BSODs and other problem.

[Vamp]

In the last day or so, I've gotten BSODs. Twice when leaving my system idle with bittorrent open, and a few times trying to burn a high-data DVD (the same file)

As the BSOD comes up, all I can make out is "Memory Mangement" before I get a reboot.

I also get lock-ups ocassionally, where the process light on my tower will stop flickering and remain still until I hit the three-finger salute a couple of times. This snaps the system out of it's lock-up and opens the process manager where nothing seems out of place.

Before the problems started, AVG Email scanner reported that a connection from the UK was trying to connect...Freaked me out, so I restarted my system. However, I've left my system running through the night with Bitlord open to finish a download, the next day I'd find that either Bitlord had shut down, or the system had crashed and restarted...I'm going to need to burn DVDs to meet a deadline by the end of the week, so I seriously hope this problem doesn't persist. Any suggestions?

I've taken "Auto Restart" off, so next time I get the BSOD, I'll be able to transscribe the error message.

I ran a Microsoft Memory Diagnostic with 7 passes and there was no error.

But still problems. Burning a DVD in Nero, things are fine up until 50% and then the program just exits. Nero is still open, but the actual burning window just closes and the DVD is stuck in the drive until I reboot and eject it.

I tried burning a DVD again in Padus Disc Juggler. Got to 52%, the the cache went down to 0% and I got a lock-up. Ctrl-alt-deleted it and it started up again, got a further 1% before I got a BSOD and:

Stop: 0x000000024

and then under that NTFS.sys

I'm beginning to think it's a HD problem. I have 2 harddrives, one of them just for media (music, movies, TV series' etc) and I've realized that when using Bitorrent, it was downloading to this drive and when I burnt DVDs, the data was from that drive.

If this is the case, what can I do? Do I need a new HD?

Please note that my other HD is partitioned, 50gb for Windows XP and other programs and another 150GB for my video editing software and video footage. I seriously cannot afford to format that drive because I have a deadline to meet and can't lose all the software and video....It would take too long to capture and reinstall software. The Media drive which I think is the problem, can be formatted. Would this help? Would a Chkdsk help too?

[zapjb]

Sys specs?

Guessing I'd say not enough, bad or program(s) stealing RAM.

[Vamp]

AMD 3400+ 64bit
1gig DDRram
Geforce 6800 Ultra

This system has worked flawlessly for two years. I took it to a PC garage, hopefully they can sort it out.

From what I've gathered on other sites, it's a corrupt NTFS system. I hope my data on that drive can be restored. 32gb of unbacked up music being lost would be very horrible.

[Virtualbody1234]

What software changes had you made around the time this started happening? Any driver updates or similar?

[Vamp]

I reverted to the nVidia drivers I'd be using for a few months after new ones I installed failed to impress me, but this was a few days before the problem started. I'm waiting to hear back from PC technicians, hopefully the NTFS system on the one drive got corrupted and can be fixed without new hardware or formatting.

[S!X]

I'm waiting to hear back from PC technicians, hopefully the NTFS system on the one drive got corrupted and can be fixed without new hardware or formatting.

You could try a repair with the windows CD, it'll replace all the system files and leave all your programs and files alone. I did that when I had problems after messing around with drivers and having a bsod every time I booted up. I couldn't even get into safe mode so I had no choice. :dry:

[Vamp]

It was a NTFS corruption on my Media drive. Technician managed to backup all my stuff and formatted it. Everything is working fine now. (So far)

Only cost the same as $7 :)

[zapjb]

It was a NTFS corruption on my Media drive. Technician managed to backup all my stuff and formatted it. Everything is working fine now. (So far)

Only cost the same as $7 :)
Only $7? Could you explain? I.e. a friend, 3rd world, etc.

[Vamp]

It cost about 100 rand which is about a third of the price of a new PC game or about 9 or so beers. So it's not exactly cheap, but not very expensive either...Plus the Rand/Dollar exchange rate is pretty shit.

It would have been about the same as 4 UK pounds.

While the blue screen/crashing problem is fixed, I'm still getting those random lock-ups, where the flickering light on my tower (hard drive access light?) will freeze and my system will hang. It will eventually snap out of it after about 20 seconds and hitting ctrl-alt-del a few times without having to restart or shutting down any programs, but it's annoying. Has only happened twice so far when it happened a lot of times before I got the problems sorted out.

Any ideas?

Sigh. Got another BSOD. a ...9c Machine Check Exception.

Microsoft tells me it's a hardware issue that could be caused by overheating. Everest sensor tells me my CPU is 48 Celcius. Is this too high, and possibly the cause of the problem?

[Colt Seevers]

Everest sensor tells me my CPU is 48 Celcius. Is this too high, and possibly the cause of the problem?

Seems pretty normal I think for that CPU, I've had similar with stock cooling and they ran about the same temp.

If a blue screen is occuring on a regular basis and you have elimenated any possible problems that may be arising from software /drivers issues.

It could be caused by hardware incompatbility... which is baad m'kay. :ermm: Have you checked your mobo and ram are all compatible? What make are your hardrives?

Stuff like that you sometimes have to watch for, i'm unsure if you said this was home built system or one you got from somewhere else... but good luck anyway! :01:

[Vamp]

I've had this system for over 2 years and it's worked flawlessly. All the hardware is compatible. I'm getting so many different errors now. The 9C, now a 00000050 Page Fault. It might be my PSU from what I've gathered.

There were no changes made that could warrant such a disaster. :(

[Colt Seevers]

So not your hard drive?

What is your PSU?

I don't mean to be blunt but in fact enough of this pissing about with drips and drabs of info. Give us your full system specs. Make & Model, wattage of your PSU etc.

Makes life a lot easier to determine what might be going on, or not as the case may be.

[Vamp]

Asus K8N-E Deulux
AMD 64 bit 3400+
Geforce 6800 Ultra
1GB Kingmax DDRam
CPU 500W Antec
2X Western Digital drives in S-ATA

These errors all started about two days ago. No changes made to the system.

I've gotten Stop 9C, 8E and 50 errors.

The first BSOD error seems to have been taken care of.

Taking the system to another technician tomorrow. My biggest fear atm is that everything will be formatted in the hopes that that will solve the problem, but instead the errors will still exist when re-installing XP.

I have all important data backed up, but there's so many installations that will set me back hours and hours and hours, and I dont have all the install files for software I'll need to reinstall.

[Virtualbody1234]

Why do you keep taking it to a technician? Why don't you wait for suggestions from us and try them?

You mentioned that the problem started after you changed the graphics driver. Try reinstalling the previous ones.

After that, I suggest you run a memory test and recertify your drive.

[Vamp]

Because I've already done all of that. I ran Microsoft's Memory diagnostic overnight wihtout errors, reverted to older drivers...None of seems to have helped, and I can never tell if it's made a difference because the errors seem to happen randomly.

A technician will be able to look at hardware directly and see if it's phsysically damaged.

[Vamp]

Before I took it in this morning, I removed and reinstalled my display drivers, so for the half an hour in between doing that and taking my PC to a technician, there were no problems.

The tech said he could find no problems. He got no hang ups or blue screens, he checked all the hardware and temperatures and could find nothing wrong.

So far I haven't gotten another problem, but seeing as one of the problems I got was related to Page File, I'm wondering if these Virtual Memory settings are correct.

I have 1GB Ram. OS is on my C:


C: Virtual Memory - Initial size: 1524MB. Maximum size: 3048MB

E: No Paging File

G: No Paging File

Total Paging File For All Drives:

Minimum: 2MB
Recommended: 1534MB
Allocated: 1524MB

Does this sound correct? If I get another Page File Fault BSOD, should I look there for a solution?

I was also thinking that if I got another Machine_Check_Exception BSOD, while the tech didn't, it might be from the secondary monitor I have plugged into my display card. Could that be causing problems? If I get errors again, I'll disconnect it and see if that helps,

[Vamp]

Arg! When copying stuff from my ipod to my media drive, I got two hangs. No blue screens and no crashes though.

I'm beginning to think that this harddrive is damaged or has bad sectors that are causing these hang-ups. I ran a scandisk overnight that completed successfully and didn't show problems.

I'm guessing this Hard drive is going to need to be replaced.

[peat moss]

Ah must be a pain in the ass , you don't have another hdd to swap out ?

[Vamp]

Ok. I did an XP Repair Install (which took most of the fuckin' day because I had the infamous "freeze on 34 minutes problem" I had to get around)

Haven't gotten hangs or blue-screens yet, but seeing as my version of XP I repair-installed with SP1, I need to get SP2 because some of my software (which of course now needs to be re-installed wont run on SP1)

I hope this sorted the problem and I'll be able to clear everything up by later tonight.

I've gotten some problems, like the OpenHid Standard USB Host Controller drivers just can't be installed/found...Hopefully SP2 will sort this out.

If not, it looks like a format of my OS drive. What about the software I have on my other drives though, that install files to the Windows folder. Will they need to be re-installed?

[peat moss]

Your screwed ,I meat that in fun tho , why would you leave your back up on the drives ?


Hate to say this but why not just nuke the whole fucking thing ? If you need help ,a PM is the easiest way . Good luck tho if I can help just ask .

[Vamp]

Hey, well, I nuked the whole thing.

I have 2 drives. A 200GB that's partitioned into a 50GB C: and a 150GB E:

C: is OS and Program Files, E: is business software.

The partition is still there and XP is installed as well as motherboard (Asus K8NE Deulux) drivers and video/sound card drivers.

But:

My second drive, a 160GB that I believe is connected by S-ATA isn't showing up in Explorer...Under System/Hardware Manager it says that a Raid Controller driver hasn't been installed. Could this be the reason why it's not being detected?

About 62GB of music is on there and I never formatted it before I re-installed XP.

[peat moss]

Should of installed sata drivers at boot when prompted or use the command prompt .

Others with the same trouble :

http://www.techspot.com/vb/all/windows/t-15586-Problems-installing-SATA-HDD-please-help.html

[Vamp]

Cool, hd was found when i installed drivers manually. five minutes after it was found i got another blue screen and hang up. it must be the hd physically damaged. i took out an old capture card i dont use too, just in case. format for nothing it seems :(

[Vamp]

The capture card seemed to have been causing the problems. No crashes since its removal. Touch wood.