random restarts

[bakaris]

Hi,

i'm having trouble with random restarts. the BSOD spits out either "page fault in non paged area" or "driver irql not less or equal" errors. I thought ram trouble. tested with memtest86, found some errors, rma'd my sticks. got new ram sticks, plugged them in and got errors (fewer errors mind you) when using more than one stick at a time. no errors except for the end of test 5 when using one sitck. changed the speed from 133 to 100 in the bios and now i get no errors in memtest86. 'problem solved' i think. wrong. still getting bsods. so i unplug all other ide and pci devices not being used, stick in win98 bootdisk, and fdisk the drive. did a fresh install, updated to sp2, but still getting same errors. tried a different videocard i had lying around just for kicks. same errors. so i think my mainboard's finished. or maybe it my harddisk, but i don't think so. i don't particularly want to upgrade though, me being not into gaming so much anymore combined with the fact that i'm pretty much destitute after spending a year on exchange in sweden. so, any ideas to a solution? or a mainboard recommendation? etc.

thanks,
mark

relevent specs:
winxp sp2
2 x crucial 256MB PC2100
1 x crucial 512MB PC2100
Soyo k7v Dragon plus
Athlon xp 1700+
aiw radeon 8500dv
a bunch of harddrives

 

[wpshooter]

You say a bunch of hard drives. Do you mean in this computer or just laying around. If in this computer how many ?

What is your brand and wattage of power supply ?

Have you tried another power supply ?

 

[bakaris]

antec 400w power supply. less than a year old.
haven't tried another power supply. don't have any other laying around.

harddrives, 5 total, all in the same box. antec sx1040:
1 x 60 GB ide
1 x 200GB ide
1 x 120GB sata
2 x 120GB ide

 

[wpshooter]

Unplug all of the drives except your boot drive & see if the problem stops.

 

[bakaris]

I did that.

so i unplug all other ide and pci devices not being used, stick in win98 bootdisk, and fdisk the drive. did a fresh install, updated to sp2, but still getting same errors.

 

[imported_BikeDude]

But what is your current status?

Are you able to complete all memtest86 tests now?

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us...ed-3296-4e84-8885-c3162fd0ddbf.xml.asp is a good place to look up troubleshooting information on various bug check codes.

If memtest86 now runs fine, and you still get irql_less_or_equal BSODs, try uninstalling some devices and anti-virus products. (it is tempting to still suspect your memory or motherboard at this point though)

OTOH, if memtest86 still fails, you do not have any chance nor hope of OS stability.

 

[bakaris]

current status is that i have one stick of 512mb in, no pci devices plugged in, my 60gb hdd and my dvdrom and cdrw drive plugged in, no memtest errors, a fresh install of winxp from a freshly fdisk'd drive, and i'm still getting the bsod's.

 

[wpshooter]

Assuming that you have all of the latest and greatest drivers installed, I would first get the diagnostic software from manufacturer and test the integrity of the drive. After that I would purchase a replacement power supply from a local source (that you could return if not problem) and see if it is P/S problem. I think you may be trying to run to much hardware for the power supply you are using.

 

[bakaris]

powermax showed no defects in the hard drive. i borrowed a friend's 500w power source and i'm still getting blue screens. a new bsod error to report though. memory management, 0x0000001a. from bikedude's bugcheck link and the first parameter, i get this diagnose: "A PTE or the working set list is corrupt."

also, more background info, my brother had my computer while i was away in sweden. he says the random restarts happened occasionally shortly after i left, but they've become more and more common since, he used to get them daily, then more than daily, up to now where it'll happen within minutes of starting up and using xp.

 

[DaiShan]

Ok, first, why did you use FDISK to format the drive for XP? Just format the disk as NTFS during the installation process. Blue screens are hardware related. So you are running the FSB at 100mhz? (200ddr) If you run it at 133 you get memtest errors? Have you tried clearing CMOS (either take the battery on the motherboard out for an hour, or use the jumper to clear it) Once you have cleared CMOS, make sure that you are running default bios settings for the chip and RAM (don't manually set voltages) and do another few loops of Memtest, if you get errors, RMA the sticks again, if you get errors on the new sticks, then I would say there is a problem with your motherboard.

 

[imported_tomcat1]

My system had a major reboot problem although I didn't check errors but it started out rebooting at various times off an on then it got progressively worse. I thought I had a fried board or chip so I replaced everything except my case and the problem remained.

I kicked myself the next day when I removed the Reset Switch connector from the motherboard and that fixed my problem. So my reset switch on my case had an intermittent short triggering an annoying reboot that almost drove me crazy.

 

[TGHI]

If you are overclocking: don't. High FSB frequencies are the only way that I've ever replicated memory errors of that nature. Also, check your memory latencies - if you are intimidated by timings, set them to 'BySPD' or 'Factory Default'.

 

[Varmaduchi]

Tomcat1 - Interesting post, I never thought about that. I will definately take note of it if I ever encounter the problem.

 

[bakaris]

Originally posted by: DaiShan
Ok, first, why did you use FDISK to format the drive for XP? Just format the disk as NTFS during the installation process.

i formatted the disk as NTFS during the installation process initially, but that didn't work for me. then i read a similar case somewhere else on the www where he solved his problem by fdisk'ing his drive. worked for him, so he said, so i thought i'd try it myself.

i'm not overclocking. i cleared the cmos at some point while i've been trying to fix this, but i think i've played with the bios since. i'll reset it again and run memtest to see what happens when i get home.

 

[imported_BikeDude]

Originally posted by: bakaris
i formatted the disk as NTFS during the installation process initially

Odd things can happen if faulty memory is corrupting data. E.g.: Read errors from the CD? Could be the memory...

It shouldn't be necessary to use a DOS tool (we're talking about the old fdisk that came with DOS, right?) to install a modern OS. I've never come across a situation where this is warranted. (and I've been using NT since 93)

What's worse is that if you had faulty configured memory at the time you installed Windows, there's plenty of room for corruption at that point to manifest itself after you've replaced the faulty DIMMs (or reverted to safe parameters). I don't often tell people to reinstall Windows, but in this case I'm very tempted.

 

[bakaris]

after looking at this post:
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=32&threadid=1693412&enterthread=y

i decided to check out my capacitators... perhaps i should have done it/noticed them sooner.
a lot of them are bluging and have leaked electrocyte through the top. warranty's expired on the board, it only had a 1 yr if i remember right.

so i need a new board. or maybe i should try to have it repaired? think it's worth it? or are bad caps not a sure enough sign of a mainboard problem?