random bugchecks -- any ideas?

[nemaNIN]

tonight ive had 4 BSDs and subsequent reboots from bugchecks. the codes for each are:

0x00000077 (0x00000001, 0x0000001f, 0x00000000, 0xafbfac48)
0x1000008e (0x80000004, 0x805345cb, 0xb1e688f0, 0x00000000)
0x1000008e (0x80000004, 0x805345cb, 0xb2b5d8f0, 0x00000000)
and
0x00000077 (0x00000001, 0x494e4547, 0x00000000, 0xb054e95c)

i checked the knowledge base and it says i can unpack a minidump with an executable called 'dumpchk'... but i cant find dumpchk.exe...

sooo... any words of wisdom? where can i find dumpchk.exe? all ye smarter and more learned than i?

thanx
nema

 

[Poontos]

Can't help with the dump check just now, but please consider the following:

Dumps (in a Windows BSOD sense ), can and will often be hex gibberish, which you have noticed. However, they usually only make sense to Microsoft, or highly trained Microsoft-ians.
Therefore, the best thing to do, is to track down the problem the most common way:

-Have you made any software changes (updates, new software installed, uninstalled, system setting changes, new games installed, new patch installed)?

-When did this start happening? Have you seen this before?

-Is this a new system?

-What is the hardware in the system?

-What OS are you running? (This is kind of key)

-What service pack level are you running?

-What is the temperature like in the envrionment that this computer resides in?

-Are you overclocking ANY component of your system?

-Have you run ScanDisk?

-Do you run any Anti-Virus protection. If so, what, and how up to date is it?

The answers to these questions, and many more, are the keys to tracking down the problem or problems.

 

[nemaNIN]

Originally posted by: Poontos
Can't help with the dump check just now, but please consider the following:

Dumps (in a Windows BSOD sense ), can and will often be hex gibberish, which you have noticed. However, they usually only make sense to Microsoft, or highly trained Microsoft-ians.
Therefore, the best thing to do, is to track down the problem the most common way:

-Have you made any software changes (updates, new software installed, uninstalled, system setting changes, new games installed, new patch installed)?
*it's a fairly new install of OS and all apps, pluch a number of 'backup copies' of games and programs. only piece of new hardware is a video card, but the reason i had to do a fresh install is a number of instabilities that are now gone, but this problem has started. the system is solid otherwise, and these BSD are random. one happened when i presses the volume button, one happened while the machine was idling.

-When did this start happening? Have you seen this before?
*couple days ago, ive seen BSDs before, but not like this. not as often, not as random, and not under circumstances where there seems to be no reason.

-Is this a new system?
*yes and no. mostly old hardware thats been through a number of reinstalls. the video card, like i mentioned, is new.. but has been the source of some headaches (i posted on these issues in storage and video cards a while ago).. but this install is under 2 weeks old

-What is the hardware in the system?
*MS-6321, 2 P3 @800, 768MB (Mushkin rev2 & Crucial), 180G HD, ati radeon 9000, sblive x-gamer, pioneer 16x dvd, Plextor 12X10X32 BP, MS Wireless Optical Desktop, 19" Samsung 950p, Cable

-What OS are you running? (This is kind of key)
*sorry, i copied and pasted the post from another forum (2cpu) where it was in an OS specefic forum. its Win XP Pro SP1

-What service pack level are you running?
*SP1 - network install... i originally did a windows update web install, but it caused a few problems (install programs couldnt configure windows installer).. so i uninstalled that SP1 and ran the network install.. seemed to work fine. that was about a week ago.. this problem is only a few days old

-What is the temperature like in the envrionment that this computer resides in?
*havent checked recently.. ill get back to you. but i do not have a history of heat issues...

-Are you overclocking ANY component of your system?
*proc's are 700s @ 800 with default voltage... the same speed they've been running at for almost 3 years

-Have you run ScanDisk?
*yes. and norton diskcheck. and partition magic diskcheck

-Do you run any Anti-Virus protection. If so, what, and how up to date is it?
*yes. mcafee security center.. looks like there is an update available.. i thought it grabbed 'em automatically.. but i guess not. but by the time you read this is will be up to date.. and i'll run a scan.

The answers to these questions, and many more, are the keys to tracking down the problem or problems.

there may have been a game or 2 installed about the time it started happening.. and it likely included a set of reg additions so it would run properly.. but ive had most of the games installed before w/ out this problem.. could this be a mobo thing? specifically the mobo AGP slot? i cant even explain why.. but i feel like my video hasnt been performing exactly as id expected it to be.

and id really like to figure out how to run dumpchk.exe to analyze these issues... its referenced in the MS Knowledge base
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314084?sd=ee

 

[Nothinman]

Dumps (in a Windows BSOD sense ), can and will often be hex gibberish, which you have noticed. However, they usually only make sense to Microsoft, or highly trained Microsoft-ians.
Therefore, the best thing to do, is to track down the problem the most common way:

Actually if you can use a search engine you can find the meaning of each STOP code, some of them are more telling than others though.

9 times out of 10, random or frequent BSODs are bad hardware or drivers. Run memcheck86 for a few hours or even better, over night, if that goes ok you know the memory, cpus, etc are ok. Since you have an ATI card I'd blame those drivers first, I have no faith in ATI =)

 

[nemaNIN]

egads.. i did a search like you suggested.. and its a page file error!

ive got the page file striped across 3 drives (tweak i read about).. oh.. and that's 3 seperate drives on 3 seperate channels.. has anyone else had problems w/ this? the tweak only mentioned doing it on 2 drives.. is 3 causing problems? is it possible (there was a couple of disk timeout errors a little bit before one of the bugchecks) that the large 120Gb drive is spinning up too slowly and causing the error?

i'll turn off the 'striping' for now.. but id like to use it on at least 2 drives if i can.. i like the idea. anybody tried striping the page file?

the other, however, has to do with SB audigy... which....... i dont have. hmmmmmm........

 

[Nothinman]

If you're hitting the pagefile enough that striping it matters you should stop wasting your time 'tweaking' it and just buy more memory, the gains from f'ing with your pagefile aren't worth anything.

the other, however, has to do with SB audigy... which....... i dont have. hmmmmmm........

Any STOP code you get will be generic and not related to any one piece of hardware, any sh!tty driver can cause them. It just so happens that Audigy and Audigy2 drivers are popular culprits.

 

[nemaNIN]

i took the page file off the 120G drive... and so far it hasnt happened. but we'll see.
ive got 768M of ram... and my memory usage is, usually, under 400M in any situation.. but i dont see, assuming it doesnt cause instabilities, how striping the page file can hurt anything..

but... i still want to know where to get dumpchk.exe.. if for no other reason than curiosity.
thanx.
nema

 

[Nothinman]

If putting a pagefile on that drive is causing BSODs I'd say there's something wrong with that drive.

 

[nemaNIN]

it's a WD ata/100 120GB 7200rpm 8M cache

i thought there was too.. which is part of why im on a new install or XP. when i accessed a certain directory on the drive, my memory shot up to 800M+ and wouldnt go down until i closed the explorer window.. and i dont, at the moment, remember the other quirks.. but there were a few (oh.. the DMA level was acting weird).

anyway.. i ran the disk utilits from WD and the drive passes in every case. there has also not been any problems w/ the files on the disk.. that is not wholly true, but the problems seemed to be tied to the other problems (the video card, i think) and have now largely cleared up. ive ran many diskchecks on it, but it's always fine...

how else can i test it?

and what about this theory. could the pagefile issue on the drive be due to the longer seek times and longer spin up time associated with the larger disk?