Vista BSODs.. why..

[mrCide]

Been using Vista Home Premium for a year now with no real issues.. following spec

- (e?)6600 CPU @ 2.4
- 4 gigs of ram @ 800 (3.5 read since vista is 32bit)
- nvidia 8800 gts
- 2 250 gig drives RAID 0
- dvd burner

Pretty simple box. Ok. Now the problem. I've had RAM go bad in the past, results in machine not booting or really obnoxious problems with Windows even functioning, but my problem is a bit different.

I get these random BSODs out of nowhere, I play WoW and it will start crashing every 10 minutes then I'll get the BSOD. They range from CACHE_MANAGER to MEMORY_MANAGER and I've seen others -- not always the same, and never indicates a file. I've not installed or made any system modifications since I built the thing, nor installed anything other than windows/firefox/pidgin updates for the most part.

I've swapped out each individual stick of RAM (4x1gb) and for every one I had out I still got BSODs. My only other suspect at this point is the PSU, though the BIOS reports it just fine. I think I ran a chkdsk with minor repairs a couple weeks ago, didn't help either. Anyone have any ideas? =\ Thought I'd give this place a shot.

 

[mpilchfamily]

It would help if you list your PSU as well.

Have you ran Memtest yet?

First thing that comes to mind is the RAM but it could also be a problem with the motherboard itself. Right now it can be any number of things.

 

[mrCide]

It's a Hiper 530w modular PSU -- yeah. Just figured I'd ask.. I really hate hardware issues like this.

I haven't run memtest, not sure what the best utility is these days

 

[0roo0roo]

run memtest..and run it overnight....
run stress test in linux
or linux live boot cd
isolate hardware testing from vista problems that way

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: mrCide
It's a Hiper 530w modular PSU -- yeah. Just figured I'd ask.. I really hate hardware issues like this.

I haven't run memtest, not sure what the best utility is these days

Memtest is the utility, not a genre, incase that's what you meant.

www.memtest.org

 

[mrCide]

thanks for the suggestions, i've let it run for a couple hours now and there are over a thousand errors. I guess it IS the RAM.

again.. are manufacturere's not as solid as they used to be? i've had corsairand crucial go bad in the last year

 

[KGB]

Originally posted by: mrCide
thanks for the suggestions, i've let it run for a couple hours now and there are over a thousand errors. I guess it IS the RAM.

again.. are manufacturere's not as solid as they used to be? i've had corsairand crucial go bad in the last year

You never mentioned which MB you are using.
MB manufacturers almost always publish a list of "approved" memory modules for every MB they make. Pick from the list for your MB.

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: mrCide
thanks for the suggestions, i've let it run for a couple hours now and there are over a thousand errors. I guess it IS the RAM.

again.. are manufacturere's not as solid as they used to be? i've had corsairand crucial go bad in the last year

or your mb is frying ram
or its a coin flip and you got tails twice.
as far as i know theres no deluge of bad ram.

 

[Roguestar]

Originally posted by: mrCide
thanks for the suggestions, i've let it run for a couple hours now and there are over a thousand errors. I guess it IS the RAM.

again.. are manufacturere's not as solid as they used to be? i've had corsairand crucial go bad in the last year

Over 1000? Hah, wow. Sounds like you need to get yourself some more RAM.

The manufacturers are as good as ever, if not better, just getting one bad batch is no reason to brand them as unreliable. I had to return a pair of Crucial sticks but since replacing them a year ago I've had no trouble and it showed me how good their customer service is. I've also bought from them a few times since then and have no qualms about doing so. Lifetime warranty is certainly a plus.

 

[mrCide]

Ah.. I'm back. Welp, I decided to test each stick of RAM individually. Turns out only one of them is reporting errors, however, even without that stick the machine is BSODing. I actually have 2 sticks of Crucial and 2 sticks of Corsair. I've tried at this point just the 2 Crucial (the bad one was a corsair) and machine is still crashing.

Mobo is a Gigabyte P35-DQ6. Corsair's on the list but doesn't look like my Crucial is, though. I dunno.. crapshoot for me at this point. Again I've had the RAM installed for awhile now with no issues. The BSOD started in the last couple weeks or so.

 

[Roguestar]

The Crucial checks out in their memory compatibility thinger:

http://www.crucial.com/store/l...aspx?model=GA-P35T-DQ6

If it's happening to other RAM in that motherboard, it could be the memory controller onboard, perhaps it is screwed. Is there any way you can try your RAM in another PC?

 

[GuitarDaddy]

Go into bios and set "restart on fatal error" to disabled. That way when it BSOD's you can see the error message which may give you a clue. You should also download microsoft's crash dump debugger and run it on the crash dump file. And make sure your system is set to do a full dump.

Once ram is eliminated the vast majority of BSOD's are caused by faulty, corrupted or incompatible device drivers.

 

[0roo0roo]

Originally posted by: mrCide
Ah.. I'm back. Welp, I decided to test each stick of RAM individually. Turns out only one of them is reporting errors, however, even without that stick the machine is BSODing. I actually have 2 sticks of Crucial and 2 sticks of Corsair. I've tried at this point just the 2 Crucial (the bad one was a corsair) and machine is still crashing.

Mobo is a Gigabyte P35-DQ6. Corsair's on the list but doesn't look like my Crucial is, though. I dunno.. crapshoot for me at this point. Again I've had the RAM installed for awhile now with no issues. The BSOD started in the last couple weeks or so.

well test these sticks in another machine.
how long did you test? best to test for quite a while.