Hey all, I'm sort of a n00b to the whole graphics gaming scene but I know enough to get by, so dont go too hard on me :giddy: I seriously need help with this though... I would be forever Indebted to the person that fixes this problem...

Im running a P4, 3.2ghz hyperthreading-enabled
1024Mb SD-DDR RAM
VIA Motherboard Chipset
Nvidia Geforce 6600 (sparkle)
DirectX 9.0c
(need more info, just ask)

My problems include Windows randomly BSOD crashing less than 10 minutes in to playing any 3d games installed on my system, (problem games include BF1942, World of Warcraft, The Sims, Simcity 3000... etc). Usually I can be happily playing any of these games for a unspecified time up to 10 minutes before they crash, usually suddenly and for no apparent reason apart from the Blue screen usually specifying NV4_Disp.dll, Kmixer.sys, ALCXSENS.sys (Realtek sound card), or ALCXWDM.sys (another realtek driver). sometimes BSOD crashes also include IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, PFN_LIST_CORRUPT or PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA. :hotouch:

Initially I suspected a power supply problem as the +12v rail is usually sitting @ or around 11.3v while idle and even 11.1v while gaming, Then I suspected Realtek/Nvidia Card incompatibility (ALCXWDM.sys, ALCXSENS.sys crashes) , then I suspected VIA chipset/6600 Incompatibilty (Cannot upgrade to latest drivers from Nvidia or sparkle because of VIA incompatiblity: 2d image corruption. I can upgrade If I change my NV4_disp.Inf file but I prefer the more stable 71.24 over the 71.89 ). Is it just a defective video card? should I replace it?

Lately the problem is becoming more frequent, BSOD crashes happen during startup and when running/closing games/applications (power supply?). Listing nothing as the problem for the windows stop error, just displaying a Hex code as the problem. (usually something like 0x0a000000 or 0x000006E... dunno )

I have tried numerous things to fix this problem, fiddling with AGP apurture size, underclocking my video card, disabling AGP fastwrites, changing AGP speed from 8x to 4x and even off, disabling BIOS cache shadowing, all to no avail... you name it... can someone PLEASE help me? I have been everywhere to try to find a solution to this problem. Can anyone Suggest Anything???

If you need more system info, just ask.. ill be watching this post constantly *cry*

Hello and welcome to Techspot.

It may be a ram problem.

Download and run the Memtest86+ programme from http://www.memtest.org/

Let it run for at least seven passes. If you don`t have a floppy drive, there is an iso version that you can burn to cd, and then boot from that.

Regards Howard

thanks for the swift reply. Ill try it now..

Well, something certainly amiss with the computer, not sure if its the RAM or the Motherboard but when I tried to run memtest, it failed about 70% through and displayed a whole list of failing adresses, as it did this I could smell something burning and the suddenly the computer lost all power and turned off...Now it wont turn back on!!! Does defective RAM stop the computer from starting up? Or did I somehow blow my motherboard?

Sounds like your mobo or your psu have just gone up in smoke.

You need to open your case and take a look.

Regards Howard