[Judas]

finished building a new system, updated the bios, did a mem test to check things over initially..

decided to start installing vista... and noticed that everything was flying right along until it hit the expanding portion, at which point it flew up to 96% and then just halted there fora bout 10 minutes before giving me a BSOD with the BAD_SPOOL_HEADER

I've personally never seen this BSOD.. but initially looking it up, it appeared that only people affected by it was after installing drivers/software that didn't agree with vista or the hardware....

unfortunately i wish it was only that easy considering i can't get vista to install as it is right now.

So a little more digging,

I'm running a complete memtest again just to make sure.

But i had a incling that it may be hardrive related.... If it's hardrive related, that'll be my 2nd Seagate 7200.10 i'll have received DOA

Maybe it's just a SATA cable..... either way i'm playing around with it.


Anyone else have any knowledge of this BSOD?

[Judas]

i think i've determined that it's either the Motherboard (most likely) or the CPU..

because i'm getting completely messed up memtest errors... where the error is located in a range that doesn't even match the memory

aka 4096mb of ram, 160 errors in the 4800 mb range and in the 4400mb range (i don't have the much memory, so northbridge memory controller failure?)

I've now gone through 8 packs of memory modules all producing similare varinging degrees of errors or if i push it occasionally none at all.

I can emediately cause a BSOD 50/50 chance when trying to install windows freshly either when it tries to format/create a partition on a new drive, or unpacking/extracting files.

I get 100% of the time, a CRC error while trying to install Adobe Reader and it is unpacking, 30-40 attempts and i've yet to get the thing to get passed 40% without a CRC error.

BAH.....

[zaim]

try with just 1 stick of ram.... and have only 1 hdd plugged in (the one you want vista on) also try formatting the drive with xp first then chuck the vista in and re-install

[Judas]

I've done that..

a singel stick of ram that is 2gb in the system and it still registers errors in the 4300-4800mb range which is obviously clearly impossible.

top it off, i can't get xp to finish loading the startup files booting to cd..... bsod's with irq less then equal.

and i can't format the drive with anything without something weird happening.

Either the board is screwed (makes the most sense to me) or the cpu or both. I've tried reseating everything, i've replaced EVERYTHING excluding the mobo/cpu....

i can go 48 hours without a memtest error one second, but fail to get anything to work, the next i can't go 5 minutes without geting multiple memtest errors that don't make sense. I've gone through 9 packs of dual channel memory from 3 different companies....

I think i've covered all the bases i can.

[Tipstaff]

Of the varies sticks of memory you've tried, were they all the same size, speeds, and brand? Have you also tried a different brand of hard drive, or even an IDE hard drive to see if it might be SATA related?

[CDsDontBurn]

this is some of the types of questions i come across at my primary job (ugh, it sucks now after two years....but that's a different story, lol).

And, from my experience, it's going to be either the memory, which you have ruled out from having tried so many different sticks of RAM, or the memory controller. And from my experience as well, a faulty CPU would not let the system even post. Now, that's not saying that a CPU will not let a system post, but that's just from my experience.

Originally Posted by Tipstaff

Of the varies sticks of memory you've tried, were they all the same size, speeds, and brand? Have you also tried a different brand of hard drive, or even an IDE hard drive to see if it might be SATA related?

He has gone through 9 different packs of memory he said in his last post. just in case you didn't catch that part .

I would agree though, for additional troubleshooting procedures, try a different SATA port/drive/cable and even an IDE drive just to see if it could possibly be any one of those.

[Judas]

i have tried different sizes of ram as well.... even ram i know is good.... i tried bios revisions.. i've tried different brands of hard drives... i didn't try an ide drive however but different ports..

i mean i'm crashing booting from the optical drive with windows xp.

i HAVE seen CPU that were failing giving CRC errors randomly in windows......

But what is throwing me off is the memtest errors where the memory portion that is erroring is outside the available total ram.... aka... 2gb installed, memory error @ 4548mb .... well hell i don't have that much memory what's this mean?

[zaim]

try another optical drive

[Tipstaff]

Originally Posted by CDsDontBurn

He has gone through 9 different packs of memory he said in his last post. just in case you didn't catch that part .

I did. What I had asked was if he had tried different sizes, speeds, and brands of RAM too.

One reason I asked this was because of an old issue I ran into when Intel put out the 945 and 975 chipsets. The SPDs in the memory at the time were not programmed properly, and most of the RAM kept locking up the system, or generating errors on every manufacturers boards. Corsairs XMS memory was one of the few that worked at the time (as did a set of Geil). It took a couple months for RAM manufacturers to update the SPDs so that their RAM would finally work, but you will still find some RAM out there that still has incorrectly programmed SPDs.

Aside from that, you might find that all the RAM from the same manufacturer, regardless of speed/size, just doesn't want to work with that board, so going to a different brand is a good way to test that out. Kingston, for instance, is notorious for having issues from batch to batch (and can be really picky when used on Intels own boards in pairs unless you buy, specifically, paired kits). One batch works fine, one doesn't. One batch works fine when used in singles, but pair them up, and the system crashes. It's one of the reasons I usually have 2 or 3 brands on hand (Kingston, Buffalo, and Transcend), so if one fails I can test it out with one of the others.

Anyways, my next suggestion was going to be the same thing that Zaim just posted. I would either try a new optical drive, or even an old one, and/or a new SATA/IDE cable for it

[Judas]

i've flipped between a pioneer DVR-212/216 and LG dvd-rom and a plextor drive... i haven't tried IDE..

either way i'm sitting, considering i have the EXACT same board sitting in another machine which i'm currently using with essentually the same setup, the board HAS to be faulty or the CPU has to be fault......

[CDsDontBurn]

Originally Posted by Judas

i've flipped between a pioneer DVR-212/216 and LG dvd-rom and a plextor drive... i haven't tried IDE..

either way i'm sitting, considering i have the EXACT same board sitting in another machine which i'm currently using with essentually the same setup, the board HAS to be faulty or the CPU has to be fault......

if you have that available, then why don't you take the CPU out of that machine to test it in this machine to test your CPU and MoBo theory? just being lazy or something? you can also just take out the optical drive from that machine as well for the optical drive test

[Judas]

no not being lazy.... just being patient with my new supplies that arrived last night.

I've got another identically built machine up and running without any problems (so far)..... it's exact..... there are no memory issues at all..

For my warranty system with my supplier, i cannot just start swapping the parts around to determine the extact issue be it the board or cpu.... because i have to take the machine to my supplier so they can run thier own tests (yes i know kinda stupid, they don't listen to me if i've found the exact cause of the problem, they want to play with it all themselves first)

Either way, the new new machine is currently expanding without any hitches thus far... if it crashes.. i may have perhaps found a unique case where a specific cpu and motherboard don't work.


E5200
Asus P5Q-SE

[Mousey]

Judas i've had that problem as well, i was tring to install vista on a secondary drive and there was a tiny rip in the IDE Cable, so every time the install tried to extract files it would just BSOD Clean off.
Have you changed the cable it's probably that

[Judas]

yes i've changed cables..... i've changed everything multiple times on everything except the case/motherboard/cpu... just never used IDE cables... cause i don't have any new IDE drives around...


the new exact same machine is working great.... I've already got vista installed without a crash/hitch/glitch.... with the orginal memory i was intending to use. And it's quite a speedy beast... i'm quite impressed with the little E5200.

Intel INF update installed/ATI drivers installed/All windows updates installed... downloading Realtek's R208 drivers atm

I got a few programs sorted and waiting..

the vista install is already customized to my liking for the new user.

So i've got the problematic machine boxed up and i'll be taking it up to the supplier friday night. At which point they can run all the tests they wish and replace the parts that need be.

[Tipstaff]

I wonder if this board has a similar issue to that of the P5QL-E (P43 chipset though)? I've seen complaints with that board and some 1066mhz DDR2 not working properly. No specific errors, just instability and crashes. I read one post in which the customer mentioned that the only way he was able to get the system to settle down was to drop the speed of the RAM to 800Mhz, and another guy was able to do the same by switching to a much more expensive brand.

[Judas]

actually the memory i was using is PC6400 800mhz ram... i did try setting the timings to the loosest settings and droping to 666mhz.

Either way i SHOULD get confirmation of what the problem WAS perhaps within the week

[CDsDontBurn]

Originally Posted by Judas

E5200
Asus P5Q-SE

what kind of video card do you have in there? NVIDIA, ATI, or onboard? If it's an NVIDIA card, i've heard of some people reporting issues with the 8600GT cards specifically. so, that's something to check out if that's what you have in there.

and as for your other post about the machine being boxed up and everything, just watch, everything will work for your supplier and you'll be like "WTF?! It wasn't doing that yesterday!!!" that would suck.

[Judas]

i've used anything from a ati radeon x800, x1900, HD3450 (which is what is intentionally to be in there)..

everything has checked out.. the other machine is working great

[kn00tcn]

great, another bad_spool_header with no clear source...

my friend keeps getting this bsod more & more in XP in the last couple weeks after months of being fine

[Judas]

as i've yet to get a final word back from my supplier on what is causing it....... it's definitely a hardware failure for one of my builds.... related to that of motherboard or cpu.....

[Judas]

get the computer back from my supplier only for them to say "we tested it.... all seems fine"

That above DOESN'T even remotely look fine let alone make any form of sense....