BSOD - problems with video card?

[Graham04]

Hi everyone,

Within the last 5 or 6 weeks I have experienced the BSOD frequently. I reinstalled XP 2 days ago to try and rid the problem, but it still remains, all-be-it, slightly different, i.e. before the reinstall the BSOD was kernel_stack_inpage_error and kernel_data_inpage_error. Now the error is driver_irql_not_less_or_equal with a STOP error:

0x000000D1 (0x00000009, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0x00000009)

I have tested memory with memtest and windows memory tester and no problems came up. I have also tested my primary and secondary HD's with no errors.

About 2/2 1/2 months ago I installed an Nvidia Geforce 6200 256mb GFX card.

My specs are
AMD Athlon 1.25Ghz
Nvidia Geforce 6200 256mb
386mb PC2100 RAM
Primary HD is Seagate 80GB IDE and slave is Maxtor 120GB IDE.
300W power supply.

Is it possible that with teh installation of the new GFX card that my power source is not large enough to cope or sometyhing similar with the RAM? The crashes only seem to occur when the computer is idle, i.e. if I am actively using applications/games/internet, crashes do not occur.

6 minidumps are listed as you sendit sorry, hope they are relevant!
http://s55.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0LDEKVSY63DW2Z3Q0LKUP96NP

Cheers for the help.

 

[howard_hopkinso]

Hello and welcome to Techspot.

It is entirely possible that your psu is the culprit. Particularly if it is a no name brand.

Take a look at this PSU wattage calculator. Add a further 30% to what ever figure it gives you as a safety margin.

2 of your minidumps are corrupt and unreadable.

2 crash at ntoskrnl.exe. This is the Windows bootup kernel. They have bugchecks of D1.

1 crashes at NDIS.sys. This is the windows NDIS 5.1 wrapper driver. It has a bugcheck of D1.

1 crashes at psched.sys. This is the Windows MS QoS Packet Scheduler. It has a bugcheck of D1.

0x000000D1: DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

The system attempted to access pageable memory using a kernel process IRQL that was too high. The most typical cause is a bad device driver (one that uses improper addresses). It can also be caused by caused by faulty or mismatched RAM, or a damaged pagefile.

Go HERE and follow the instructions for testing your page file etc.

Everything points to a ram problem. However, an underpowered or faulty psu would cause these errors as well.

Regards Howard :wave: :wave:

 

[Graham04]

thanks, will give it a shot, was going to buy some more RAM anyway.

You don't think it's related to the video card?

 

[Jimbo420]

I don't really know how to read the minidumps like howard does but I am going to have to say that it does sound a lot like the PSU could be your problem (since from the tests you run it appears your memory is fine). Before you start doing too much with the computer itself to test this theory I would also double check and make sure that there isn't any apparent damage to the caps on your motherboard. Sometimes I have seen things like that present themselves as PSU problems like that.

Course sometimes damage to the caps can be cause from the PSU starting to go back but something you should look at when you start getting ready to swap out parts to test things.

 

[Graham04]

how would i check if the caps were damaged??

 

[howard_hopkinso]

Take a look HERE.

You`ll have to open your case and carefully look at the capacitors.

Regards Howard

 

[Jimbo420]

Open up your case and see if there is any bulging or anything "krusty" forming on the top of them. Also double check by trying to wiggle them a little bit to make sure that none of them are loose or anything. Although becareful to nock one of them loose and cause some damage yourself .

 

[Graham04]

k had a look and can't see anything wrong apart from one perhaps slightly loose capacitor. Switched one of the memory sticks to another slot to see if that makes any difference.

 

[Graham04]

i switched one of the memory sticks to a different slot and the problem seems to have disappeared. I was thinking of upgrading my memory soon, will it work in this seemingly faulty slot?

thanks

 

[howard_hopkinso]

Thanks for your feedback.

Regards Howard

 

[Jimbo420]

i switched one of the memory sticks to a different slot and the problem seems to have disappeared. I was thinking of upgrading my memory soon, will it work in this seemingly faulty slot?

thanks

It might be a dead slot it might be the memory. If everything seems to work in different slots then it kind of sounds like your problem is with the slots on your motherboard. If things are working now I would test the memory with http://www.memtest.org/]this[/url] so you can try to rule that out.