Would a knackered processor cause a windows bluescreen?

[Maximilian]

Ive been here before with the windows blue screening on me thing, but this time it dosent happen at bootup as i reinstalled it. It happens randomly. I reinstalled windows as i changed the mobo, so my setup was this mobo with 1 600mhz P3, i installed 2 1ghz p3's and it blue screens every now n then. I reinstalled windows again, and it still does it. Could one of the CPU's be broken? I say that because the heatsink made a sorta crunch when i put it on the 2nd processor, however this couldve been leftover thermal pad or w/e, if i did crush the cpu a bit would it even boot and cause this?

 

[sandorski]

Possibly, I suppose, but it could be the motherboard giving out(probably quite old), power supply, drivers, etc.

 

[stevty2889]

Well why don't you try with each CPU individualy. Are the 2 1ghz P3's a matched set? If they aren't that could be part of the problem, but since you heard a cruch, you should make sure you didn't crush the die on one of the cpus. Are both cpu's recognized at boot up?

 

[n7]

RAM is dying.

Just my guess.

 

[Maximilian]

Yes, both are recognised at bootup and utilised by windows. The RAM could be an issue, as before i was using 2x 600 mhz slot1 p3's on a different board and had 768MB of ram, there is 896? MB of ram in there its just one of the sticks was half knackered, but it ran stably. However with this new board im getting 896 MB of system ram showing in windows, leading me to believe that the half knackered stick has somehow become fully active, why the other side has not remained disabled is a mystery to me, so could that be the problem? If i put a large gash down the broken side of the rams stick will this disable it completely and make it like it was in the old mobo? (only half the stick being active)

 

[stevty2889]

I would run memtest to see if you get any memory errors. I don't think that gashing half the stick is gonna do anything but kill the stick entierly. How many of your sticks are double sided, and how many are single sided, most likely the stick wasn't half bad, it's just that the old motherboard couldn't recognize it properly, that was common in the P2/P3 days.

 

[Maximilian]

3 are double sided and 1 is single sided. I have very good reason to believe that half the stick was broke as its been sitting in a bag with a chess set being tossed around whenever we moved house for like the past 3 years, also my friend threw it around (i assumed it was broken by this time and was extremely surprised to see that 128MB still worked in my old mobo). Ill run memtest when i get back home and see if that is the problem.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Ram is a good place to start the TS. BTW, writing down the BSOD and googling it can often be revealing, and at times be extremely specific as to the cause of it. Monitoring temps and voltage rails should always be early steps in the TS too.

 

[Maximilian]

Well, im back on the duel P3 beast cuz i have to look after the stupid cat for the weekend..... like it cant feed itsself for two days... Anyways, i removed the bit of RAM i believe to be dodgy and everything has been fine for 5+ hours. Ill report back after more usage but i do believe it was te defective side of that 256mb stick causing the problem.

PS, i still cant get the heatsinks off my CPU's.... seriously, i think i need a special tool or somthing to do it with. A tiny bottle opener might to the trick, but who has a tiny bottle opener....

 

[RichUK]

yes RAM is definitely the first place to look, memory deteriorates over time, and writes more corrupt bits/bytes to the hard drive which can cause problems with the boot sector or registry. Trying running memtest to see if it errors on stock settings

EDIT: ohh your above post, didnt read that .. anyways good luck

 

[Maximilian]

Ok, it did another blue screen with the suspect RAM removed.
"an application tried to release a thread it did not own" Was the message this time. I was listening to tues on WMP, chatting on MSN, and surfing the web when it bluescreened, its been ok for about 9 hours. Why did this happen? could it be one of the processors?

How can i test the cpu's? Is there a memtest equivilent? Does that error indicate a cpu problem?

 

[bjc112]

Knackered?

 

[Hacp]

Try SuperPi, or my favorite SP2004

Google it. If two instances pass for 24 hours, your processors are fine.

Also, did you reformatt after you removed the suspect memory? Sometimes, the bad memory might corrupt the HD, which can cause you problems.

 

[Maximilian]

Nope i didnt reformat.... Damn lol... i really dont want to either, but im beginning to think it could be that. That stick i took out is the only thing i am sure is broken, the crunch i heard with the cpu installation was simply old thermal goop, ive managed to remove the heatsinks at last and have confirmed that both die's look fine and i also removed the crusty stuff and put on some AS5. Temps dropped by 2*C but thats all.

What if i was just to reinstall windows and leave my data, would that be just as good?