System crashing-Physical memory dump??

[aznman]

its been about a week now and iv been getting these random crashes but before the pc restarts itself it shows this blue screen for about 2 seconds. iv cought that its performing a physical memory dump. iv taken about each stick of ram individualy, disconnected my dvdrom and burner, unplugged the floppy and still i get these crashes. the only things i have not tried to unplug is GPU and HDD(well u cant really run without them) and i havent downloaded any new firmware or anything of the sort for any of my hardware to im thinking this is a software problem. Does anyone know where to begin to find the issue? thanks in advance.

-ricky

 

[flexy]

yes, you begin in stating your detailed hardware specs, what OS etc...what programs running....what bios version.

 

[aznman]

Chaintech VNF4 ultra
amd64 3000+
1gig kingston hyperX pc3200
power color x800xl
seagate 80gig sata baracuda
thermaltake silent 480w
liteon dvdrom
optorite dvdrw'
and i have a zalman flower on the cpu
Im running xp home at the moment and i havent updated bios.

 

[Nebben]

I'd start by downloading Memtest86 and running tests on each stick of RAM individually. You can boot it from a CDROM.

Memtest86

I think the majority of those problems on a fresh install are due to RAM problems. Perhaps you just got a bad stick.

Other possibilities include compatibility issues with some hardware components, though I don't see anything that stands out; or maybe a driver issue, or BIOS config issue. Look at the BIOS updates for your board, see if anything like this is mentioned. I wouldn't flash the BIOS as a first resort, though. Try other things first.

 

[flexy]

yeah..memtest (or the one from www.memtest.org).

i dont know about the vnf board, have the dfi ultra, but weird BSODS and crashes could be from insufficient power, that either inusfficient PSU or, if overclocking, not enough enough chipset/LDT voltage.

But i guess you are not overclocking ? I still would look for a recent bios, esp., with the newer NF4 boards latest bioses often fix some quirks. But as said...get memtest and let it run...eg. a few hours, overnight etc. and if it passes then we can look further.

NExt step would be prime95/occt and testing CPU/memory stability...but shouldnt be an issue if you dont overclock.

VERY IMPORTANT....go to "startmenu", run -> type "msinfo32".....there is a tool in the menu called "file signature verification checker"...check your system files.

If some are damaged delete them (eg. from windows/system32 etc.) and windows will automatically replace them with working backups.

Since i am tweaking and testing like a madman i get a lot of crashes which often damage systemfiles/drivers and i found this signature verification tool very useful.

 

[flexy]

also, start troubleshooting with ALL unneeded devices unplugged (incl. USB etc..) and even unnededed devices in bios disabled.
In extreme cases even remove soundcard/modem etc. and start system with the bare minimum and stepwise check when the BSODs happen

 

[aznman]

seems as if i found the problem...sort of...i closed a few boot programs through msconfig and it all stoped i think. it use to do it every two hours but it hasent done it since i made the changes(around 1:30) now ill try to narrow it down to the exact target....process of elimination...gotta love it