Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with BSOD

Ahh, Vista... how I won't miss you.

NotMyselfRightNow — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:38:14 -0800

Questions about hard drives, enclosures, and other ways to survive a blue screen of death. I have a HP desktop running Vista. I went to do a SP1 upgrade ahead of a potential change to Win7, something went off course, and now I own a desktop that won’t get past a blue screen of death when I try and start up. I’ve tried a handful of things to resolve the issue to no avail, and at this point, I’m just ready to get a new desktop (had been thinking about it anyway, so I figure this is a sign from the computer gods).

99% of my data was backed up ahead of the upgrade. However, I would like to be able to access the data on the old HP just in case. Limited technical knowledge, but a history of reading AskMe questions, leads me to believe that I can remove my HD from the old desktop, place it in an enclosure, and access it like an external drive.

How complicated is this? Is it really that straightforward? Anything I’m not thinking of?

What's causing my new computer to crash?

chndrcks — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 15:19:14 -0800

My new computer freezes or reboots when I'm pushing it (e.g. encoding video). Can you help me figure out which part is bad before I start having to ship things back to newegg and pay restocking fees? CPU: Core i5
MB: MSI P55-CD5
RAM: Crucial 4GB (2x2) DDR3 1333
PSU: 500W OCZ ModXStream Pro
VIDEO: MSI Geforce 9600 GT
HD: Samsung 1TB 7200RPM

It's usually fine for low intensity use (web browsing, office, etc.), but if I push it (say video encoding), it typically crashes within about 20 minutes. In Windows 7, sometimes it reboots, sometimes it just freezes. I had one BSOD. I think it also reboot once in Linux (gentoo), while running genkernel (unless that was some other problem)

My guess is it's either the RAM or the Motherboard. I have memtest86+ running right now, but so far it's been running for an hour and done 2 complete passes with no errors. On the other hand, one of the newegg reviews says:

This RAM does not play nicely with 1156 motherboards with the P55 chipset. Two other reviewers have mentioned rebooting issues with Gigabyte boards, and my Intel DP55WB had the same problem.

Did some testing and found that during PC-Check, the RAM would always lock up/reboot once it got to the block rotation test, but would pass MemTest.

PC-Check's price is not listed on their website, which leads me to believe it's out of my budget for the limited use to which I'll put it. As such, I cannot try to replicate these results myself.

Also, I've changed the Command Rate to 2T, but the problem still persists.

If it's not the RAM, it may be the motherboard. Is there any good way to test this other than trying new RAM and seeing if the problem persists?

The other thought I had was that the PSU isn't strong enough. I found a PSU calculator online which suggests it should be fine. Besides what I listed above, there's an old IDE hard drive (which is only connected right now to transfer files) and an internal CD-RW drive. There's also a USB DVD drive and a USB printer, but those both have their own power.

Does the hivemind have any suggests on the best and cheapest way to figure out what I should return? Also, do you have any suggestions on what I should replace that part with?

Thanks!

Computer BSODing at random

sailoreagle — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 20:15:04 -0800

Windows Vista 64. Computer started bluescreening at random a few days ago, with increasing frequency - it's up to several per day now. Pretty much every single bluescreen so far has happened with the computer entirely idle - nobody was even sitting at it. There's no file given as the reason; the message given sometimes is PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA, and sometimes isn't given at all.

The computer also appears to be unable to install the Vista Service Pack 2. The first time we attempted to install SP2, it was mid-install and then it BSOD'd; on reboot, it kept trying to revert changes and BSOD'ing every time, over and over. Booting into safe mode solved the endless loop, but since then, we're still unable to install it - it'll go through the motions, reboot, get to 96% and then say "Unable to install - reverting changes". The "Installation was not successful" screen details gives me an error of "ERROR_NO_PROC_SLOTS(0x80070059)".

The computer is barely one year old and has worked perfectly fine so far (up until the 28th of August, which is when this all started). I'm completely clueless as to what may be causing this, as sometimes it'll go days between BSOD's (we always shut it down at night, if it matters any), sometimes it'll BSOD three or four times in a single hour. It seems to be completely random.

No video input detected on bootup.

TimeTravelSpeed — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:45:01 -0800

Computer froze completely during a game, all subsequent downloads of various installer files were corrupt. BSODs galore. Now, when I turn on my computer, no video input is detected whatsoever. Next step? This problem sounds like a combination of a virus, hard-drive failure, and video-card failure, so I'm not sure what to try next. Any suggestions?

Approximate timeline of events from last Friday night, to Saturday morning:

0. Built a near-top-of-the-line computer 3 months ago
1. Friday, started a game Team Fortress 2 using the Steam client (I play this all the time).
2. An hour or so into play, the entire computer froze, game audio was on a 1-second loop. Couldn't even CTRL+ALT+DEL
3. Performed hard reset, tried to defrag, but it stopped progressing after about 20%.
4. Tried to launch Steam again but was told a game file had been corrupted. Uninstalled Steam.
5. Downloaded latest Steam installation and ran it, but was told the installation was corrupt
6. Uninstalled Avira anti-virus, downloaded Avira installer, ran it, and again was told installation was corrupt.
7. Same results with Adaware installation. However, Spybot installation was successful (no results from SB scan btw).
8. Rebooted and immediately got some sort of "NTLDR, unable to boot" error. Hard reset fixed this.
9. Was able to reinstall Avira and begin a full virus scan. 3/4 of the way through, scan stopped progressing and got a BSOD.
10. Now, when I turn on my computer, I can hear the whirring and humming of the internals, but no video input is detected by the monitor. Neither resetting monitor, nor replugging video cable helps.

I haven't touched any of the physical internals yet (e.g. re-seating video card), but will try that tonight.

I tried to keep this brief, so some details may be missing. Let me know if you need clarification.

Please help me decide where to start fixing my BSOD issue

ClarissaWAM — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 10:53:41 -0800

Blue Screen of Death hell and I don't know where to start... is it software? Hardware? HDD? RAM? Drivers? Any pointers would be appreciated! Hi and thank you for your time. Here's the story so far:
I started getting BSODs last week - first sporadically and the PC would still run in between, but by now I can basically only boot into safe mode without getting a BSOD pretty much straight away. Here's a blurry example of one.

Potentially relevant information:
- When I upgraded to iTunes 8.2 my PC (esp. Firefox) slowed down to a crawl. As one measure (possibly stupid) I disabled a number of services in msconfig to keep stuff running to a minimum (which I do often, but I was particularly drastic this time. I did not disable any MS services however.).
- After that (I think - might be coincidence, tho unlikely) boot up time increased tenfold. That is, at the very beginning, when all I can see is the silly Pentium logo anyway, so can't determine what is holding it up (or am too stupid to figure out how to get rid of it). It literally takes around 3-4 minutes to get past that stage.
- A few days later (about a week ago) the first BSOD. I first suspected the HDD, but more out of my tendency to expect the worst, for of course I hadn't backed up in ages (have however managed to back up the essentials now, so would be happy enough to reformat & reinstall).
- Now for the odd part. I figured I'd re-enable the services I'd disabled to see if that would help - however I get error (I paraphrase) "you do not have authority to do this for some of the services (won't tell me which one), please log in as admin" - needless to say I am admin.
- When booted into safe mode & trying to get to the event viewer, I get "unable to complete the operation.. the interface is unknown." Calling up the Device Manager, it comes up blank! There are various other similarly baffling errors. It's like I'm locked out of my own system! This of course makes me suspect soft/malware rather than hardware.
- I also did try system restore before the BSODs became all-invasive and it told me it was not possible to restore to any earlier restore point.
- Oh yeah, here is my HijackThis log - one, two (pics, sorry, since I can't get the damn file off the PC). I ran Avira too with no worrisome results.

So.... where do I start? I am prepared to reinstall, replace the HDD, remove all memory sticks one by one, update the BIOS, whatever else you can think of, but I'd be really grateful for some pointers so I don't start at the wrong end and waste hours & hours when it might be something really obvious.

System Specs: Win XP Home SP2 5.1, Build 2600, 3GB RAM, Intel Pentium 4 3GHz, Mobo Medion MD 8088, 2 HDDs & the system one is 120GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 and reasonably old.

Many many thanks!!!

Ready to jump off a klif.sys....

DavidNYC — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:58:25 -0800

I'm getting a Blue Screen of Death on startup (Windows XP Pro) which says that the "problem" (whatever it may be) is being caused by a file called klif.sys. Googling around indicates it's a Kaspersky file, and I do indeed have their anti-virus software installed on my system. But I haven't found any solutions, and I can't get past this BSOD. Is there any hope for me? (More details inside.) A few days ago, Windows informed me that it needed to restart after installing some updates. (I don't recall what they were exactly, but I think most had to do with Office 2007. Not sure though.) I powered down my computer and went to bed. The next day, when I turned it on, my computer informed me that the file NTOSKRNL.EXE was missing or corrupt. I thought this was strange but couldn't get past this error message by trying "Last Known Good Configuration" or "Safe Mode."

So I followed some online solutions which explained how to restore that file from the original Windows CD, using the Windows Recovery Console. I then got a new message, telling me that still another file, ntfs.sys, was missing or corrupt. So I tried fixing that file, too.

At that point, Windows really jammed me up - it gave me no discernable error messages whatsoever, and just kept restarting after basically getting nowhere during the boot process. (Safe Mode and Last Known Good Config still would not work.) So I took what may have been a foolhardy step - I tried letting the Windows CD automatically "repair" my installation of Windows.

(Side note: One thing I didn't think about until later is the fact that my installation had all the latest patches and updates, meaning it was Windows XP Service Pack 3, but my CD only had as far as Service Pack 1a. Yikes?)

Well, needless to say, this repair feature didn't work. That's when I started getting the klif.sys BSOD, which I reproduce below the dashed lines in full. (At one point, Windows started telling me that yet a different file, system.sav, was corrupt, but I could not figure out how to try repairing that file. In any event, we're back to the klif.sys BSOD for no apparent reason now.)

As I mentioned above, klif.sys is apparently a file that is produced by Kaspersky. However, I can't touch that software or anything else on my system because, as I say, I can't get past this BSOD. The information contained in the BSOD itself is totally unhelpful (and I checked - my system's BIOS doesn't offer any of those memory settings that I can see).

In case any of this is helpful: It's a Dell laptop running Windows XP Pro. I had plenty of free hard drive space. Though the computer is almost six years old, the hard drive is less than two years old. Kaspersky Anti-Virus was up-to-date and as far as I know, I had no viruses or malware infecting my system. (If I did, they were clever enough to defeat Kaspersky.)

Are there any solutions which do not involve me wiping everything out and doing a fresh install of Windows? Obviously this is a scenario I'd like to avoid if possible. Thanks.

--------------------------------------------------
BSOD Below
--------------------------------------------------

A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

The problem seems to be caused by the following file: klif.sys

The driver unloaded without cancelling pending operations.

If this is the first time you’ve seen this Stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed. If this is a new installation, ask your hardware or software manufacturer for any Windows updates you might need.

If problems continue, disable or remove any newly installed hardware or software. Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use Safe Mode to remove or disable components, restart your computer, press F8 to select Advanced Startup Options, and then select Safe Mode.

Technical information:

*** STOP: 0x000000D4 (0xF66DD938, 0x000000FF, 0x00000001, 0x80512922)

klif.sys

Help me feel better about buying a new laptop.

logicpunk — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 20:44:59 -0800

My computer is having a hardware issue when booting... I think. Started getting BSODs when booting (Windows XP, SP2). I can't say for certain what the error is since the computer restarts immediately on throwing the error (even with the automatic restart disabled). The error isn't consistent: sometimes windows will boot up fine, and I'll be able to use it normally (I'm typing on it Right! Now!).

Ran memcheck on it, and it passed. Downloaded "The Ultimate Boot CD" and booted from that - I was able to run the basic utilities, but any attempt to boot a disk image that came along with the cd either hung or threw an error.

Furthermore, the system is dual-boot, and I tried booting into the secondary OS (not booted for a couple weeks, no additional software installed for > 1 year) and it also BSODs.

So I'm thinking it's a hardware issue...somewhere. I've ruled out the memory, and the hard drive doesn't seem to have anything to do with it (else why would it hang on booting from cd), so it's probably something on the motherboard, i.e., I need a new laptop. Still, I have this nagging feeling that it *might* be software, somehow, so I'm wondering if there are any other diagnostic steps I should take to convince myself the laptop is (soon to be) toast.

Adventures in Blue Screen of Deathing

minifigs — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 08:03:10 -0800

Blue Screen of Death in XP SP2. When I turn on my laptop it loads as far as the "Windows Loading Please Wait" screen before going black then the BSOD appears. The only error message is RDR_FILE_SYSTEM and the standard stuff about drivers. I've doubled the RAM and the problem persists.

I can start it in safe mode but not safe mode with networking. If I use msconfig to turn off all services and startup programs I can start the laptop normally. I can then turn on most of the services manually. The non-working ones seem non-essential but I'm not an expert. If I try to reboot with the now-working services on I get the BSOD again.

I've also done a Windows repair with the XP disc which didn't seem to change anything.

Thanks!

XP is not playing nice

Shohn — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:36:58 -0800

Windows XP pro is failing to load. There was a brief power failure which shut the machine down, and now xp won't load. I get a BSOD that flashes so quickly I can't read it. I then get some text giving me the option to start in safe mode, safe mode with networking, safe mode with command prompt, start the last known good configuration, or start windows normally. No matter which option I choose, it ends up giving me those options again. At some point, when I'm given the option to"press ctrl-s or f4 to enter RAID utility" (which doesn't work, it briefly flashes "primary channel: drive not found" then "secondary channel: drive not found."

I don't have the XP discs; the software may not be exactlylicensed to me. I don't mind buying the thing if I need to, but I'd like to have some feeling that it would work in the first place.

Just typing this had pretty much exhausted my computing knowledge. I don't even know how to google this. Any ideas?

BAD_POOL_HEADER BSOD

edbyford — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 06:52:44 -0800

"BAD_POOL_HEADER" BSOD on Windows Vista I have just bought a new computer with Windows Vista Home Premium on it, and recently (after a day or so of having it) I keep getting a BSOD, usually within a few minutes of logging on.

The BSOD reads: "BAD_POOL_HEADER" and the stop codes it gives are: 0x00000019 (0x00000020, 0x9B4D8808, 0x9B4D8888, 0x18100018)

Can anyone help with this? I have all Windows updates and drivers installed.

BSODude, This Fucking Sucks

B(oYo)BIES — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 17:02:23 -0800

BSOD Filter: Help me pinpoint the cause. Dump file contents included. Purchased about 2 months ago, it is still under warranty, but I would like to know exactly what I am looking at before sending it in or asking for replacement parts. From what I can tell, it is bad memory I guess. Is there a way to tell which stick it is? Any software recommendations for testing the memory? Is it possible that it is off the video card memory? If it is the DDR2, should I just replace it with better memory?

Here is some information on the rig, further below is the dump...

Intel Core 2 Quad Processor Q6600 (4x 2.4GHz/8MB L2 Cache/1066FSB)
Asus P5N-E SLI nForce® 650i SLI Chipset w/6-channel CODEC, Gb LAN, S-ATA Raid, USB 2.0, IEEE-1394 Dual PCI-E MB
2GB Corsair XMS2
NVIDIA GeForce 8600GT 512MB w/DVI + TV Out Video

Microsoft (R) Windows Debugger Version 6.8.0004.0 X86
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Loading Dump File [C:\Documents and Settings\Bleeping PC\Desktop\Mini120607-01.dmp]
wMini Kernel Dump File: Only registers and stack trace are available

Symbol search path is: C:\WINDOWS\Symbols
Executable search path is:
Unable to load image ntoskrnl.exe, Win32 error 0n2
*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for ntoskrnl.exe
Windows XP Kernel Version 2600 (Service Pack 2) MP (4 procs) Free x86 compatible
Product: WinNt, suite: TerminalServer SingleUserTS
Kernel base = 0x804d7000 PsLoadedModuleList = 0x8055c720
Debug session time: Thu Dec 6 08:33:14.906 2007 (GMT-7)
System Uptime: 0 days 12:38:18.528
Unable to load image ntoskrnl.exe, Win32 error 0n2
*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for ntoskrnl.exe
Loading Kernel Symbols
.............................................................................................................................
Loading User Symbols
Loading unloaded module list
....................
*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for hal.dll
*******************************************************************************
* *
* Bugcheck Analysis *
* *
*******************************************************************************

Use !analyze -v to get detailed debugging information.

BugCheck 9C, {0, bab3c050, b2000040, 800}

Probably caused by : memory_corruption ( nt!MmDeleteKernelStack+156 )

Followup: MachineOwner
---------

1: kd> !analyze -v
*******************************************************************************
* *
* Bugcheck Analysis *
* *
*******************************************************************************

MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION (9c)
A fatal Machine Check Exception has occurred.
KeBugCheckEx parameters;
x86 Processors
If the processor has ONLY MCE feature available (For example Intel
Pentium), the parameters are:
1 - Low 32 bits of P5_MC_TYPE MSR
2 - Address of MCA_EXCEPTION structure
3 - High 32 bits of P5_MC_ADDR MSR
4 - Low 32 bits of P5_MC_ADDR MSR
If the processor also has MCA feature available (For example Intel
Pentium Pro), the parameters are:
1 - Bank number
2 - Address of MCA_EXCEPTION structure
3 - High 32 bits of MCi_STATUS MSR for the MCA bank that had the error
4 - Low 32 bits of MCi_STATUS MSR for the MCA bank that had the error
IA64 Processors
1 - Bugcheck Type
1 - MCA_ASSERT
2 - MCA_GET_STATEINFO
SAL returned an error for SAL_GET_STATEINFO while processing MCA.
3 - MCA_CLEAR_STATEINFO
SAL returned an error for SAL_CLEAR_STATEINFO while processing MCA.
4 - MCA_FATAL
FW reported a fatal MCA.
5 - MCA_NONFATAL
SAL reported a recoverable MCA and we don't support currently
support recovery or SAL generated an MCA and then couldn't
produce an error record.
0xB - INIT_ASSERT
0xC - INIT_GET_STATEINFO
SAL returned an error for SAL_GET_STATEINFO while processing INIT event.
0xD - INIT_CLEAR_STATEINFO
SAL returned an error for SAL_CLEAR_STATEINFO while processing INIT event.
0xE - INIT_FATAL
Not used.
2 - Address of log
3 - Size of log
4 - Error code in the case of x_GET_STATEINFO or x_CLEAR_STATEINFO
AMD64 Processors
1 - Bank number
2 - Address of MCA_EXCEPTION structure
3 - High 32 bits of MCi_STATUS MSR for the MCA bank that had the error
4 - Low 32 bits of MCi_STATUS MSR for the MCA bank that had the error
Arguments:
Arg1: 00000000
Arg2: bab3c050
Arg3: b2000040
Arg4: 00000800

Debugging Details:
------------------

NOTE: This is a hardware error. This error was reported by the CPU
via Interrupt 18. This analysis will provide more information about
the specific error. Please contact the manufacturer for additional
information about this error and troubleshooting assistance.

This error is documented in the following publication:

- IA-32 Intel(r) Architecture Software Developer's Manual
Volume 3: System Programming Guide

Bit Mask:

MA Model Specific MCA
O ID Other Information Error Code Error Code
VV SDP ___________|____________ _______|_______ _______|______
AEUECRC| | | |
LRCNVVC| | | |
^^^^^^^| | | |
6 5 4 3 2 1
3210987654321098765432109876543210987654321098765432109876543210
----------------------------------------------------------------
1011001000000000000000000100000000000000000000000000100000000000

VAL - MCi_STATUS register is valid
Indicates that the information contained within the IA32_MCi_STATUS
register is valid. When this flag is set, the processor follows the
rules given for the OVER flag in the IA32_MCi_STATUS register when
overwriting previously valid entries. The processor sets the VAL
flag and software is responsible for clearing it.

UC - Error Uncorrected
Indicates that the processor did not or was not able to correct the
error condition. When clear, this flag indicates that the processor
was able to correct the error condition.

EN - Error Enabled
Indicates that the error was enabled by the associated EEj bit of the
IA32_MCi_CTL register.

PCC - Processor Context Corrupt
Indicates that the state of the processor might have been corrupted
by the error condition detected and that reliable restarting of the
processor may not be possible.

BUSCONNERR - Bus and Interconnect Error BUS{LL}_{PP}_{RRRR}_{II}_{T}_err
These errors match the format 0000 1PPT RRRR IILL

Concatenated Error Code:
--------------------------
_VAL_UC_EN_PCC_BUSCONNERR_0

This error code can be reported back to the manufacturer.
They may be able to provide additional information based upon
this error. All questions regarding STOP 0x9C should be
directed to the hardware manufacturer.

BUGCHECK_STR: 0x9C_GenuineIntel

CUSTOMER_CRASH_COUNT: 1

DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: INTEL_CPU_MICROCODE_ZERO

PROCESS_NAME: Idle

LAST_CONTROL_TRANSFER: from 806e7bf7 to 804f9f05

STACK_TEXT:
bab3c028 806e7bf7 0000009c 00000000 bab3c050 nt!MmDeleteKernelStack+0x156
bab3c154 806e2c52 bab38d70 00000000 00000000 hal!_allshr+0x9
00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 hal!HalpWriteCmosTime+0xce

STACK_COMMAND: kb

FOLLOWUP_IP:
nt!MmDeleteKernelStack+156
804f9f05 5d pop ebp

SYMBOL_STACK_INDEX: 0

SYMBOL_NAME: nt!MmDeleteKernelStack+156

FOLLOWUP_NAME: MachineOwner

MODULE_NAME: nt

DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP: 469f3fa8

IMAGE_NAME: memory_corruption

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: 0x9C_GenuineIntel_nt!MmDeleteKernelStack+156

BUCKET_ID: 0x9C_GenuineIntel_nt!MmDeleteKernelStack+156

Followup: MachineOwner
---------

After installing 10.5, can no longer boot into WinXP via Boot Camp!

Ekim Neems — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 12:51:41 -0800

After doing a clean install of MacOS X Leopard, while leaving my previous Boot Camp partition in tact, I'm getting a blue-screen when attempting to boot directly into XP via Boot Camp... ... I can, however, run the Boot Camp partition in a Parallels VM just fine. The blue screen of death is mentioning a driver "ati2dvag.dll" or something similar. It appears that I need to update the drivers from the Leopard install DVD. The problem is, I can't get into Windows to do that.

I'm able to get into Safe Mode, but I cannot run the Boot Camp installation because the Windows Installer service is not running. I've tried to start it manually but to no avail. From within Safe Mode, I've also attempted to perform installs on the individual drivers from within the Leopard DVD, but they will not load either.

And since Parallels has its own configuration with separate drivers, I cannot update the drivers from within Parallels - it appears that will only mess up my Parallels VM. Any suggestions how I can get in to update those drivers somehow, or am I doomed to reformat and reinstall XP?

Vista + Skype + Jabra BT800 = BSoD

wile e — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 10:31:44 -0800

Vista blue-screen-of-death. Vista Ultimate + Dell Vostro + Skype + Jabra BT800 = BSoD Specs: Dell Vostro 1400
Windows Vista Ultimate
2gb Ram
2.2ghz
160gb with plenty of empty space

relatively new machine, has been running beautifully for the past 3 months. Skype has been running for a little over a month with no problems. So today I decided to hook up my Jabra BT800 bluetooth headset to the laptop to avoid the wired mess. Connected no problem. Test phone call worked fine. As soon as I make a phonecall with it, the computer goes straight to the blue screen of death (which I haven't seen in 6+ years of Windows usage).

so I assume it was an isolated incident and tried again. same time, same place, crash.

So what the hell happened and what do I need to do to stop it? I looked through Windows updates but only found 1 critical update that after downloading, it tells me its not for my system.

Not interested in a Mac vs Windows debate. Just need a solution.

Did my new RAM kill my video adapter?

YoungAmerican — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 17:31:06 -0800

BSODFilter: I tried to install a RAM upgrade in my girlfriend's Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop, and got nothing on screen after powerup. So I replaced the old DIMM, and got the BSOD -- the file that was missing was a driver for the Intel video adapter. Long story short, it's still not working. I wiped the HD, reinstalled windows, reinstalled the drivers, and after some installing and re-installing, finally have the computer starting up in XP. But it's giving me the BSOD seemingly randomly every hour or two. This is with everything as it was BEFORE the troubles started.

I spent a number of hours on the line with tech support, they seem completely baffled. In typical tech support fashion, all they want to do is install and reinstall drivers. I've googled my rear off, but to no avail.

Could I somehow have zapped my video adapter when I installed the DIMM? Could they conflict somehow? Would replacing the video adapter fix the problem? Could I replace it myself, as someone who's never done anything more than replace drives and RAM?

If I start up with the new RAM only, I can get it going in safe mode, but with weird purple lines up and down the screen.

I was about to buy a new computer to replace this one, but part of the plan involved getting a few hundred bucks for the oldie-but-goodie, which won't work if it's an oldie-but-baddie. Help me mefites, you're my only hope.

The Fan of Death

Pants! — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 12:06:07 -0800

BSOD! My windows PC has decided to give up. I would just let it go, but it's got an interesting symptom... When it starts up, it boots up, running Windows XP, it takes me to the screen where I can choose a variety of safe modes, a normal start up, or the last known good configuration. All of these lead to a BSOD.

The interesting thing is that it is plugged into a power strip, which is plugged into an electrical socket that shares a plug with a rotating fan. When the computer is off, and I turn the fan on, the computer attempts to boot up. Somehow hitting the on button on the fan causes the computer to turn on too. I've tried the computer plugged into a different socket, with and without the power strip, but didn't get any more luck.

Is this possibly an issue with the power supply? Something else?

Networking Headache

terrier319 — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 13:42:01 -0800

Internal wireless vs. USB. What's better for desktop networking? I think I have finally identified why I keep getting a "machine_check exception" error and BSOD on my desktop. I unplugged the Linksys wireless USB network adapter this morning and so far so good -- this after getting BSOD within minutes of powering on with the wireless USB connected. But of course I need Internet and an ethernet or direct connection is not practical. My question is, if I ditch the USB connection and install an internal wireless adapter in one of the expansion slots do I have a better shot of avoiding the error? I suspect it was related to overheating or some internal conflict caused by the USB connection but I'm not sure. Do these internal adapters produce less heat, and are there other factors I may be overlooking? I can go ahead and try it, but I wanted to ask before making the trip to Radio Shack.

Red screens of death even without Vista

lullabyofbirdland — Thu, 24 May 2007 02:23:01 -0800

Diagnosing multicolor screens of death I'm running Windows XP tablet PC edition. Over the past month, I've had two red screens of death and, just now, a friendly sort of off-white one. By screen of death, I mean that the entire screen just goes blank and I can't get any response through mouse or keyboard (including ctrl-alt-del.) There aren't any error messages or diagnostics, which you normally do get with a BSOD.

After I reboot I try looking through the event log, but I don't see anything remotely relevant. What diagnostic tools can I use to figure out what's going on?

(I found some previous questions on gray screens of death, but they ended up being hardware problems related to the screen. Since this only happens with Windows, which I don't usually run, I don't think that's it.)

Help with booting external drive -- it's encrypted, getting BSOD after Windows starts

powpow — Sat, 12 May 2007 08:46:49 -0800

Help with booting external drive -- it's encrypted, getting BSOD after Windows starts. It "kind-of" boots, then crashes. Drive is fully encrypted but I have password and can get to Windows. Is there a way to get data off? Is there a way, after pre-boot authentication, to just use DOS or something? Maybe network it and copy files? Thanks for any ideas, I'm fresh out.

SUMMARY:
- Hard drive has data I want. It "kind-of" boots, then crashes.
- XP Pro SP2
- Drive is fully encrypted but I have password and can get to Windows

- Is there a way to get the data off?
- Is there a way, after pre-boot authentication, to just use DOS or something? Maybe network it and copy files?

THE DETAILS:

I've got a hard drive from my old laptop that I'd like to get data from. The old laptop won't power up (been having problems with that, knew it was coming, and had almost everything backed up anyway... Somehow electricity ain't making it to the battery/system anymore). Anyway, the Hard Drive shouldn't be fried -- it just has no power.

I've stuck the hard drive into an external enclosure and tried booting from that. I've also stuck it in a different laptop, with the same results as below. The OS is XP Pro SP2.

The drive happens to have Pre-Boot Authentication (meaning you can't get to the Operating System) via SafeGuard Easy. No problem there, I can enter the password and it starts booting.

Then I get the old "Windows didn't start normally last time, do you want to Start in Safe Mode.... Start windows normally ... Last known good configuration...".

The "Last Known Good" option seems to be the best. However, shortly after the Windows logo appears I get a quick flash of BSOD (blue screen of death, if you didn't already know). Then the system reboots, rinse, repeat.

I've tried different power cords to revive the old laptop, and I know the cords work from using them on other systems. I've also taken it apart and fiddled with where you plug the power cord in (it used to work to jiggle the cord...) so it now looks like a science project. I've got nothing against fiddling more if it might help to have the hard drive back where it came from for booting...

Thanks for reading!

I should have followed my bliss and gone to cooking school...

Cyrano — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 11:20:12 -0800

Why am I seeing so many "Inaccessible Boot Device" blue screens of death? Some backround: Large corporate network with many thousands of users. I support a few hundred of them myself and about two months ago "Inaccessible Boot Device" BSOD's started popping up like crazy. At first I was leaning towards hardware being the cause, but when I started getting three or four a day I started to wonder. It's happening to the other site techs as well and if I had to guess I'd say the number of affected users is easily into the hundreds by now.

We're running in a Windows 2000 enviroment (I know, I know. Shut up,) and most of the users don't have admin rights to their machines. It's all HP hardware but the problem has occurred across different brands of hard drives. All software updates, MS of otherwise, are pushed without user input from distribution servers.

If the computer gods are in a good mood, you can stick in an ERD 2005 disk and it will see the C:\WINNT installation. You can then run the system file repair and every time it will tell you that kernel32.dll and ntoskrnl.exe are corrupt. You'll get an invalid path error when it does the repair. If you ignore it and reboot and the gods are pleased, the PC will start a CHKDSK and you're good to go. Or the PC will just hang at the windows splash screen if the gods are pissed.

In a fit of desperation one day I booted one of the PC's with a BartPE disk, stuck the hard drive from a working machine of the same model into a USB multibay, and overwrote the kernel32.dll and ntoskrnl.exe files with the ones from the working machine and waddaya know, the PC started fine.

On a *really* bad day neither the ERD disk or the BartPE disk will see the installation and then it's reinstall time. I can put the drive into a multibay, plug it into my PC and run a data recovery program (GetBack for NTFS) and get the data off of the drive, however.

So, basically I want to know if anyone has a clue why these two files keep getting horked? And if anyone knows of a utility that can see the installation when ERD and BartPE can't thus allowing me to replace the affected files, that would be swell too.

XP unusably slow after STOP errors and running checkdisk - what's going on?

goodnewsfortheinsane — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 12:29:42 -0800

So it's come to this - I see no other option than to ask a "help me fix my PC" question. After some troubleshooting the STOP errors seem to have been resolved, XP now boots successfully but is excruciating slow to the point of being unusable. Details and specs below the fold. Specifications:
-Intel Celeron 2.4GHz
-1 x 512 MB RAM
-XP Pro SP2
-PCI Firewire card
-onboard: USB 2.0, VIA Gigabit Ethernet adapter

IDE config:

1M: HD Maxtor 80 GB U-ATA
1S: empty
2M: DVD Burner
2S: DVD-ROM

First, the BIOS would occasionally fail to find the boot device (HD). Setting the primary master to "Not Installed" and rebooting, and then back to "Auto" remedied this for the time being.

Then a few days ago the machine started throwing a bunch of BSODs during normal operation. I recorded some of them for your viewing pleasure:

0x000000F4, 0x00000003, 0x829FF020, 0x829FF194 0xc000000E, 0xC000000E, 0x00000000, 0x05357000 0x0000007A (0XC03E1128, 0XC0000185, 0XF844A074, 0X08195860) ACPI.SYS 0x0000008E (0XC0000005, 0X8054AE34, 0XF6505BF4, 0X00000000)

Eventually XP wouldn't boot at all: system32/config was 'corrupted', or something along those lines. I assume this happened as a result of one of the STOP errors.

For some reason CHKDSK wouldn't run on this machine, so I took out the drive and ran CHKDSK on it with the drive attached to another machine. It did find a bunch of errors and corrected them all.

I put it back in its own box, and ran CHKDSK again from the Recovery Console (ran fine this time, and found no errors) and also a FIXBOOT for good measure.

Which brings us to the current situation. The system32/config error is gone, and Windows does boot, *but*:

-The XP splash screen fades in very slowly and seems halted here and there.
-Upon logon, the desktop background loads but no icons or taskbar appear.
-I can load explorer and systray via taskmgr, and sometimes they eventually load on their own without intervention, but this takes a *long* time. Somewhere in the ten minutes order of magnitude.

So technically speaking, Windows now runs, but it's so excruciatingly slow it's basically unusable.

Additional details:
-I have run a Spybot Search & Destroy scan: it found some threats and removed them. No new findings upon further boots and/or Spybot runs.
-I would scan for viruses, but I can't install AVG Free: I just removed the old 7.1 version (had to anyway as it was no longer supported), and the 7.5 installer happily skips from "pick a directory" to "Installation Complete!" but never seems to have touched a file at all! Doesn't even create the specified directory in Program Files.
-Network now also doesn't work. The Network Connections window says "Connected" but the machine receives no IP address nor lease from router. Router and rest of network are running fine.
-I tried System Restore with a variety of restore points from the past two weeks or so, but after going through the process (which also takes very long) it reboots and tells me that restoring to the previous point failed.

In short, I'm confused and could really use your insight. What's causing this and how can I fix it? Thanks in advance for any light you can shed upon this. If you have any questions or need any further details, I'd be happy to answer and provide them.

bsod computer problems

|n$eCur3 — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 12:11:43 -0800

There is something wrong with my computer. Help me diagnose what is causing bsods, random restarts and registry errors. I believe that this is a hardware related issue. During the past month, it has been getting worse. Started out with a couple of freezes here and there, but now I can't run Firefox without errors.

I ran memtest overnight, it passed. I then tried prime95, and discovered that one core is not stable.

I believe that the problem is the processor. However, the problem might also the motherboard or maybe even the power supply? Which is it? And how would I go about narrowing it down?

Things I've tried unsuccessfully: opened the case, made sure the fans are working. Reseat the heatsink. Clear out dust bunnies. Unplug everything, take pci cards out and then attach them again. What now?

Pagefile error = BSOD --> XP = thorn in my side

eleongonzales — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 07:59:17 -0800

XP Woes. Pagefile in a non default area causing the continual loop of BSODs. I ask for my friend, his laptop bsod'd and I am having trouble fixing the problem. I know basically what a pagefile is, and this particular error occured after a sudden shutdown when he was out of his apt. What to do now? I booted into knoppix and checked the size of the pagefile, it is roughly 703 MB and I cannot delete it. I'm not sure if this is because the drive won't allow me to mount it as r/w or if there is a way to enter in the admin password to unlock the drive to me.

I've got the drive in an external enclosure now, and I tried mounting it on my powermac. It mounts read only in tiger, so again I can't delete the pagefile.sys. I wanted to try carbon cloner to clone the drive with out the pagefile and then format the disk and reimage... no dice - read only.

So intrepid XP users, how do I get past this page fie error, oh and I already tried the repair xp install option with an XP disk.

The blue screen of death is alive and well

grouse — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 06:48:12 -0800

Please help me recover my hosed NTFS partition(s). My ThinkPad G40 running Windows XP Professional SP2 has been blue screening when I try Last Known Good Configuration, Safe Mode, the recovery console from the XP install CD, and even a BartPE CD. I think this is due to data corruption caused by bad RAM (after I took the offending stick out, MemTest86 now reports my RAM is okay). Here is the error:

STOP 0x00000024 (0x001902F8, 0xF7B8E704, 0xF7B8E404, 0xF739C411)

ntfs.sys == address F739C411 base at F732E0006 DateStamp 3b7dc5d0

I can still access the drive using an Ubuntu Linux live CD. I also have an external hard drive that is approximately half the size of the drive, some DVD-Rs, and hopefully I can find a friend with a DVD burner. So first, how can I best backup this data so that it will be accessible from a future Windows XP install.

Secondly, it would be nice after things are backed up, if I could recover the disk without doing another full reinstall. Online searches indicate that I should try to fix the disk with CHKDSK but I can't even load the recovery console or BartPE. A Microsoft support article indicates that in Windows 2000 one could create setup disks that didn't load ntfs.sys and run CHKDSK from there (apparently it has its own code for accessing NTFS partitions). Would this be possible with these Windows XP boot disks?

Also, I do have recent backups of super-important stuff, but would really like to recover changes since then.

Originally on MetaChat, thanks to everybunny there for their suggestions

Why does my new computer crash?

bradn — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 07:48:43 -0800

Why does my new computer crash? I recently built a new system (my second build):

Athlon 64 X2 3800+ (Artic silver, factory HS/fan)
Abit A8N-SLI
2GB Corsair XMS DDR400
XFX Geforce 7600GT
SB Audigy 2 Platinum

All clocks are factory except video, which is auto-overclocked using Coolbits. Newest AMD drivers are installed, as well as the XP dual core fix.

The system smokes and I'm having fun with it, but I keep getting BSODs when the processor is under load, and it never gets above 40 degrees C. System temps and video temps are also in normal range. This happens when playing Oblivion, HL2 (which usually crashes to the desktop but occasionallyl BSODs), and once while burning a DVD. Last night I attempted to encode video using Divx 6.2 (multi-threaded) and got BSOD both times.

I am fairly experienced, but lost when it comes to troubleshooting this. Where should I begin?

Failed WMP install leaves me in BSOD/reboot loop

mumeishi — Sat, 31 Dec 2005 11:05:42 -0800

I attempted to install the latest Windows Media Player, it failed and asked me to reboot and try again, and now I'm locked in a reboot - blue screen of death - reboot loop. Help! The blue screen is just after the Windows XP logo with the initial loading progress bar. BSOD flashes by (too quick to read) before rebooting again. On reboot, I'm asked to try starting in safe mode, safe w/network, safe w/something else, last good config, or normal. All options produce the blue screen and reboot.

I've reloaded BIOS defaults and removed an unused TV tuner card. Others seem seated properly on the mobo.

System is Athlon64 3200+, NVidia 6600GT, Asus mobo, 1GB ram.

Sigh. I don't want to reinstall XP just yet, so is there any other advice? Thanks!