[Desh]

Thats what I'm trying to figure out here. The problem I'm having is that whenever I play Mass Effect or Batman Arkhum Asylum, they tend to randomly crash during gameplay with a BSOD stating Bad_Pool_Header. Of all the games on my computer, those are the 2 that are giving me this problem. My system is fine otherwise...I'm not having any issues any where else I've googled bad pool header and I really couldn't find a clear answer to what it is...in layman's terms at least haha. That would make it easier to isolate the problem. I get is during the BSOD: *** stop. 0x00000019 (0x00000020, 0x8834F768, 0x8834F788, 0x0A040013) I just want to know what it means exactly and to see if the problem can be addressed. Thanks.

[Vikingod]

Generally, that error occurs when you've problems with your registry. Try running a registry cleaner (CCleaner is what I use, and it's free).

[WxMan1]

My personal experience suggests hardware issues.

I've personally encountered this specific problem during Aug 2007 heatwave here in U.S.A., MI, Detroit-suburb and is particularly transient; solving it however will result in a much greater stable system.

IF your PSU & mobo are about the same age, they could be failing in tandem.

My guess is a PSU that is failing to deliver the goods WHEN THE GOODS ARE NEEDED TO BE THERE. However, IF you provide an old mobo with goods it expects, i.e., a robust PSU having the ability to "put out" - after so many cycles - what you thinks gonna 'appen?

Perhaps this error is appearing AFTER you just got a bunch of cool nifty neato USB stuff for Christmas (in His most precious name, Amen)? Yeah, and your computer is sort of old, off the shelf, not top of the shelf original top bucks type hardware back when it was a spring chicken?

Happy New year for ya (too).

[Desh]

Indeed I forgot to provide my system specs: Windows XP Pro Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P, AMD Phenom II X3 720 BE, G.Skill 4GB DDR3 RAM, EVGA GeForce 9800 GTX+ 512MB, Seagate 160GB|WD500GB|Maxtor 200GB, Soundblaster X-Fi XtremeGamer, Lite-On DVD/CD-RW, Corsair TX650W PSU

PSU isn't the problem and my system, while it may not be top of the line, is not old either. As I said, the problem only occurs with those two games. I play Grid, Trine, Tomb Raider Underworld, BioShock etc. and none of those games gave me that kind of problem.

[Tipstaff]

Personally I've seen this occur in quite a few different situations. One in particular, I've seen this happen during installation of programs, or when programs are being run off an optical drive.

Other probable culprits:

-bad optical drive (or even something as simple as bad cable)
-bad ram
-corrupt device driver or conflicting driver (specifically audio, network, usb, or display driver)
-corrupt hard drive, or rather a drive that has bad sectors
-bad or bloated registry
-too small or bad pagefile (I've seen this crop up when people assign a permanent pagefile that is too small for the app they are trying to run, or when they've assigned a permanent page file, and the sector/block it resides in gets corrupted)

Things to try:
-try updating all your device drivers, in particular those ones I've listed
-try running the registry fix suggested by Vikingod
-try running a memory testing program such as memtest
-try running chkdsk on your hard drive
-try running with a pagefile that is system managed (if you need to keep it as a permanent file, first change it to a system managed, reboot, then set it to a permanent one... even better, use a bootdisk to delete the pagefile, and when you boot back into XP it will create a fresh pagefile).

[Desh]

Hey guys. I did more research on the issue which lead to download the debugging tools for windows to open up minidump files. There are 18 files dating back to September 7 2009 which when I got Mass Effect(off steam). They all have one thing in common: HIDCLASS.SYS ( HIDCLASS+29a6 ). So this does have something to do with my USB connections. It might be the game pad which as a PS2 Dualshock2 connected via a converter, but I really don't know how to figure which is really causing it. Along with that, my scanner, KB+mouse and printer are all hooked up to USB. So the games are conflicting the device it seems.

Also, is it possible to update the USB Human Interface Device drivers in Windows XP? Thanks for all your help.

Here is the Details

BAD_POOL_HEADER (19)
The pool is already corrupt at the time of the current request.
This may or may not be due to the caller.
The internal pool links must be walked to figure out a possible cause of
the problem, and then special pool applied to the suspect tags or the driver
verifier to a suspect driver.
Arguments:
Arg1: 00000020, a pool block header size is corrupt.
Arg2: 886c83a8, The pool entry we were looking for within the page.
Arg3: 886c83c8, The next pool entry.
Arg4: 0a040004, (reserved)

Debugging Details:
------------------


BUGCHECK_STR:  0x19_20

POOL_ADDRESS:  886c83a8 

CUSTOMER_CRASH_COUNT:  2

DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID:  DRIVER_FAULT

PROCESS_NAME:  MassEffect.exe

LAST_CONTROL_TRANSFER:  from 8054b583 to 804f9f43

STACK_TEXT:  
b84dfd40 8054b583 00000019 00000020 886c83a8 nt!_woutput+0x414
b84dfd90 b81ba9a6 886c83b0 00000000 8871a48c nt!ExFreePoolWithTag+0x4bd
b84dfda8 b81b9de7 88749e68 8871a478 88749e80 HIDCLASS!EnqueueInterruptReport+0x48
b84dfdcc b81b9e79 892711c0 88749e68 8932b9b8 HIDCLASS!HidpProcessInterruptReport+0x9f
b84dfe08 b81ba094 022711c0 8932b9b8 00000008 HIDCLASS!HidpDistributeInterruptReport+0x67
b84dfe48 804f16c0 00000000 8924a460 892dbdf4 HIDCLASS!HidpInterruptReadComplete+0x17a
b84dfe78 b337e0d5 8924a460 885ec008 8a9a0028 nt!KiDeliverApc+0xcc
b84dfee0 b337ed47 885ec168 00000000 8a9a07d8 USBPORT!USBPORT_CompleteTransfer+0x373
b84dff10 b337f944 026e6f44 8a9a00e0 8a9a00e0 USBPORT!USBPORT_DoneTransfer+0x137
b84dff48 b338113a 8a9a0028 80546acc 8a9a0230 USBPORT!USBPORT_FlushDoneTransferList+0x16c
b84dff74 b338f24b 8a9a0028 80546acc 8a9a0028 USBPORT!USBPORT_DpcWorker+0x224
b84dffb0 b338f3c2 8a9a0028 00000001 8a399454 USBPORT!USBPORT_IsrDpcWorker+0x38f
b84dffcc 80545e7f 8a9a064c 6b755044 00000000 USBPORT!USBPORT_IsrDpc+0x166
b84dffe0 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 nt!ExSetResourceOwnerPointer+0x7c


STACK_COMMAND:  kb

FOLLOWUP_IP: 
HIDCLASS!EnqueueInterruptReport+48
b81ba9a6 ??              ???

SYMBOL_STACK_INDEX:  2

SYMBOL_NAME:  HIDCLASS!EnqueueInterruptReport+48

FOLLOWUP_NAME:  MachineOwner

MODULE_NAME: HIDCLASS

IMAGE_NAME:  HIDCLASS.SYS

DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP:  480254c5

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID:  0x19_20_HIDCLASS!EnqueueInterruptReport+48

BUCKET_ID:  0x19_20_HIDCLASS!EnqueueInterruptReport+48

Followup: MachineOwner
---------

[gascieus]

When I saw the title of this thread, the first thing that came to my mind was, "Well, when a lonely married woman has her inexperienced pool boy over to clean the pool..." But yeah, it's amazing how the mind wanders.

Anyway, Desh, as far as I know, HID can only be updated via Windows update. You should have all your devices connect to your PC before you click on windows update. If there's any additional driver, the update should/might/depends if Microsoft feels like it/maybe try to find any updated version, if there is one.

[Desh]

Ha! The source of the problem has been the Dualshock to usb converter thing I've been using it seems. I disconnected it and I played Mass Effect for little over 2 hours and no crashes/BSOD.

[SeraphicSorcerer]

It may not be that simple. But hopefully the problem is gone, Also make sure your case is free of dust, debris. But if it's completely random the power supply (as suggested) may be the culprit.

[Desh]

Originally Posted by SeraphicSorcerer

It may not be that simple. But hopefully the problem is gone, Also make sure your case is free of dust, debris. But if it's completely random the power supply (as suggested) may be the culprit.

The power supply is fine. Its a quality model and I've only had it for a few months plus I've run other graphic intensive games and they haven't given me this kind of problem.