Windows Vista BSOD. But only once or twice.

[DeviousD]

Hey, first post. Woo.

I'm having some issues with my PC. This is not a new thing, it's done it since I built it, but have only just got around to fixing it, and you'll see why as you read on.

For some reason, after my PC has been shut down, for any length of time, be it 2 seconds or 2 days, when I turn it back on, it will bluescreen at a random moment, usually about 5-15 minutes after it boots.

It will do this either once, or twice, but when it restarts either the second or third time, it won't give me a BSOD again, until I switch it off.

This hasn't bothered me in the past, because I used to leave it on 24/7.

But recently I've been needing to turn it off, and is an absolute pain-in-the-***, because I have to wait for it to randomly bluescreen before I want to do anything productive with it.

Sometimes, it won't actually bluescreen, but it will cause Warcraft 3 (The most noticable case) to crash, and give a memory error, and just restarting the PC will be enough to count for a BSOD (To reach the third or second time before it works).

It will only BSOD when I'm doing something resource intensive, eg. Playing games or watching a movie. Just browsing the net doesn't seem to do it.

The BSOD errors I get mostly are: MEMORY_MANAGEMENT, IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EAQUL and PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA.

It does it in both XP and Vista, and clean installs do not make a difference. This leads me to beleive it is a driver or hardware error.

If any of this makes any sense, I need some help D:

It's driving me mad.

I can supply any extra information to help diagnose the problem, and am quite commputer literate.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Spyder_1386]

Hey Devious

Please post a few minidumps so we can have a look at them for you. Also, you can start by checking your RAM for errors using Memtest ... www.memtest.org .... Allow it to run overnight - 7 passes, 8 tests per pass is what you're generally looking for.

Since you say that it mostly occurs when you're busy with resource intensive stuff, try updating your hardware drivers from the manufacturer website - video, sound, network etc. If you've overclocked your CPU or video card, reset the settings to it's original configuration.

Get back to us with anything you've tried in the order you try it .... and don't forget the dumps! They can be found in the C:Windows\Minidumps folder.

Spyder_1386

 

[DeviousD]

Here's a minidump file.

I ran memtest overnight and got no errors.

I'm not overclocking, and I'll update my drivers tonight.

Thanks for your help!

 

[Spyder_1386]

Hi again DeviousD

The error on the dump was a Page_Fault error but it's still too general to diagnose your problem... Please post a few more dumps if you're still having trouble with BSODs.

Spyder_1386

 

[DeviousD]

Here you go, these should be varied.

I haven't got around to updating my drivers yet either Been pretty busy,

 

[Spyder_1386]

Hey again DeviousD

You've got a couple of IRQL errors and PAGE_FAULT ones as well whilst doing different things altogether. Some were whilst playing World of Warcraft, one was on idle and the others were on different processes.

One error was cited as an 8E error which usually indicates faulty RAM. Test each stick of RAM individually.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems as though you're not on Service Pack 1. I think this is most likely your problem - update to SP1 and hopefully things will stabilise. Keep us informed.

Spyder_1386

 

[DeviousD]

Thanks for the help, I am running SP1 at the moment. I installed it thinking it would help, but it's made no difference.

I just got a PFN_LIST_CORRUPT bluescreen, if that helps. I'd never seen one like that before.

I'll run some tests on my individual sticks later tonight.

 

[Spyder_1386]

Hey Devious

I've done a bit of research and it seems that the problem is (if not RAM), driver related. One or a few of the drivers you've got installed on the system is not Vista compatible. I thought that once you installed SP1, things might change but obviously they haven't.

Now, as to which driver(s) are the cause of your problem, I'm not sure. Have you updated your hardware drivers as yet? You could use the driver Verifier on Windows to generate a BSOD and thus narrow down your problem. Here's a tutorial on how to use the Verifier - please make sure you turn it off when you're done ... http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/window-on-windows/?p=827 .... If the system refuses to start up in normal mode (which it does sometimes when using the Verifier), you'll have to boot in Safe Mode to turn it off.

Let us know how it goes

Spyder_1386