Hardware Failure & Driver Errors - ATI Radeon 9550?

[sneakazz]

Hi,

I have read & tried so much stuff on the following issues and now feel I really need some help.

Basically, I keep getting the following errors:
"Hardware Failure" (mainly)
"IRQL Not less or equal" (occasionally)
"Device Driver" or "Video/Graphics"(occasionally)

I started getting these with playing games at first but now seem to get it with simply surfing.

I checked the event logs which only said "SYSTEM ERROR 1003"
I check my cpu temp which is always around 40c so ok.

After reading about possible causes I decided to check my ram. I used some spare ram from another pc, swapped, paired, unpaired etc but still got the same issues.

I downloaded the latest drivers for my mobo, graphics card, & sound - No Joy

Then I tried to repair windows. When doing this however, I got a BSOD. I couldn't do anything - it would go to the BSOD immeadiatley.

Luckily, I had used that hard drive purely as a boot up drive so was able to instal it a fresh on my slave.

However, I still got the same errors. Next I decided to remove my graphics card & drivers to test with just the on-board graphics card. So updated the drivers.

It seemed to work for about half a day but then started crashing again with the same hardware/driver errors but alot less frequently.

What am I missing? Does the fact that I get a hardware error necessarily mean I have a hardware error or could it be a driver problem? I am pretty sure I have all the latest drivers but it wouldn't suprise me if I was missing something.

Or, is it likely I have a CPU/MOBO/PSU problem?

I know this is long winded but Ive been trying to sort it for a couple of weeks now.

Thanks in advance.

PC Spec:

ASRock K7S41GX
512mb ddr ram (plus various 256 sticks)
AMD Athlon XP 2200
Seagate barracuda hard drive
NEC dvdr

 

[pcaceit]

Hi, this is a Hard drive problem, the HDD has been corrupted and the system is unable read the Filesystem and Partition Table data on the hdd correctly. A repair install will not always work. Best solution is to Delete the Partition/s on the HDD, recreate partion/s and full format each partition. Make sure you set the partition you intend to use as your SYSTEM DRIVE as active after you recreate it.

You should save your Data (only your doccuments and media files) Not the doccuments and Settings, windows, or program files directories. because you will probably find that windows is also corrupted and will not repair but will BSOD when initializing system drivers. Use a HDD regeneration utility to make sure that any bad sectors are repaired or marked as bad so that windows does not attempt to use the bad sectors.

this is usually caused by virus atack, system crash, incorrect shutdowns causing improper HDD dismounts, if have partition magic or similar utility you will probably see that the partition is marked as bad.

 

[sneakazz]

Hi,

I made a full instal of XP on the ex-slave and took out the small boot up master drive. I then removed the graphics card and loaded the on board graphics drivers.

Everything now seems to be working fine although I am somewhat limited in available "heavy" programs to truely test the graphics card out.

However, I think in hignsight, the suggestion above was probably all's I needed to do but I dont supposed it hurt.

As everything seems to be running well enough I just decided to re-installed the graphics card.

Ill wait and see what happens as going on the basis of the last month or so, I am expecting something else to happen.

Ill keep this post running for a while with any updates just in case it helps anyone in the future.

Regards.

 

[sneakazz]

Right - I knew it was too good to be true. Within half an hour of the last statement I got the usual "hardware failure - replace failed componant" error.

At the time, I was opening a music cd, using frostwire & had firefox open.

I noticed when trying to re-instal my backed up files that I was getting a "cyclical redundancy check" error.

Could my entire problem be related to the DVD drive? Would/could a badly installed/damaged DVD drive cause these kinds of syptoms listed above?

Or is this most likely a graphics card issue?

Thanks.

 

[korrupt]

I assume you have updated every single driver of every single bit of hard ware you have?

Regards,

Korrupt

 

[pcaceit]

Your cyclic redundancy error is due to your cdrom, its caused by a faulty disk or faulty drive, I think you should try connecting the cdrom with a different IDE cable and if that still fails you will need a new cd rom