System Crashing/Restarting Error (Minidump)

[EXCellR8]

I have been having a little bit of an issue with my computer lately, and I'm not sure why; it started a few days ago. I will be in the middle of something and my system will restart on its own. When it comes back online, I get the whole "Windows has just recovered from a serious error" deal.

I took a look at the Event Viewer (system) and got the following info on the problem:

Type = Error
Source = System Error
Category = (102)
Event = 1003

Since I don't know much about troubleshooting system errors, I've also attached the minidump that corresponds.

I tried to think of what I did to my computer recently but the only thing I could think of was a new video driver. I have since reverted back to a previous driver but I haven't really tested it.

Any suggestions on what might be causing my problem here? I would greatly appreciate any help I get. Thanks in advance!

 

[Blind Dragon]

Ill check out your dump in a few minutes, but have you tried tapping F8 before windows loads, when the menu comes up select "last good known configuration" or loading a restore point before the problem started

 

[Blind Dragon]

I am almost positive it is your driver for your display adapter(video card)

What video card do you have, what operating system?

I can point you in the right direction

 

[EXCellR8]

Thanks a ton for the response. I have an XFX 7950GT (AGP) and am running Windows XP SP2.

 

[Route44]

Blind Dragon is correct. Specifically your minidump points to nv4_disp.dll which is an Nvidia driver. if I had a dollar for every time this one came up I'd be rich.

You'd probably want to update your video card driver and take it from there.

 

[Blind Dragon]

nv4_disp.inf file located in the driver installer has no 7950gt support...

your crashed show driver fault at nv4_disp.dll

Lot's of poeple have problems with this.

Go http://www.xfxforce.com/web/support/showSearchDriversSerial.jspa

put in your serial number or product number off your card, select the driver from the list that is appropriate for your operating system, download it (to desktop is easiest).

Then go to start, control panel, add/remove programs, look for Nvidia drivers, click uninstall

You may be prompted to restart, if so do it.

Then doubleclick the installer which we already downloaded to your desktop.

Let me know how it works.

 

[EXCellR8]

Alright, thanks for the information. I kinda suspected the video driver the culprit right off the bat for some reason. I know that this card in particular can have some compatibility issues. I already have the card registered for drivers on the XFX site so I will go there now. Thanks for evaluating the dump so quickly, I really appreciate it! I will let you know if I have any further problems.

 

[Blind Dragon]

let us know if it works as well

 

[EXCellR8]

I'm not sure this will work but I'll give it a try. The driver I downloaded off the XFX site was 169.21, which I believe was the same driver that I was using when I got the error. Perhaps I downloaded the wrong version before? Anyways, if this doesn't work should I revert back to an older driver?

 

[Blind Dragon]

Well does the system only crash when you load half life 2 or do other programs crash it also

 

[EXCellR8]

Yea I think my computer is broken. I just installed the 169.21 driver a little while ago and then tried to relaunch hl2. The game crashed literally 20 seconds in and gave me an error, but didn't restart my system. The datacache.dll was to blame so I defragged the cache files. After that, I launched hl2 again and something incredibly strange happened... I was loading up a level and out of nowhere it stopped loading and a really high-pitched sound came from the speakers. The computer then froze up and I was forced to restart.

After I got it back up, I went into device manager and noticed that there was no driver installed for the onboard sound so i disabled it ( i have a creative sound card anyways). Could all this be caused by my mainboard drivers? I was having trouble installing WHQL drivers (5.10) so i had to install some beta ones... Anyways, the system crashed while I was online not doing much as well as when i tried running hl2. So yea, no luck so far.

 

[Blind Dragon]

What board do you have

 

[EXCellR8]

I am running an Abit NF7-S v2.0 nForce2. I did recently install a new BIOS chip but I had it flashed with the same version as on the last chip. I didn't really think that this would cause any problems but now that has me wondering.

 

[Blind Dragon]

yea v5.10 is the latest on the chipset drivers. I would think your error could only be the graphics card drivers or the chipset drivers

The other thing I can think of is trying the forceware drivers from Nvidia's site if you have not already.

 

[EXCellR8]

Yea I tried the ForceWare drivers from both the nVidia site and the XFX site. I couldn't install the 5.10 chipset drivers for some reason. The installer crapped out before setup finished. I used a mixed pack of drivers i found at Guru3D but I would feel much better using WHQL ones. Is there any way to manually install them? Thanks for all your input.

 

[Route44]

Were your earlier drivers causing crashes? Sometimes you have to roll back to previous drivers to gain stability.

 

[EXCellR8]

I finally got the 5.10 chipset drivers to install, I think I uninstalled them incorrectly or something. So now I'm using the 5.10 nForce2 drivers and the 169.21 video drivers for my 7950GT. If my system crashes again, I will revert back to the 169.04 drivers but I will leave the mainboard ones alone.

 

[Blind Dragon]

if your system crashes again, please attach the new minidump. As it could be something else causing crashes also

 

[EXCellR8]

Will do, I have also disabled automatic restart so if it crashes a BSOD should so up. Hopefully that will give me a better idea of what's going on.

 

[EXCellR8]

UPDATE - New BSOD + STOP code

I finally ran into a BSOD after running a couple video-demanding applications. I also got another minidump that looks identical to the previous. I think my problem still rests with the video drivers for my 7950GT. Anyways, here is all the info I got with the BSOD:

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

***STOP: 0x0000000A (0xFFBE0000, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0x804F757C)

I also got some kind of weird "TERMINATION/Exception caught/thread tried..." error message prior to this BSOD but I couldn't read the whole thing and had to restart my system. Afterwards, I couldn't find a dump or any system events.

I would really appreciate any further help with this. Thank you!

 

[Route44]

Mini stated memory corruption.

 

[EXCellR8]

So does that mean that my RAM is faulty? I've never had any problems with my memory before. I have 2 sticks of 1GB Corsair XMS PC3200 DDR RAM that I have never had any issues with... Gah this sucks, I so don't feel like sinking any more money into this thing but if I need new RAM, I'm gonna have to face the music I guess.

 

[Route44]

Well I first suggest that you run MemTest for 7-10 passes to see if indeed it is your memory per se. it could be a bad driver trying to access an IRQ address since it is an 0x0A error.

I understand about the memory. I had BSODs galore and it was my memory; sticks that I had for over 2 years. I just replaced today.

P.S. Memory does become corrupted for no apparent reason.

 

[EXCellR8]

Well, that's bad news but sh1t happens for no reason sometimes i guess. I'll run my Memtest86+ CD when i get a chance. I'll probably just buy 2 new sticks even if my RAM passes just in case. I understand that sometimes corrupt RAM can pass the test so I'll just get 2 new ones. Thanks for the info.

 

[Blind Dragon]

memory corruption doesn't always mean RAM either though it could also be pagefile or video memory

there was an attempt in kernel mode to touch pageable memory at too high a process internal request level (IRQL). Typically, this error occurs when a driver uses an incorrect memory address. Other possible causes of this error are an incompatible device driver, a general hardware problem, and incompatible software.