Blue screens - Causes?

The Troll

Having suffered with these buggers for nigh on a year now, I bought another new hard drive last week. Installed XP and am now experiencing the exct same thing again.

Dell are refusing to accept its a hardware issue as everything passes there diagnostics. They are still claiming the problem is software related, even though its a brand new Hard Drive with only Windows installed.

I examined the log files with WinDBG and that references Memory Corruption as the problem.

So, can blue screens be caused by anything other than software issues. If yes, by what?

I've been told faulty RAM is one cause.

Is there any other causes?

Voodoo2

Driver Problems could also be a factor, but if its memory, and you have X2 sticks in your machine, remove one boot up see if you have probs, them swap for the other one, unplug hardware you dont need to see if its a prob, Cooling is one to remember make sure that fans are up to scratch and termal paste etc!

The Troll

Voodoo2 wrote:

Driver Problems could also be a factor, but if its memory, and you have X2 sticks in your machine, remove one boot up see if you have probs, them swap for the other one, unplug hardware you dont need to see if its a prob, Cooling is one to remember make sure that fans are up to scratch and termal paste etc!

Could drivers be a problem when booting from a brand new Hard Drive?

Also the 8400 uses memory pairs, will that still be ok to boot from one?

Thanks

Note: This problem never occurs immediately after booting, its always after i have it on for between 1 and 4 hours. Then it occurs over and over again until i leave it for a few hours. Same cyclical process reoccurs then.

Does that sound like a cooling issue?

Voodoo2

if you installed 3rd party drivers yes it could be a problem,

Memory pairs as in Rimms RDRAM or DDR Paired?

It could be an over heating problem to try that one out take the case off the computer and put a rotary fan blowing on the CPU if that works then your sorted!

9 times out of 10 if it blue screens after boot its a driver starting but try the cooling issue first

The Troll

Voodoo2 wrote:

if you installed 3rd party drivers yes it could be a problem,

Memory pairs as in Rimms RDRAM or DDR Paired?

It could be an over heating problem to try that one out take the case off the computer and put a rotary fan blowing on the CPU if that works then your sorted!

9 times out of 10 if it blue screens after boot its a driver starting but try the cooling issue first

It never blue screens after boot. It blue screens after an hour or so. Then blue screens after boot. How can 3rd party drivers be instaleld on a brand new hard drive? All i installed wa sthe OS.

Voodoo2

Thats a heating Issue try the Fan blowing into the case!

Pa ElGrande

The memory corruption referred to in the debug output is most likely to happen when a computer memory location or register is accidentally overwritten by a computer program due to a programming error. Most likely a bad driver.
If the stop errors are all the same then a bad driver is the most likely cause.
If the stop errors are all different then this could well be a heat control problem given it happens after about an hour.
Maybe you might post the "!analyze -v" output generated from two of the minidumps here to get a better idea.

The Troll

Pa ElGrande wrote:

The memory corruption referred to in the debug output is most likely to happen when a computer memory location or register is accidentally overwritten by a computer program due to a programming error. Most likely a bad driver.
If the stop errors are all the same then a bad driver is the most likely cause.
If the stop errors are all different then this could well be a heat control problem given it happens after about an hour.
Maybe you might post the "!analyze -v" output generated from two of the minidumps here to get a better idea.

I'll post the dumps here later.

The stop errors are always different. Some are IRQL errors, some are corrupt PFN list, some are relating to bad pool(or something liek bad pool, cant remember).

How can I get the errors if its a brand new hard drive with no 3rd party drivers installed?

the_syco

The Blue Screen of Death is actually the best troubleshooter that comes with Windows. If you ever bothered to take down the first few lines, it usually tells you your problem. And I mean taking down exactly what it says.

And wtf is with buying the new HDD? Why would it cure anything. BSoD's can be caused by anything.

The Troll

the_syco wrote:

And wtf is with buying the new HDD? Why would it cure anything. BSoD's can be caused by anything.

1. I needed a new one as I've a huge amount of data on my PC and my other one was almost full.

2. If the BSODs were being caused by hard drive corruption or software installed on the old HDD then the problem wouldn't have recoccured. Experiencing the same problems with a brand new hard drive means that one possible cause is ruled out.

Orion

Post the actual STOP code - it's the first line on the BSOD. STOP (0x00000012,etc etc)

And near the bottom of the page it should mention a file name as well - post that too.

This is the first step in troubleshooting.

philologos

it could be a registry error

WizZard

Make a boot CD/floppy with memtest86 on it and boot up to it. Let it run for a couple of hours and see if there are any errors. If there are errors, ring Dell and explain what you've done and that the memory is bad and needs replacing.
Bad memory is the most common cause of the problems you are having, in my experience.

The Troll

WizZard wrote:

Make a boot CD/floppy with memtest86 on it and boot up to it. Let it run for a couple of hours and see if there are any errors. If there are errors, ring Dell and explain what you've done and that the memory is bad and needs replacing.
Bad memory is the most common cause of the problems you are having, in my experience.

Hi Wizzard,

I tried memtest86 about 6 months ago and everything passed. Will that defo find errors if its a RAM problem?

Thx.

WizZard

If it's a physical problem with the RAM, yes. Try it again - latest version. And let it run for 8 hrs.

I would also find a way to exactly reproduce the problem if possible, both to give us the STOP error, and to prove to Dell that it's faulty - although I think you were trying to swap this PC earlier today?

The Troll

WizZard wrote:

If it's a physical problem with the RAM, yes. Try it again - latest version. And let it run for 8 hrs.

Problem is my pc wont stay on for 8 hours without blue screening

The Troll

Thanks Wizzard, memtest86 found over 40,000 errors on both modules this time

Have contacted Dell to request replacement modules.

WizZard

Great. Well - not good that there are errors, but good that you've (hopefully) found the problem!