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Occasional Vista BSOD at boot

Ryland

Ryland

Platinum Member
This is on my system in my sig. What I have found is that randomly my computer will BSOD at boot time with either a system_service_Exception or a irq_not_less_or_Equals exception. My system does not have %systemroot%/minidump directory so I can't find the crash file to try to figure out what is going on and there is nothing in the Event Log either.

What I have done:

* Ran Memtest86 overnight, no memory errors
* Reinstalled all drivers
* Verified that I have all available updates
* Ran a stress test for a few hours without any errors coming up


At this point I am stumped. The only change that I haven't undone (Because I can't) is going from Vista Business to Vista Ultimate.

Help
 
I had something like this a while back. I think the problem was with my flash drive. Sometimes it was plugged in at boot, sometimes it wasn't. When it was plugged in, I would sometimes get the error, otherwise, if it was unplugged, I never got the error.

I ended up going back to XP, though 🙂...
 
I have a similar issue. Once in a while I'll get a BSOD shortly after logging on. I usually get the IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL with ntfs.sys.

I think it's an issue with Vista Service Pack 1 as I only started getting them after I installed SP1.
 
I do have my system set to automatically login so it could be the same thing.

Are you able to get a minidump file? I haven't even had one created (that I can find) on my BSOD's.
 
Originally posted by: George P Burdell
Does it pass an orthos stress test?
Click to expand...

I had never heard of that. I will download and run it tonight.

If my system had a stability problem wouldn't I see BSOD's during use and not just at boot/login time>
 
My roommate would get this error all the time with his memory when it was undervolted. Even though it passed most/if not all memory tests.

Make sure you look at the memory chip and set the voltage at the right amount in the bios. I think his ram was rated 2.0 - 2.2 volts and by default the bios set it at 1.8.
 
The odd thing is is that this computer has run perfectly fine for 6 months and just started having this issue. There is no new hardware involved either. I did happen to see a posting on anther forum of someone having a similar issue who had Crucial memory and the problem went away when he went to Corsair memory but that is an expensive test.
 
Yeah I have examined the dump file. It said it was probably caused by ntfs.sys. But I have tried reinstalling Windows on multiple drives and it made no difference.

I am definitely going to check out that memory voltage thing though. If that doesn't work, then I'm convinced it's SP1's fault.
 
Where was your dump file located? My system doesn't have \windows\minidump and I haven't been able to find a dump file anywhere.
 
Mine was in Windows/minidump

Have you checked your advanced system settings? Under settings related to startup and recovery I believe it is, disable Automatically Restart and select Kernel Memory Dump from the drop down. That's the settings I have. Also check the path for the dump files in that same window.

Also, I just set my memory voltage to 2.1V (what it's supposed to be rated at, and the BSOD happened right away on rebooting. (ntfs.sys error again) I've reset everything to the factory defaults in the BIOS and I have the latest BIOS version for my motherboard. I noticed my G15 settings got erased this time after the crash... I wonder if it really is this keyboard as I've read of issues with the G15 v2.02 after installing SP1 on Vista.
 
Mine was set for memory.dmp for some reason. I just changed it to the minidump directory. I don't have a G15 keyboard so it can't be that for me.

I ran that stress test for 2 hours but my computer room is around 90C so I didn't want to overheat my system and shut it down. There were no errors though in those 2 hours.
 
I noticed that my BIOS defaults the RAM timings to 5-5-5-18 but when I bought the RAM they were supposed to be 4-4-4-12 so I manually set them to that a while ago (maybe around the same time SP1 came out, hard to remember :/ ).

I've set them back to the 5-5-5-18 default that the BIOS puts automatically. Maybe that will have some sort of effect as well. Either way it's not a BSOD that happens very often, and it's never after the computer is on, only on start up, and it used to happen on shutdown once in a while but hasn't for a long time.

I'll post back if I get any more BSODs.
 
Ya know, I think I had to do the same thing with my memory which is supposed to be at 4-4-4-12 but the bios showed it as 5-5-5-something.
 
new BSOD this morning "Page fault in non paged area". Sigh, hopefully there will be something in the minidump file.
 
Originally posted by: Ryland
new BSOD this morning "Page fault in non paged area". Sigh, hopefully there will be something in the minidump file.
Click to expand...

Anything in the Reliability and Performance monitor?..Click on the Reliability Monitor part , look at the graph and see if there are any little round X or warning icons,click on them for more info.
 
Originally posted by: LightningRider
I noticed that my BIOS defaults the RAM timings to 5-5-5-18 but when I bought the RAM they were supposed to be 4-4-4-12 so I manually set them to that a while ago (maybe around the same time SP1 came out, hard to remember :/ ).

I've set them back to the 5-5-5-18 default that the BIOS puts automatically. Maybe that will have some sort of effect as well. Either way it's not a BSOD that happens very often, and it's never after the computer is on, only on start up, and it used to happen on shutdown once in a while but hasn't for a long time.

I'll post back if I get any more BSODs.
Click to expand...


If your RAM is defaulting to looser timings, then I would suspect the cas 4 timings are a performance settings and may require a voltage increase from teh standard 1.8v. If that is the case then you may have been unintentionally undervolting the ram - This can and will casuse issues alike IRQL_NOT_EQUAL and the like...

 
Yeah but when I put it up to around 2.1v on the 4-4-4-12 settings. I got IRQL errors right away after booting. And once the system boots it's fine... Never crashed after booting except once but it was a network driver issue. The IRQL errors only happen shortly after logging on.

For now I've set it to 5-5-5-18 (default BIOS) and the auto Voltage as well. Nothing so far but I often go for weeks without it ever occurring so it's hard to say if I've fixed it.

EDIT: To the topic creator: also I've had that PAGE FAULT one before too. I would only get that one upon trying to shut down. I haven't gotten it in over a month or two though ever since I got rid of my Samsung F1 for a 7200.11.
 
I could always go in and increase the voltage slightly. It is odd that I have had them in use since November 2007 and they are just starting to show a problem unless the upgrade to Vista Ultimate from Vista Business is showing a problem.
 
I could also switch the memory to the default timings and see if that fixes the problem although I can go days between crashes.
 
Yeah same.

I'm hoping this is the issue... either that or my G15 just needs a driver update for SP1 but we seem to have similar issues so hopefully these memory timings are the problem.

Even if they're not though... it's a pretty intermittent problem and I could probably live with it.
 
It will happen for 2 days in a row at boot time and then not for 4-5 days. It is really bizarre and I have not been able to figure out a pattern. I will switch back to default memory timings tonight though.
 
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