Crazy problems on a friend's new build (Updated 2/13/06)

[Chaotic42]

My friend recently built a system and is having a strange combination of problems that I've never heard of nor have I imagined this much trouble to be possible. His system is as follows:

Motherboard: DFI Lanparty NF4 Ultra D
Processor: AMD Athlon X2 4400+
Memory: 4x512MB OCZ Platinum rev 2
Videocard: MSI Geforce 7800GTX PCI-E
Soundcard: Creative Labs X-Fi Extreme Music Edition
Network: On-board
PSU: OCZ Powerstream 600W
Hard drives: 1x74 GB Western Digital Raptor on SATA, 1x250GB Western Digital Caviar on SATA
DVD-RW: Pioneer

He's having the following problems:

-Computer will BSOD with nv4disp.dll error
-Computer will very often BSOD with machine check exception
-Computer will BSOD with IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
-Computer will sometimes not reboot after a BSOD

Infact, while we was telling me all of this over teamspeak, it crashed again. Has anyone heard of anything like this? He's tried a different PSU with no luck. I'll update this post with information as I can.

---

Update (2/13/2006)

Well, well, well.... Now I'm having these exact same problems. Word for word. Crash for crash. What did I do differently? I installed World of Warcraft. Just like my friend.

I'm convinced it's the chipset.

My friend bought a new MSI motherboard. Same problems. I have an nForce4 chipset. Same problems. Apparently he's found lots of others on line with these problems.

Here's my system and what I've tried to no avail:

Motherboard: MSI Diamond nForce4 SLI
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ (So it's not the dual core that's messing my friend up)
Memory: 2GB PNY PC3200 (So it's not his memory)
Video: eVGA GeForce 7800GTX (So his card isn't bad)
Network: On board, also tried 3c905c (So it's not his network card or mine)
PSU: Antec 500 (So it's not his power)
Hard drives: 18.3GB 10K SCSI U160 plus some PATA drives (So it's not his drives or the SATA)
Sound: Onboard Live!, also tried Turtle Beach Santa Cruz (So it's not the sound)

The only thing that I can see here is the nForce4 chipset and WoW. I've removed SP2, he's reinstalled three times... It's insanity.

Everytime the crashes happen, we get NTFS bitmap corruption on our main drives.

Anyone have any input or ideas here?

 

[TicoAz]

Clean install of windows?

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: TicoAz
Clean install of windows?

I think he's on his third clean install.

 

[bamacre]

Possibly bad video card hence the nv4disp.dll message.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: bamacre
Possibly bad video card hence the nv4disp.dll message.

Well, he's only gotten that one once. Is there anything like memtest for video cards?

 

[professor1942]

Sounds like an IRQ problem, he should ensure his cards aren't using the same IRQ (ie. video card and sound card).

I'd first remove all PCI cards and see if it still crashes.

 

[theMan]

are you able to run 3dmark05 or 06? what are the voltages on the psu reported as?

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: theman
are you able to run 3dmark05 or 06? what are the voltages on the psu reported as?

He can game, but it will still crash randomly. When he does game, it runs like you'd expect. I'll ask him about 3dmark and the PSU voltages when he gets it up and running again.

Could it be the motherboard? I think I remember reading that those things had bad problems (And just nForce4 in general).

 

[Cheezeit]

Take the system and only run with the bare minimums to single out the problem.

 

[Chaotic42]

Apparently now he has a missing or corrupt hal.dll.

 

[Markbnj]

There are lots of things that could be causing this: Overheating or hardware problems with the video card; read errors on the SATA port due to overclocking without SATA locks; PCI bus overclocking due to no PCI bus locks. Basically any set of conditions that either causes a piece of hardware on the bus to produce bad data, or interferes with the ability of hardware to communicate over the bus, could cause errors similar to these. Additionally memory errors, and bad results from the processor could also cause these kinds of errors.

At this point I would strip this system down to keyboard, monitor, video card, 1 stick ram, and one hard disk, and work up from there.

 

[zagood]

Bad ram, overheating CPU, or overheating chipset could all be the culprit, along with a host of other things. Those are the easiest to check first though.

Good luck.

-z

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: zagood
Bad ram, overheating CPU, or overheating chipset could all be the culprit, along with a host of other things. Those are the easiest to check first though.

Good luck.

-z

He's checked the temps and run memtest and everything is okay.

The only things different with his new computer than his old computer is the motherboard, video card, and processor.

 

[zagood]

What exactly does he mean by "checked the temps?" Alt+tab after playing CS?

You need to chart temps over a period of time to really know what they're doing. Have him run SpeedFan in the background while gaming for 15 mins, then open up the charting page so he can see what his max temps are for chipset and CPU. Have him also check voltages on that same chart. Have him do the same with RivaTuner for VGA temps.

-z

 

[stevty2889]

Run memtest, all of the problems you are describing sound memory related. Running 4 sticks of ram could be the problem, definatly need to run at 2T, and I had to slightly underclock my ram to get it stable with my X2(187mhz instead of 200mhz) when I was using 4 sticks of ram. The IRQL error isn't IRQ related, it's usualy a driver problem, or ram problem.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: stevty2889
Run memtest, all of the problems you are describing sound memory related. Running 4 sticks of ram could be the problem, definatly need to run at 2T, and I had to slightly underclock my ram to get it stable with my X2(187mhz instead of 200mhz) when I was using 4 sticks of ram. The IRQL error isn't IRQ related, it's usualy a driver problem, or ram problem.

He's run memtest before. No problems at all. He'd been running 4 sticks of ram for quite a while on his older AGP NF4 board.

 

[Chaotic42]

Bump for update

 

[Chaotic42]

Daytime bump

 

[CBR600]

Im going to assume but I must ask if you have read all the boards about the X-Fi... You are describing exactly the issues people are having when they have the "old" unflashed X-Fi. I can not tell you what sound bios you need that works but if you call Creative they will RMA the sound card out; especially if you tell them these symptoms...

Try pulling out the sound card and use onboard for a while to see if this is truely the problem... You can confirm what I am saying by going ot the Creative forums... Everyone is blasting Creative about all the issues...

Lastly, make sure your video card and/or sound card is not occupying the same IRQ.

Hope this helps..

Let me know what you find...

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: CBR600
Im going to assume but I must ask if you have read all the boards about the X-Fi... You are describing exactly the issues people are having when they have the "old" unflashed X-Fi. I can not tell you what sound bios you need that works but if you call Creative they will RMA the sound card out; especially if you tell them these symptoms...

Try pulling out the sound card and use onboard for a while to see if this is truely the problem... You can confirm what I am saying by going ot the Creative forums... Everyone is blasting Creative about all the issues...

Lastly, make sure your video card and/or sound card is not occupying the same IRQ.

Hope this helps..

Let me know what you find...

Thanks for the reply.

I'm not running an XFi and I've tried onboard sound and my Turtle Beach card. Even if I disable the onboard sound completely and have all of the Creative stuff uninstalled, I still get the same type crashes. The only change is that it's the Turtle Beach driver that BSODs.

I've emailed Blizzard and they just gave me the standard "Make sure your drivers are up to date" stuff. I replied to them and if they give me any good insight, I'll be sure to post it.

 

[piasabird]

These are hardware errors. It can be caused by bad RAM, Bad Motherboard, Bad CPU, Bad Drivers, Bad Video, Bad Sound, etc.

You can try it with only one SDRAM installed at a time to see if you still get it.

Did you install the Chipset Drivers before you installed the video card?

1-OS
2-Chipsets (Very Important.)
3-Udates (XP)
4-Video Card

If it is a bad motherboard it is hard to pin that down. However, sometimes a new BIOS version can be helpful.

I had a flaky motherboard one time and it is a real pain to diagnose. If it is the motherboard nothing you can do will fix it. If it is just the BIOS sometimes flashing the BIOS can make it more stable.

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: piasabird
These are hardware errors. It can be caused by bad RAM, Bad Motherboard, Bad CPU, Bad Drivers, Bad Video, Bad Sound, etc.

You can try it with only one SDRAM installed at a time to see if you still get it.

Did you install the Chipset Drivers before you installed the video card?

1-OS
2-Chipsets (Very Important.)
3-Udates (XP)
4-Video Card

If it is a bad motherboard it is hard to pin that down. However, sometimes a new BIOS version can be helpful.

I had a flaky motherboard one time and it is a real pain to diagnose. If it is the motherboard nothing you can do will fix it. If it is just the BIOS sometimes flashing the BIOS can make it more stable.

Yep. My friend who is having the exact same problems with different hardware has tried all of that. He even bought a new motherboard.

 

[CBR600]

I agree... New MB, Video, Memory, even PSU could cause this... At this point start with the easiest compenents..

Make Sure to try in this order and leave components out as needed.

Reflash Bios with latest version if still crashes go to next line

Install Latest Drivers in order from MB to Video to Sound, etc. if still crashes go to next line

All USB devices unplug if still crashes go to next line

Remove Sound Card or any other extra devices not core to the system. if still crashes go to next line

Try one stick of memory at a time... if still crashes go to next line (leave one in)

Get a Cheap PCI express or PCI video card.. Rule out video card if still crashes go to next line (Testing in friends computer doesnt help. Keep crappy video installed)

Unplug all hard drives Except for boot if still crashes go to next line (leave unplugged)

Get Cheap $20 PSU above 350 Watts and install (no need to install in case.. Just leave on bench and plug into MB and devices that need power). if still crashes go to next line

If orignal motherboard buy new motherboard if still crashes
go to line 1
elseif still crashes
user error

Good Luck!

 

[pkrush]

The nVidia IDE drivers cause corruption on some faster drives and the firewall corrupts downloads. Try reinstalling Windows XP and putting on software in the following order:
1. Service Pack 2
2. nVidia Chipset drivers (DON'T install the firewall or the IDE drivers)
3. Other Microsoft updates
4. Video drivers
5. Everything else

If this doesn't help, try running Memtest to see if you have bad RAM. And if none of this works, I'd suggest going to the dfi-street forums since the DFI boards often have stability problems (mostly because of the huge amount of options in the BIOS, some of which may be set wrong).

 

[Chaotic42]

Originally posted by: pkrush
The nVidia IDE drivers cause corruption on some faster drives and the firewall corrupts downloads. Try reinstalling Windows XP and putting on software in the following order:
1. Service Pack 2
2. nVidia Chipset drivers (DON'T install the firewall or the IDE drivers)
3. Other Microsoft updates
4. Video drivers
5. Everything else

Well, my stuff is on SCSI drives and I'm having the problems too. Could the chipset drivers be messing up my SCSI stuff?