Blue screen of death

[kilter_21]

I am have random blue screens and often. I haven't been able to narrow it down to anything in particular, the errors are mostly always different. I have an asus a7n8x-e delux mobo (1 week old), amd athlon xp 3200+ (1 week old), the 400 watt power supply appears to be working good (12.096v, 4.784v, 3.344v, and 1.664v), 3 x 512mb sticks of ram (which i have swapped in, out and back but never 3 at once). i have pulled all of my hardware, and swapped video cards and now i am working on the drives. i pulled on hdd and haven't had any trouble as of yet. could this be the solution, or is there something else i should do?

 

[howard_hopkinso]

Hello and welcome to Techspot.

Please would you take a few moments to read this post. A message for all newcomers. Thanks.

Download and run the Memtest86+ programme from 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 :wave: :wave:

 

[SOcRatEs]

Hello! Welcome to TechSpot

I have that same MoBo w/ xp 2700+...
What are the BSOD messages?
Page fault in non page area.
kmode not handled.
sys files are common causes but there are several
diff files that cause this.
What OS?
What video cards are you using?
I believe this is a nVidia nForce3 chip set, if you running
an nVidia video card this could be a driver issue.
G'Luck

 

[kilter_21]

I am using windows xp. it is an nvidia 2 chipset and i do have an nvidia gforce fx 5200 vidio card. i have uninstalled this card and replace it with an ati card but had the same trouble. i have had a page fault in nonpaged area 0x50 (0xbc33291d, 0x01, 0x80566865, 0x02) stop error. one was irql not less or equal 0xa (0x04, 0x02, 0x0, 0x804e6617) stop error, win32k.sys 0x50 (0x8d001c3d, 0x01, 0xbf83eae3, 0x0), and numerous others. i have also run the memtest software without errors.

 

[SOcRatEs]

Hmmm?

I've been reading all the threads at other forums;
seems to me, if it isn't a driver issue,
the cpu heatsink and fan are the culprit.

Get a copy of Evererst Home , check the temps under sensors.
Check the heatsink and fan, make sure they're seated right and
use a good thermal compound (artic silver).
The common things appear to be drivers from sound and video
conflicting with shared irq's, sp2, or heat related BSOD.
There seems to be several possible causes to this.
just need to id yours..
G'Luck

 

[kilter_21]

my temps all appear to be good. the highest i have seen the cpu is 55 c and only under heavy loads. i have removed a harddisk and put in an older on i have had and haven't had a blue screen error (knock on wood) yet, but have had a couple of lock ups. i have also removed both my sound card (used onboard sound) and also changed my video card. is it possible that it could be the powersupply?

 

[cpc2004]

Hi Kilter,

Your Windows crashes at IRQL 1 which is special kernel APC for page fault. Most probably it is hardware related problem. If you would attach the minidumps here, I may find out the culprit. You can find the minidumps at the folder \windows\minidump

cpc2004

 

[SOcRatEs]

is it possible that it could be the powersupply?

Yes it is but not likely. cpc2004 has posted a good possibility of what
I've been reading about, irq conflicts...xp sp2 may prove out to be the
trouble.
I have mini dump turned off in the error reporting, so if you do too
then you'll need to turn it on....
I thinkn cpc2004 is on to something here.
I'd certainly like to know what is causing this too, I have customer machines
having similar trouble.
G'Luck

 

[Neuron]

Randomness

If the BSODs are random, its either a RAM issue or power supply problem. The best thing to do is try to swap out the power supply first (assuming that you've alreade tried reseating the ram and at diff. locations). If you still have problems, did you update the BIOS? If the BIOS is up to date, try putting an all new ram module in it.

 

[Bas van Berkel]

Tip

U should always try to rule out the fact that this maybe a software problem.
Than u could look if this is a hardware problem.

1. Check if u have the latest Bios Firmware installed
2. Get all the latest drivers for your hardware.
-Your mobo/chipset/network drives.
-Your Graphics Card
-Sound Card
-IDE/SATA/RAID Drivers (including Bios)
-Other components

when al these things are up to date, you should consider some other options.
Do you still get the blue screens?
If yes, u should always try a new installation of your OS with the new drivers.

If u did al of these things or already or already done it.
Then u can start testing your hardware.
Try testing your memory (with Memtest)
Scan your complete harddrive for any failures or Bad Sectors.

Ask yourself always a couple of questions when you're problem solving.
When does the problem usually occur?
Is there a sumilarity in time these bluescreen appear?
Did i change anything since the problem started?
Can i replicate the problem or can i find a reference to somebody who had the same problem and so find the solution.

Problem solving is no more than just ruling out posibilities so you can find the problem. Try everything one step at a time and try to rule out any other explanation untill u have one left.

Happy Hunting.