PC BSOD and possible upgrade

Gbear

Spec:
Processor: Intel i5 750 @2.67GHz

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate

RAM: Corsair 4GB DDR3 1333MHz

Graphics: Radeon ATI HD 5770 1GB

Power supply: OCZ MOD-X stream pro 700W

Motherboard: Gigabyte P55A-UD4

Anti-Virus: Microsoft Security Essentials

---

Ever since I built my PC about 2 years ago there's been an intermittent problem with BSODs. It happened quite a bit at the start - several times a day. Then it would disappear to once a month for a while. Every now and again it would come back and occur often but then go away again.

It's happening again now so enough is enough - I want to sort it out.

I think it's always the same error message:
"PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGE_AREA"

I googled it and it suggested the cause might be RAM.

Any ideas?
I'd been planning on an upgrade at some point anyway. Should I just bite the bullet now? Could it be another problem?
I don't really know how to go about fixing this so I didn't think a thread in the PC upgrading forum would be appropriate until I know what hardware, if any, I need to change.

unkel

Did you run memtest?

If it comes up with errors, try re-seating the RAM

If it still comes up with errors, try using only 1 stick of RAM, in different slots

If it still comes up with errors, get a stick of RAM somewhere that is compatible to your motherboard, as per the motherboard's manual

If it still comes up with errors, RMA the motherboard

If memtest did not come up with any errors, follow the advise from the next poster here VVVVVV

zenno

when you got the bsod did you not write down the error code ? 000xxx or 0x. The error code will start with 0x00 or similar. next time try and write it down as it is essential to narrow the fault down. It does sound like the ram but still you need that error code. Also this error can be caused by some antivirus software like norton etc...

Gbear

unkel wrote: »

Did you run memtest?

If it comes up with errors, try re-seating the RAM

If it still comes up with errors, try using only 1 stick of RAM, in different slots

If it still comes up with errors, get a stick of RAM somewhere that is compatible to your motherboard, as per the motherboard's manual

If it still comes up with errors, RMA the motherboard

If memtest did not come up with any errors, follow the advise from the next poster here VVVVVV

I can't make any sense of the instructions on the memtest website.

" To build a bootable floppy go the the folder where the files were extracted and click on the Install icon."
from here
There is no install icon.

zenno

Gbear wrote: »

I can't make any sense of the instructions on the memtest website.

" To build a bootable floppy go the the folder where the files were extracted and click on the Install icon."
from here
There is no install icon.

click this link here.. http://www.memtest86.com/download.html#R40a and scroll down a tiny bit to this one >> Ver 4.0a - Windows Floppy disk package

download it to your desktop or whatever and when done right click the file and extract it, you will see 3 files, one that says install (it looks like a cog. so you have to send that to your floppy disk. yeah, so you will have to enter target diskette drive of your floppy drive.

yoyo

Memtest86+ is available on the UBCD. Download and burn the iso to a CD-R, then boot off it (as if to install Windows) then run Memtest86+. Any errors whatsoever Memtest returns means there is an issue,

Nick

Gbear

I don't have a floppy drive.

I'm downloading the UBCD.

Do I have to burn it to a CD? I don't have any. Any other way to boot off it?

uberpixie

Gbear wrote: »

I don't have a floppy drive.

I'm downloading the UBCD.

Do I have to burn it to a CD? I don't have any. Any other way to boot off it?

USB: look for the instructions on their site.

yoyo

Gbear wrote: »

I don't have a floppy drive.

I'm downloading the UBCD.

Do I have to burn it to a CD? I don't have any. Any other way to boot off it?

If you have a 1gb USB Key and a bios that supports USB booting (most modern ones do) then you can use UNetBootIn to make the USB key bootable and contain the UBCD programs

Nick

Gbear

zenno wrote: »

when you got the bsod did you not write down the error code ? 000xxx or 0x. The error code will start with 0x00 or similar. next time try and write it down as it is essential to narrow the fault down. It does sound like the ram but still you need that error code. Also this error can be caused by some antivirus software like norton etc...

Only have microsoft security essentials and that's all I've ever had on it.

zenno

Gbear wrote: »

Only have microsoft security essentials and that's all I've ever had on it.

That's grand, more than likely it is not the antivirus but i just mentioned it before as it can cause this problem as well but it could be many things and this problem is intermittent that you are having and can be a tough one to track down so you really need to put memtest on a usb stick to check the ram and if you're ram test comes up fine then you can move on to other tests.

Gbear

yoyo wrote: »

If you have a 1gb USB Key and a bios that supports USB booting (most modern ones do) then you can use UNetBootIn to make the USB key bootable and contain the UBCD programs

Nick

Running this at the moment.

Once it's completed copying it to the USB is that it? Will it run it when I reboot?

yoyo

Gbear wrote: »

Running this at the moment.

Once it's completed copying it to the USB is that it? Will it run it when I reboot?

Possibly, it depends on your system. Sometimes you need to go into the bios/system setup and set the first boot device to USB Device first/others you need to press a button (usually [F12]) at system POST to enter a boot menu where you choose the USB Key

Nick

Gbear

Error message:
"The wrong volume is in the drive. Please insert volume into drive I:."

I: is the USB drive.

yoyo

Gbear wrote: »

Error message:
"The wrong volume is in the drive. Please insert volume into drive I:."

I: is the USB drive.

Try formatting the USB key to FAT32 (will loose all files on the device) and see if it helps

Nick

Gbear

yoyo wrote: »

Try formatting the USB key to FAT32 (will loose all files on the device) and see if it helps

Nick

Hmm... there were 3 options... "Cancel", "Try Again" and "Continue".


Clicked continue and it seemed to just ignore the error and carry on.

I'll reboot now.

Gbear

Right, I've tried to reboot about 4 times.

The problem is that in the boot menu there are 4 USB options.

There's USB floppy, USB ZIP, USB CD-ROM and USB HDD.

Which one am I supposed to choose?

And how do I know if it's working? Does it launch into the UBCD straight after the boot menu or do I just get a report when I log back into windows?

yoyo

Gbear wrote: »

Right, I've tried to reboot about 4 times.

The problem is that in the boot menu there are 4 USB options.

There's USB floppy, USB ZIP, USB CD-ROM and USB HDD.

Which one am I supposed to choose?

And how do I know if it's working? Does it launch into the UBCD straight after the boot menu or do I just get a report when I log back into windows?

I would imagine USB HDD you chose. But try the others, you will see the UBCD menu before Windows starts booting if correct

Nick

Gbear

yoyo wrote: »

I would imagine USB HDD you chose. But try the others, you will see the UBCD menu before Windows starts booting if correct

Nick

Right. A while ago when I said that I pressed "continue" and everything was hunky dory - it didn't actually install the boot utility. So i reformatted the usb to FAT32, ran the yoke that allowed me to boot from the USB drive and it was all plane sailing then. It booted from USB HDD and now it's running on my PC. (On my mother's laptop now)

So far it's come up with 20 errors.

It got to 100% and I thought "yay!" but then it went back to 0. Any idea how many passes it does?

yoyo

Gbear wrote: »

Right. A while ago when I said that I pressed "continue" and everything was hunky dory - it didn't actually install the boot utility. So i reformatted the usb to FAT32, ran the yoke that allowed me to boot from the USB drive and it was all plane sailing then. It booted from USB HDD and now it's running on my PC. (On my mother's laptop now)

So far it's come up with 20 errors.

It got to 100% and I thought "yay!" but then it went back to 0. Any idea how many passes it does?

Memtest will do many passes (could do 100+ if you allow it!), any errors (print in red) means faulty memory (Confuguration issues may also display error messages)!

Nick

Gbear

so should I leave it run all the way through or is a few enough to know whats the problem?

If needs be I can leave it run overnight.
It's been running for over an hour now and has found 22 errors.

yoyo

Gbear wrote: »

so should I leave it run all the way through or is a few enough to know whats the problem?

If needs be I can leave it run overnight.
It's been running for over an hour now and has found 22 errors.

You've already found memory errors, that is sufficient to say RAM is causing your issue. Usually faulty RAM will do this, try running memtest with only one RAM module installed and see if you can narrow down the culprit

Nick

Gbear

yoyo wrote: »

You've already found memory errors, that is sufficient to say RAM is causing your issue. Usually faulty RAM will do this, try running memtest with only one RAM module installed and see if you can narrow down the culprit

Nick

That's not really necessary.

If I have to replace one of the sticks I may aswell just get more RAM altogether which means replacing both regardless.

Essentially, I wanted to make sure that there wasn't a problem elsewhere.

Once I'm confident the problem is isolated to the memory then I know that that's all that needs replacing. And memory is cheap and easy to replace. Dunno would I feel capable of replacing some of the other fiddlyer components.

yoyo

Gbear wrote: »

That's not really necessary.

If I have to replace one of the sticks I may aswell just get more RAM altogether which means replacing both regardless.

Essentially, I wanted to make sure that there wasn't a problem elsewhere.

Once I'm confident the problem is isolated to the memory then I know that that's all that needs replacing. And memory is cheap and easy to replace. Dunno would I feel capable of replacing some of the other fiddlyer components.

In case the fault is the RAM socket I would try both modules individually, I'm fairly certain replacing the RAM will sort it, but not 100%

Nick

Gbear

yoyo wrote: »

In case the fault is the RAM socket I would try both modules individually, I'm fairly certain replacing the RAM will sort it, but not 100%

Nick

Wouldn't the only way to tell that be if I had RAM which I knew didn't contain any faults and the memtest still turned up faults?

Unless no errors are returned with one of the sticks, then it could either be the socket, one of the sticks, both of the sticks or the memory and the socket, no?

I'll test it later on tonight and get back to you.

yoyo

Gbear wrote: »

Wouldn't the only way to tell that be if I had RAM which I knew didn't contain any faults and the memtest still turned up faults?

Unless no errors are returned with one of the sticks, then it could either be the socket, one of the sticks, both of the sticks or the memory and the socket, no?

I'll test it later on tonight and get back to you.

Troubleshooting PCs can be a slow tedious process, by all means buy new RAM as its the likely cause, but it also may not be the case . Just rule out the faulty stick, then try the other in the same socket/etc.

Nick

Gbear

I've now tested both sticks of RAM independently in the slots they were in when they were both tested simultaneously.

22 Errors were found last night when I tested both.

The first stick had no errors.

So far, after 15 minutes, the second stick has none either. It's still running and I'll leave it go for another 15-20 minutes.


Thoughts?

Gbear

Tested both sticks at the same time again. No errors.

Blue screened 3 times today before the tests.

"Page fault in nonpaged area" twice

and "system service exception" the other time.

zenno

It could be the graphics card driver that is causing the Page fault in nonpaged area, if a driver is corrupt i'm sure it can affect the memory onboard the gpu. Download the latest whql driver but uninstall the old graphics driver first and install the new one and restart and see if it makes any difference. It really seems like a memory problem but it could be the memory onboard the card. process of elimination.

Gbear

zenno wrote: »

It could be the graphics card driver that is causing the Page fault in nonpaged area, if a driver is corrupt i'm sure it can affect the memory onboard the gpu. Download the latest whql driver but uninstall the old graphics driver first and install the new one and restart and see if it makes any difference. It really seems like a memory problem but it could be the memory onboard the card. process of elimination.

Did that. A bit scary when I uninstalled it and couldn't figure out how to reinstall it for a while. :pac:

I don't know if either of these is relevant but my GPU fan makes a buzzing sound quite alot and I've had problems with installing the ATI software "Catalyst" - the updates never seem to work. It always comes up with the same error referring to "damaged media". So once in a while I just uninstall it and reinstall the later iteration.

I tried taking the fan apart and seeing if I could clean out any dust or whatever but it didn't seem to work. I've read you can insert some oil into the bearings but I don't have any of that kind of oil and by and large, I haven't noticed any problems with overheating or artifacting so I just let it lie.

zenno

Gbear wrote: »

Did that. A bit scary when I uninstalled it and couldn't figure out how to reinstall it for a while. :pac:

I don't know if either of these is relevant but my GPU fan makes a buzzing sound quite alot and I've had problems with installing the ATI software "Catalyst" - the updates never seem to work. It always comes up with the same error referring to "damaged media". So once in a while I just uninstall it and reinstall the later iteration.

I tried taking the fan apart and seeing if I could clean out any dust or whatever but it didn't seem to work. I've read you can insert some oil into the bearings but I don't have any of that kind of oil and by and large, I haven't noticed any problems with overheating or artifacting so I just let it lie.

Well it's definitely a tedious process with testing the ram alone, so you need to get good ram or a lend of a module from a friend to test as everything is pointing to the ram but won't be 100% sure until you can try this.

Gbear

zenno wrote: »

Well it's definitely a tedious process with testing the ram alone, so you need to get good ram or a lend of a module from a friend to test as everything is pointing to the ram but won't be 100% sure until you can try this.

So at this point do you think I should head over to the Building and Upgrades forum?

I've been mulling over an upgrade for a while so I've no problem in replacing the RAM. If it helps solve the problem, even better.

Even it doesn't - back to square 1.

zenno

Gbear wrote: »

So at this point do you think I should head over to the Building and Upgrades forum?

I've been mulling over an upgrade for a while so I've no problem in replacing the RAM. If it helps solve the problem, even better.

Even it doesn't - back to square 1.

Like what a previous poster said, it's a hard one to track down but you need to start with the ram. Just wondering, have you ever overclocked the graphics card or cpu or memory before ? if not disregard.

If you head over to the building and upgrading section i'm sure they will just tell you the same, try new ram etc... if you do try new ram or you get a lend of good working ram and the problem still exists then people can carry on from there to help you further.

Gbear

zenno wrote: »

Like what a previous poster said, it's a hard one to track down but you need to start with the ram. Just wondering, have you ever overclocked the graphics card or cpu or memory before ? if not disregard.

If you head over to the building and upgrading section i'm sure they will just tell you the same, try new ram etc... if you do try new ram or you get a lend of good working ram and the problem still exists then people can carry on from there to help you further.

I've tried a little overclocking using the ATI software suite. It's not enabled at the moment.

This problem was occurring long before I tried that though.

It seems to have quietened down again. Just the one crash today. That's what's most perplexing to me. It's like it's crashing when a mood takes it.

zenno

Gbear wrote: »

I've tried a little overclocking using the ATI software suite. It's not enabled at the moment.

This problem was occurring long before I tried that though.

It seems to have quietened down again. Just the one crash today. That's what's most perplexing to me. It's like it's crashing when a mood takes it.

I see. Well that's ok with ATI but if you overclocked the memory timings before which i think you haven't then that could be the cause as well but all i can think of at the moment is the ram. I do remember a friend with a similar problem with it bsoding the odd time and he tracked down the bogey ram module and he replaced it with a new one and it has never had the problem again, he just used one ram module for a few days and had no bsod's so he took that module out and inserted the last one as he only had two and when he installed the other one on it's own he said the bsod came back so he knew that ram module was bad. It's time consuming but it has to be done to track down the bad one.


EDIT: This is probably not the case but i was just talking to the bloke that had this exact same problem and he said..

tell him to check his hard drive cause I got a lot more of those "fault in non paged area" bsod's when the hard drive was too full. I'd say it's much more likely that than bad ram

Now this could be the case or it could be the ram so just have a look.

Gbear

zenno wrote: »

I see. Well that's ok with ATI but if you overclocked the memory timings before which i think you haven't then that could be the cause as well but all i can think of at the moment is the ram. I do remember a friend with a similar problem with it bsoding the odd time and he tracked down the bogey ram module and he replaced it with a new one and it has never had the problem again, he just used one ram module for a few days and had no bsod's so he took that module out and inserted the last one as he only had two and when he installed the other one on it's own he said the bsod came back so he knew that ram module was bad. It's time consuming but it has to be done to track down the bad one.


EDIT: This is probably not the case but i was just talking to the bloke that had this exact same problem and he said..



Now this could be the case or it could be the ram so just have a look.

Thing is, it might not BSOD for weeks on it's own and I've tested both modules individually and together and found no errors (as well as testing them both and finding lots) so I'd have no idea which one to take out and really no way to tell if I'd removed the offending module, or if BSOD went on holidays again.

Anyway, I'll get new RAM and sure, hopefully I won't be back again.


This forum was super-helpful. if nothing else I've learned a bit about how my computer works and how to troubleshoot problems.
Thanks to all who replied.

AND CURSE ALL THOSE WHO DIDN'T!!

:pac:

zenno

Gbear wrote: »

Thing is, it might not BSOD for weeks on it's own and I've tested both modules individually and together and found no errors (as well as testing them both and finding lots) so I'd have no idea which one to take out and really no way to tell if I'd removed the offending module, or if BSOD went on holidays again.

Anyway, I'll get new RAM and sure, hopefully I won't be back again.


This forum was super-helpful. if nothing else I've learned a bit about how my computer works and how to troubleshoot problems.
Thanks to all who replied.

AND CURSE ALL THOSE WHO DIDN'T!!

:pac:

It's a pain for sure tracking down such an intermittent fault so if you do try new ram let us know how it goes as it will be helpful to others that encounter the same problem.

Also, just make sure that the RAM you get is compatible with your motherboard. Motherboard vendors often have charts with RAM models that will help you determine what to get.

ZENNO.