Poll: What Causes a Corrupt Registry or Windows Crash

[Tweakin]

I just experienced a registry error that I could not overcome yesturday. I'm not going to go into detail about it as it doesn't really matter, but the fact remains that I could not recover from this. This type of problem can occur in OC'd systems, but what is the root of the problem. My question is this:

1) This most likely came from unstable memory timings at a high FSB.
2) This most likely came from OC'ing a SATA Drive.

I have experienced this type of corruption on two totally different systems. I believe it is from the high FSB, not the Sata drive. Let me know your thoughts.

Specs running at time of crash:

Neo2 Plat
3200+ @ 2.52Ghz w XP-90
Vcore @ 1.500 3.3% over
OCZ PC3200 Plat Rev2 @ 3-3-10-3 1T 2.85v
Sata3 = WD Raptor 72GB
Sata4 = WD Cav SE 200GB
PS = OCZ 520 Mod Stream

 

[mattburk]

If it had nothing to do with the hard drive, when you reset the timings everything should have been normal right?

 

[boyRacer]

Well since PCI Locks are implemented in almost every board it's more likely the memory timings.

 

[Tweakin]

even after I reset the system to "default" values, I could not restore to an earlier date. I couldn't uninstall applications. Windows booted fine, but IE didn't work, I couldn't get to most of my sites, passwords and such were all messed up...it was the result of a trashed registry.

I happen to think it was due to FSB and memory timings. When overclocking, we take lots of little things for granted. My system was totally stable, I ran SETI 24/7, played HL2 and FarCry with no problems, watched my temps via Everest and everything looked fine. Something must have gotten corrupted on the way to the hive, which in turn caused a cascading effect...resulting in the final demise of my system. I just wanted to hear from other users...

 

[RussianSensation]

I can see how this issue can result from memory if memory is pushed to the limit. However, if you were to run a ram ratio and say keep your PC3200 at stock settings and timings, you can still get BSOD and a corrupt OS.

 

[Tweakin]

Only 9 posts...I would have hoped for more. It does seem that we are leaning towards memory being the most likely cause.

 

[Soulkeeper]

it's not so clean cut
basically stored data in either the mem, cache, or pipeline become corrupt and results and corrupted data being written to the harddrive in most cases

 

[Duvie]

Usually it happens when I tweak the memory a bit past its breaking point...I have been lucky (knock on wood) that I have been able to restart go into bios and relax the timings and hit "last known configuration" and windows boots right up.....

I have also seen it happen when harddrives are pci locked (way back in the day)...may have soemthing to sdo with when the cache is being dumped at shutdown and hosing it there....

Once I have even seen it happen as a result of an insidious virus residing in the boot sectors or in the memory....trojan horse virus could probably do this as well...

 

[YHPats]

It's a memory thing.
Usually running timings way out of spec.
Jibberish gets written back to Windows and bingo, your registry's fubbared.
Anyone o/c'ing should image their OS with Ghost 2003 or similar for easy restoration - as you inevitably need to hit the reset button when ascertaining max clocks ... and that way lies slow corruption.

 

[Tweakin]

Originally posted by: Soulkeeper
it's not so clean cut
basically stored data in either the mem, cache, or pipeline become corrupt and results and corrupted data being written to the harddrive in most cases

I agree with your analagy, but the underlying cause would still have been memory. A bit of data here and a byte of data there, corruption starts and before you know it...hosed.

 

[theMan]

It happened to me because of sata corruption. my mobo has pci locks, but apparently the sata port i was using wasnt on the pci bus so it wasnt locked. i had to re install my os twice. i almost lost all my data. asus is pretty tricky. pretty tricky...

 

[sxr7171]

For me it was the stupid Nvidia Nforce 4 IDE driver that caused havoc and required a reinstall of XP. So I voted HD corruption due to out of spec SATA interface.

 

[Tweakin]

The speed is nice till something happens...that is why they made Ghost.

 

[danahata]

Originally posted by: theman
It happened to me because of sata corruption. my mobo has pci locks, but apparently the sata port i was using wasnt on the pci bus so it wasnt locked. i had to re install my os twice. i almost lost all my data. asus is pretty tricky. pretty tricky...

The exact same thing happened to me man. I have almost the exact same setup (where it matters- Athlon 64 3500+ Winchester, SATA HD, Asus A8V Deluxe). You know how frustrating it is to have to reinstall the OS multiple times in the course of OC tinkering? Do you or anyone else know how one could lock the SATA ports on this mobo?