X motherboard
2GB Corsair XMS PC3500LLPro RAM
2 x Samsung SpinPoint SP2504 250GB Hard Drives in RAID 0 config
2 x nVidia 7800GTX (256mb) Graphics Cards in SLI mode
Soundblaster Audigy 4
Belkin pre-N wifi desktop PCI card
(an external 74GB backup drive by Western Digital is connected via USB)

My software includes:
Windows XP Professional SP2
Steganos Safe 8 (v8.0.10)
Microsoft Office XP
Zone Alarm Pro Firewall
NOD32 anti-virus (by ESET)

All OfficeXP output (databases, email, documents etc) are saved on a secure (Steganos) drive as I work from home.

I've attached a spreadsheet where I've provided all the BSoD details from the mini-dumps including an indication of what task I was performing when the error occurred.

Any idea what the problem is?

With thanks

Linda

 

[howard_hopkinso]

Hello and welcome to Techspot.

Go HERE and follow the instructions.

If that doesn`t help. Zip 5 or 6 of your latest minidumps together and attach them here.

Regards Howard :wave: :wave:

 

[BabyFaceLee]

Thanks for the reply Howard.

Could you have a squizz at the zip I attached to my post? I've provided all the stop error details in there I think.

Over the last few days I've done the following:
Repaired Windows
Run memtest86+ for 9 hours (16 passes) with zero errors
Run a thorough chkdsk
Renewed the page file as suggested in your post

Kind regards,

Linda

 

[howard_hopkinso]

I can`t read the file.

What I need is 5 or 6 of your latest minidumps.

Regards Howard

 

[BabyFaceLee]

Sorry about that, it was an Excel Spreadsheet.
Here are 8 minidumps.
Thanks,

Linda

 

[howard_hopkinso]

4 minidumps crash at amon.sys. NOD32 Antivirus System. They have bugchecks of 0A/50.

3 minidumps crash at ntkrpamp.exe. Windows nt&kernel system file. They have a bugcheck of 7F.

1 minidump crashes at Fastfat.SYS. Fast FAT File System Driver. It has a bugcheck of 7E.

0x0000000A: IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

Typically due to a bad driver, or faulty or incompatible hardware or software. Technically, this error condition means that a kernel-mode process or driver tried to access a memory location to which it did not have permission, or at a kernel Interrupt ReQuest Level (IRQL) that was too high. (A kernel-mode process can access only other processes that have an IRQL lower than, or equal to, its own.)

0x00000050: 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).

0x0000007F: UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP

One of three types of problems occurred in kernel-mode: (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 (many dozen KB articles exist for this error referencing specific hardware failures) and, of these, memory hardware failures are the most common.

0x0000007E: SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED

A system thread generated an exception which the error handler did not catch. There are numerous individual causes for this problem, including hardware incompatibility, a faulty device driver or system service, or some software issues. Check Event Viewer (EventVwr.msc) for additional information.

It seems to me you may have a ram problem. This could be physical ram/video ram/L2 cache ram of your CPU.

Please be aware, that some ram can pass Memtest.

Regards Howard

 

[BabyFaceLee]

Thank you so much for the comprehensive reply.
After a rush of blood to the head :giddy: , I purchased an extra 2GB of RAM today (which should arrive tomorrow) as I figure I can use it anyway even if it turns out that the original RAM wasn't the problem after all. I'll then move onto looking at the video cards but for now I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Kind regards

Linda

 

[BabyFaceLee]

Well I installed the new RAM and within half an hour I got another BSoD!!
Aaarrrhhh!!!

I figure that it can't be the video ram as it's never crashed when I've been playing The Sims 2 or Call of Duty 2...do you think that's a fair assumption?

Now I'm wondering if Steganos Safe 8 could be the culprit as I use it to encrypt three virtual drives that I use for my work. I wonder if Steganos Safe doesn't like doing its encryption thing on a striped (RAID 0) array (???) or am I clutching at straws here!

Any other ideas or suggestions?

Thanks for your help so far.

Linda

 

[DragonMaster]

Great... Is it me or problems always occur when using office applications? (The only systems that never done that were my Athlon XP 2000+, K6-2 400MHz and X2 3800+). All on VIA chipsets except the X2 which runs on an RD482.

Driver/hardware problem like others tell probably. Have you looked in the log(admin tools) to see if any services have problems?
SATA drivers + BIOS?
HDD firmware?
Mobo BIOS?
Poor connection (PSU, cards, RAM,... shake them while the computer is on to see if it freezes)?
IRQs shared with other hardware(Change PCI slots)?
Chipset drivers / even USB ones(External HDD maybe)?
Wrong BIOS setting (ram/video) ?
Overheat?

There are so much things that could be the cause of problems...
Best is to remove as much things as possible and try.

If no above solutions work, then it might be hardware :
Disable onboard sound and network, remove sound/network card and most USB devices(except mouse/keyboard), try one video card at the time. You also could unplug optical drives just in case.

The Samsung HDDs and Belkin card are not things I'd put in my computer... (Reliability)

Oh, and last thing I write but first thing to look for, viruses, trojans, etc. with other software and do a registry cleanup : spybot s&d, ccleaner, regclean, older jv16 powertools(oldversion.com), HouseCall(If you get it to work), ewido, an other anti-virus. Check Microsoft's KBs and Windows Update.

real last thing, tried sfc utility and tried to repair Office XP?

 

[BabyFaceLee]

Random BSoDs - SOLVED!!

Well guys, I thought I'd do a follow-up post for those that might find it helpful and also to thank Howard and DragonMaster for their kind input.

I think I'm now sorted as I haven't had a BSoD for 4 days (I hope I'm not tempting providence here!)

Anyway, this is what I did:
I flattened my system, reformatted the drives and basically started again.
However, this wasn't enough to solve the random BSoD issue as when I'd installed Steganos Safe and accessed one of the encrypted drives, hey presto! another BSoD (fastfat.sys). So, I've now installed Acronis Disk Director, created a few separate partitions and moved my 'steganos data' to these drives. I then dumped the .sle files which Steganos creates and uninstalled the program. Since then I've been fine.

Perhaps it's just coincidence but I had a hunch it wasn't too happy with Steganos Safe. Perhaps it's the fact that the encrypted data had become corrupted or it doesn't like working over a RAID0 array or Windows wasn't happy with an NTFS hard drive with FAT32 encrypted data but that's my conclusion for what it's worth.

I am now a happy bunny and somewhat relieved having spent over £2500 on a shiny and very whizzy new computer. :bounce:

Regards,

Linda :wave:

PS: I've had a reply from the Steganos Support team and they confirm that Steganos Safe has not been tested on RAID arrays - take note future users!

 

[DragonMaster]

Great to see you're running up now, and you found the solution.

 

[howard_hopkinso]

Glad your problem appears to be solved.

Thanks for letting us know.

Regards Howard

 

[christophe99]

bsod steganos safe

Hello from France !
I'm new in this forum, just to tell you I had exactly the same problem than Linda, and I wasted a huge amount of time to find it.
I had daily Bsods on 2 different computers, and they have disappeared as soon as I have uninstalled Steganos Safe (v8.0.13).
My computers don't have RAID0 arrays like Linda's, they are laptops, so it seems Steganos Safe's serious problems is not with the RAID array, but somewhere with Windows.
I' m waiting for the Steganos Support Team answer about this...

I hope this can help users of Steganos Safe having Bsods.

Regards.
Christophe