Blue Screen Problems On PC

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MadCat

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Hi all,

First post so please bear with me as its a relatively long story.

I have had a PC which was built myself less than a year ago, and was running fine until recently. I have started getting numerous BSOD's (Page Fault in no paged area / IRQ less than equal etc) on this PC. Initially i checked the harddrives and memory etc and discovered a problem with the memory. I have sent this back to E-buyer where i bought the parts from and recieved a replacement, the same happened with the new memory and also with another replacement after that. This memory i had bought was the extra value non branded variety and i have since managed to get e-buyer to replace the 1Gb chip with 2 512Mb PC3200 CL3 Kingston modules. During the period i was without the memory I had borrowed a couple of PC2700 128Mb chips from a mate and these seemed to run without a hitch.

I have installed the Kingston modules in the PC. There seems to be a strange problem where by when the power is turned of (for inserting the memory) it will not power up again. I need to play about with the power plugs and on/off switch at the back of the case a couple of times before i can get it to power up. Anyway after installing the memory last night i turned it on and it booted fine. And then suddenly it BSOD's (page fault) again. Now i'm not sure if its just coincidence but it happened at exactly the same time as i switched my Xbox off.

What i guess i'm really asking is that if power issues with the case / 4 bar adapter could cause memory issues like this. The case has a 400W power supply and i don't believe i'm taxing that at all.

Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks

Grant
 
as far as your memory is concerned, download and run Memtest86 to check for any errors

as far as your PSU is concerned... since you bought "extra value generic memory", I can only assume that you bought an "extra value generic PSU" as well.. lol :) I can almost guarantee you that PSU doesn't put out 400W so there is a pretty good chance that you are indeed taxing it.

The 400W rating on a generic PSU is maximum total wattage. To get the higher wattage ratings, the 3V and 5V rails have most of the current, when it is the +12V rail that needs it the most. In reality, that PSU is closer to 250W than it is to 400W
 
generally that BSOD doesn't appear out of the blue. have you upgraded/replaced or even removed and reinstalled anything hardware related recently (besides the RAM itself). That error is often caused by vid card or NIC slot placement and driver conflicts

Have you updated windows with the latest updates? (goto windows update and scan to see)

have you flashed your BIOS to the latest version?

Do you have a video card or onboard video?

What PCI cards do you have installed and in what slots?
 
KingCody,

Thanks for the response. You would indeed be correct in assuming that the case + powersupply were cheap. It was an ICute gaming case with 400w power supply, not sure if you have any more info on the power output knowing the model.

BIOS is up to date and the windows updates are as uptodate (always set to autoupdate automatically.

I have no PCI cars. A radeon 9800 Pro graphics card, one 200Gb Maxtor SATA drive, a DVD RW (LG). The only think that may have been added at the time of this happening was a wireless USB device. i've had errors since that was removed however. I'm going to run Memtest again and see if that turns anything up.

Would the lesser memory that was in the PC draw less power? as i'm more and more concerned that the PSU is under powered. Sound is through the equipment supplied with the gigabyte board.

Thanks for your help. I'm going to run mem test now and see what that does.

Any other suggestions, please let me know, its much appreciated.

Cheers

Grant
 
Ok.

I've ran windows Memory diagnostic and the test failed on the LRAND test. Could someone enlighten me as to what this means. I'm fairly sure now that my Mobo or Power supply must be chewing through memory. The alternative is that i have been incredibly unlucky with the memory i've purchased.

HELP :(

is there any way i can check for power faults on the MOBO or power supply?
 
although your PSU is rubbish and should be replaced, I don't think that is your problem, I was just telling you as an FYI.

Lets start with the basics, run your system with each RAM stick separately and see if the BSOD occurs. also be sure to read your mobo manual for proper placement of RAM sticks (some boards are pickier than others about which slots to install RAM in for different configurations)
 
Cheers for the PSU comment :)
You tend to learn from mistakes and i think i may have just learnt something.

On another note, last night i ran windows diagnostic memory test and it came up with errors on the LRAND check. Not sure entirely what this means but i gather the memory is at fault. I'm going to have to wait untill tonight to try each chip individually and see if both are damaged or just on.

From looking at the Mobo manual the memory is set up fine in slots 1 and 2 which should be fine.

I'm stilll concerned that the mother board may have a fault and that its chewing up the memory sticks.

Again, the PC worked fine with the 256Mb of memory with no probs. Its just so confusing. Maybe i'm just incredibly unlucky with the memory that's being sent to me.

Thanks for your help and i'll be back once i have checked the memory sticks individually.

Grant
 
Little extra information, which may well have solved my problem. When the memory failed in the windows diagnostic memory checker, it was on the LRAND test (Random data). Now i looked at the manual for the mobo again and found info on where the RAM can be seated. It says that 2 chips can be seated in Slots one and two for single channel operation. If i want to use Dual channel technology (Its a Gigabyte board by the way) It say's that i have to use Slots 1 and 3 but not 1 and 2. I have down this and the memory checker passes the LRAND test.

Is it possible that the memory is designed to be run in Dual channel and that could be the cause of my problem? I'm not too sure on what Dual Channel Technology is.

May be the previous memory was designed for single channel technology ??? (Guessing here).

Cheers

Grant
 
Hi MadCat

I've got a couple of suggestion to make for you. There might be some kind of software to monitor your PSU levels (Intel has one for their MB).

To my knowledge, dual or single channel is not specifically related to the memory, but the way you place it. Dual mode is faster and more efficient, but I don't think your problem is there.

I might go to two other places: Did you check tour HD for errors? The other thing that might be wrong is your MB, but I would leave this option at the end
 
The hard drive has been scanned numerous times. I've even used the Maxtor Powermax to scan it. Had to do this in another PC due to the app not working with nVidia chipset MoBo's. There were errors on it the very forst time i scanned but these were repaired and i ran the check again, the results being that it was ok.

Having said all the above. The PC hasn't BSOD'd on me again for the past couple of days.
 
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