For the past few months my system would reboot (usually once) during initial startup, often between the Windows splash screen and the login screen. After the reboot, the system would startup normally. Now, within the last few weeks, I am getting random blue screen errors even after system start. Yesterday, I had 8 blue screens.

I have attached the minidumps from yesterday.

Attached Files

Minidump.zip (173.1 KB, 2 views)

I've read your first 5 errors. One did not give anything specific as to the cause.

Two that are of definite interest is the 0x8E error that are almost always caused by hardware and are particularly a strong indicator of corrupted memory. The minidump only cited hardware as the cause.

The other error is 0x7E: 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.

This one specifically cited corrupted memory as the issue, thus a hardware issue.


The other two errors cited the drivers navex15.sys and SYNTDI.sys which belong to your Symantec/Norton internet security software. We have seen many people having issues with this software.


However, due to the cited memory corruption along with your random BSODs it is first and foremost suggested that you run Memtest on your RAM. See this link and follow instructions: http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic62524.html

Let it run for a LONG time. The rule is a minimum of 7 Passes but more is quite okay. There are 8 individual tests per Pass. Many people will start this test before going to bed and check it the next day.

If you have errors you have corrupted memory and it needs to be replaced.

Also, with errors you need to run this test per stick of RAM. Take out one and run the test. Then take that one out and put the other in and run the test. If you start getting errors before 7 Passes you know that stick is corrupted and you don’t need to run the test any further on that stick.

* Get back to us with the results.

I cleaned and reseated all three RAM modules (2-512K and 1-1GB) and ran the Microsoft memory tester from a boot CD. At least for one pass, there were no errors. Also, so far (knock on wood) today after doing that, there have been no BSOD's. I will run the memory test program again overnight to see what happens.

Thanks,

Brian