Hi,
I have a very severe issue in my PC.
My specs are:

Motherboard - Asus A7N8X Deluxe
CPU - AMD 2100
HD - 1x 20 gigs IBM IDE 133, 1x 80 gigs Maxtor SATA
Video Card - Nvidia Gforce 4 MX 440
Ram - 2x 256 MB DDR 333

I'm running Windows XP and having some problems.
For the last 3-4 months Windows XP keeps giving me almost all kinds of
BSOD. I think I ran into almost any BSOD exsist.
The ones who are repeating on a daily basis are:
0x00000050
0x0000008E
0x0000000A
0x0000001E
0x0000001A
0x000000C2
0xC000021A

The strange thing is that it's completely coincidental. The system can work for 2 hours without any problem, and then opening a word document, or checking mail or anything else can cause BSOD. In other cases after a minute that system is up, I get the BSOD.

I've tried testing the memory with at least 3 different programs(including memtest86), no error found. Tried working with each of the memory cards seperately and still same BSODs.
I've updated the BIOS to the latest one, didn't help.
Updated the video card driver.
Checked for a heating problem - not the case.

As a last resort I tried installing Windows XP again, and those same BSOD are repeating in the Windows XP Setup!

Any ideas what could be the cause?
Any ideas what's the next stage?

Have you tried making your 80GB HD the master?
That old IBM is probably cranky and should be put to pasture, or transfered to some rubbish-PC for messing.
Before you do, try and swap the IDE flatcable, and run the appropriate tests as mentioned in the Read: Drive diagnostic utilities compendium in the Storage forum.
Drive diagnostic utilities compendium

Okay, I'll give it a try, but how do I make the SATA drive the master?
I mean between IDE drives you control who the master by jumpering them, but how do you do that between IDE drive and a SATA drive?

Another thing I should add is that occasionly some drivers appear in the BSOD. The common ones are:

fastfat.sys
si3112r.sys
win32k.sys

From your description, it is faulty ram. Some faulty ram can pass memtest as there have no reliable tools to test the memory. Reseat the memory may resolve the problem if it is bad contact between the ram and memory slot. If you have two memory module, take out one memory module. If it does not crash, the memory module which are not in use is faulty.

Have already tried that. That was my first guess.
Actually the 2nd ram had been bought only because of this problem. The system continue crashes with each of them seperately.
My guess is the CPU.
How can I confirm it?

When Windows crashes with blue screen, it writes a system event 1001 and a minidump to the folder \windows\minidump. Check system event 1001 and it has the content of the blue screen

Event ID: 1001
Source: Save Dump
Description:
The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck.The bugcheck was : 0xc000000a (0xe1270188, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0x804032100).
Microsoft Windows..... A dump was saved in: .......

Control Panel -> Adminstrative Tools -> Event Viewer -> System -> Event 1001. Copy the content and paste it back here

Zip 5 to 6 minidumps and attach the zip files here. I will study the dump and find whether the problem is related faulty CPU or M/B.

There's no such event in the Event viewer. It appears that those dump files aren't being saved for some reason. Any ideas why?

Edit: Okay, now they are being created.. will gather a few and upload them.
Thanks.

I've gathered 5 minidumps, as you've asked:

Attached Files

minidump.zip (81.6 KB, 6 views)

Anyone? Help?

Faulty RAM is the culprit and your XP is two years behind. You had better upgrade your XP to SP1 latest patch.

804d4000 806c6980 nt ntoskrnl.exe Thu Aug 29 17:03:24 2002 (3D6DE35C)
806c7000 806e6380 hal halaacpi.dll Thu Aug 29 16:05:02 2002 (3D6DD5AE)
bf800000 bf9bac80 win32k win32k.sys Thu Aug 29 17:14:13 2002 (3D6DE5E5)

Debug report of your minidump

Mini072805-01.dmp D1 (6afffedb, 00000002, 00000000, bf8d31b9) win32k!SleepInputIdle+d
Mini072805-02.dmp 50 (aae1cf70, 00000000, 804ee12e, 00000000) win32k!ENTRYOBJ::vSetup+17 -> nt!PsGetProcessWin32Process+0x4
Mini072805-03.dmp 0A (00000000, 00000002, 00000001, 804f1a81) nt!KiUnlockDispatcherDatabase+8d
Mini072905-01.dmp D1 (310e2ef5, 00000002, 00000001, 82fdae10) CLASSPNP!ClassCompleteRequest+e
Mini072905-02.dmp 0A (052cc378, 00000002, 00000001, 804ed72f) CLASSPNP!ClassCompleteRequest+e -> nt!IopfCompleteRequest+db -> nt!KeBugCheckEx+0x19

Well first of all, thanks!
Second, I really don't think it can be the ram's fault. This was my first assumption, and therefore I bought a new ram, and got the old one out of the PC, and still the same BSODs.

I really don't understand a thing of the data that you have given. Is it for sure that the ram is the cause? Can it be that the new ram I bought is also damaged?

Case 1
It may be the memory slot of M/B has bad contact with the RAM. Clean the dust inside your PC. Reseat the memory stick to another memory slot.

Case 2
Usually hardware occurs randomly, your minidumps have various bugcheck code and the failing modules are different. As you know, windows use RAM and L2 cache memory of CPU. If your RAM is good, it maybe the L2 cache memory of CPU is bad.


If you can attach all of your system event 1001 here, I can verify whether it is CPU or RAM problem.

I'll try cleaning the dust, and reseat the memory stick to another slot.

In the meantime here are all of the system event 1001 as you have asked:


The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x0000000a (0x052cc378, 0x00000002, 0x00000001, 0x804ed72f). A dump was saved in: c:\minidump\Mini072905-02.dmp.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x000000d1 (0x310e2ef5, 0x00000002, 0x00000001, 0x82fdae10). A dump was saved in: c:\minidump\Mini072905-01.dmp.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x0000000a (0x00000000, 0x00000002, 0x00000001, 0x804f1a81). A dump was saved in: c:\minidump\Mini072805-03.dmp.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x10000050 (0xaae1cf70, 0x00000000, 0x804ee12e, 0x00000000). A dump was saved in: c:\minidump\Mini072805-02.dmp.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.


The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x000000d1 (0x6afffedb, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0xbf8d31b9). A dump was saved in: c:\minidump\Mini072805-01.dmp.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Well, cleaning the dust and switching slots didn't help. Is there a way of verifying that it's a CPU problem?