Help! Machine check exception

[volrath]

WinXP Pro
MSI Neo-FSR
A64 2800 ClawHammer
2x512 Kingston PC3200
PNY FX5900U
PCI 1394
2xPATA HD

My computer magically stopped working. Only way of fixing it was by replacing the motherboard with a new one. In the process some of the pins on my processor may have been bent. That is the only thing I could think of that may have caused this. It boots now, but occasionally crashes with a machine check exception BSOD.

How do I get rid of it?

Update: Clean install of windows didn't help. Processor, memory, or video card? When I was playing UT, one round ended and my computer rebooted itself. It got stuck and wouldn't even get to post (video card fan spinning at max speed). After restarting it, the video was just garbled lines. This leads me to believe something is wrong with my video card. Another reboot fixed it.

Machine Check exception BSOD shows up whenever it feels like it, load or not. About 2 times per day.

 

[Ryoga]

The "Machine Check Exception (MCE) feature of Pentium processors or the Machine Check Architecture (MCA) feature of some Pentium Pro processors" is a feature of all processors that are descendant from the Pentium line of processors. Any x86 processor made since then with have this same kind of error checking. A 386 or 486 would not. That's all that means.

The "only applies to NT/2k server" is because the link you post was written when only NT and 2k were available. here is a more accurate description of the bug check code.


The error is an error detected by the processor itself. It can mean any nuymber of things:
1. You're overclocking something and it's starting to show instability.
2. You're overheating -- try blowing the dust out of your PC.
3. The device drivers for your motherboard chipset, video card, or your DirectX drivers are corrupt or damaged and need updating.
4. Some Windows files are damaged or corrupt. Run chkdsk.
5. Your RAM, motherboard, or CPU is physically damaged and needs replacing.

If you're not overclocking, not overheating, and wiping the HDD and installing a clean copy of WIndows doesn't fix the problem, you've probably got damaged hardware.

 

[volrath]

1. Not overclocking. Set to stock speeds, but I set ram speed to "turbo." I guess I'll set it back...
2. MBM says my case is 41 degrees and my cpu is 45 degrees. At idle... AS5 on stock heatsink is what caused the processor to come out with the heatsink and bend the pins to begin with.
3. Live update says my bios and drivers are up to date.
4. Will try now.
5. I just replaced my motherboard which got the computer to boot, before all kinds of crap was going wrong. Now I am not so sure the motherboard was bad, as maybe the processor the whole time, and now reseating it just helped a little.

I only recently installed XP Pro. I tried to format my hard drive but issues led me to only do a clean install. It worked for about a week before my computer stopped booting.

Yeah, and thanks for the actual correct diagnosis.

 

[volrath]

Well I was trying to force it to happen again via P95 and F@H but I failed. I gave up, closed those two, chatted on aim and it crashed. Wrote down the parameters. So I got addresses of where it happened... great? Anything I can do with that? Also, it now fails to boot at all. Windows loading screen turns into a black screen. Reformat!

 

[volrath]

When I was playing UT, one round ended and my computer rebooted itself. It got stuck and wouldn't even get to post (video card fan spinning at max speed). After restarting it, the video was just garbled lines. This leads me to believe something is wrong with my video card. Another reboot fixed it.

Still getting BSODs about twice a day. Updated original post. Help?

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: volrath
When I was playing UT, one round ended and my computer rebooted itself. It got stuck and wouldn't even get to post (video card fan spinning at max speed). After restarting it, the video was just garbled lines. This leads me to believe something is wrong with my video card. Another reboot fixed it.

Still getting BSODs about twice a day. Updated original post. Help?

Do they happen in safe mode?
If you'd like I can look at the memory.dmp (minidump) files - see my .sig's URL if this interests you. If it's a software problem this will assist in finding the culpret.

 

[volrath]

Problem has since been solved. It was a faulty 1394 PCI card, and I have no idea how that didnt get checked earlier. I never tried in safe mode, but it would freeze during windows installs, sometimes at post, I would never let the memory dump complete because I have 1GB of memory and I'm not sure if I even had 1GB free space, if it takes that much.