[MitchRapp]

Ok I've been having this recurrent problem
It used to happen maybe once every week or two
now it's after 10-15 minutes of using my PC

I play a game, like DoD or Far Cry or whatever.... and the computer crashes with the blue screen "Dumping memory" and all that jizz
it also happens in normal windows operations, after closing a program like Firefox, Thunderbird or Windows Media Player.

After rebooting, sometimes my stuff is messed up (Firefox bookmarks are deleted in some cases)
I've run dumpchk on the minidumps it leaves after the crash and so far it's been a different "cause" everytime: Win32k.sys, Kmixer.sys, D386.sys (something similar), ati3disomething.dll .... everytime is different

Should a format and re-install of Windows fix this ..... or ..... is it hardware related?

I use the Asus K8N-E Deluxe 1008.004 with an Athlon 64 3400+ with WIndows XP SP-2 Pro with everything from windows update installed and I have a powercolor radeon 9600 pro 256mb running the 5.2 drivers (used to have catalyst, now I'm just running the control panel.... thought it was catalyst but no... that's not the problem)
also using a soundblaster audigy 2 with the latest drivers from the creative autoupdate site
using the latest nvidia nforce drivers for my chipset as well ... my hard drives are running perfect (SMART says everything is sweet) sooooooo yeah
Also I'm not overclocking ANYTHING at the moment. Temps are 36c and 32c idle for CPU and mobo, and 55c - 35c CPU/MOBO during intense gaming.

sooooooo basically....

1) Do I just format and reinstall windows cuz it clearly messed up?
2) Orrrrrrr is there driver incompatibility?

thanks to whoever can help me

[MitchRapp]

more info if it helps .....
Sandra benches go from start to finish without any errors or crashes ... ram is 3156/3157 (i have single channel)
superpi works up to 2M ... haven't done any over 2M (1M takes 35 seconds)
hdtach is perfect .... my drives are actually better than the ones in their database
this is starting to look like a software issue... either XP SP-2 needs a spanking or some drivers are incompatible
also ..... I just flashed my bios to the 1008.005 beta .... dunno.... maybe ..... u never know

[ToP3koms]

Have you tried running windows update ? I seem to recall one of the recent hotfixes was to fix some kind of BSOD error.If your fully patched up and are still having the problem ,I would say to reinstall windows.

[MitchRapp]

yup like I said I've installed every patch and fix in Windows Update .... I always try to keep everything up to date so I get the latest patches and drivers all the time.
I have no clue what the hell is going on
Even outside of gaming .... like geez.... closing WIndows Media Player ... closing Firefox .... playing a little shockwave game ......

[e v o]

i would just reformat, backup all ur stuff, and ull feel better after its all and done. I like having a new clean slate

Ben

[MitchRapp]

i know i should ... i'm just hoping someone'll show up and say "oh the latest xxxxxx drivers for your xxxxxxxxx are bad they have a fix out" or something

[MitchRapp]

ok I'm about to hit my computer with my steel baseball bat

i reinstalled XP
my USB ports do not function .... anything I plug into em does not work
I'm using my mouse and keyboard on PS/2 ports
also my floppy drive has disappeared according to windows
not according to my bios
but according to windows it's gone

soooooooo for now HOW THE F........ did this happen ?! I'm so confused it's not even funny anymore.... I've installed the latest nForce drivers numerous times
installing SP-2 for the 3rd time right now .... let's see what happens, because we all know how retarded Windows can be. right?

[MitchRapp]

ok

Floppy Disk disappearing from My Computer ---- fixed it by updating the Floppy Disk drivers from Devices...
USB Problem .... uninstalled all USB mentions in Devices and then rebooted and it fixed itself

[MitchRapp]

yet the blue screen problem persists ... after only 2 minutes of Far Cry and 1 minute of Day of Defeat....

and I'm talking to myself at this point ..... so hey pepi.... try re-installing the 5.1 drivers or wait for 5.3 .... yur call

[PangingJr]

what Stop code/error messages and the name of the file listed on the error message ?

here's an example of a Stop message, and things you would want to write down.
after you have the following infos you will have a much better chance of searching the possible causes and then possible solution may be applied to your case, if any. .

STOP: 0x0000008E (parameter1, parameter2, parameter3, parameter4) KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
(name of a file listed here) - Address xxxxxxxx, base at xxxxxxxx, Datestamp xxxxxxxx. - (or name of a file listed here)

[MitchRapp]

it's different everytime .... one time the cause was win32k the other it was kmixer ....
but you know what..... i've seen the cause being ati3duag.dll many times .... more specifically "ati3duag.dll + c29c1" hmmmm think that's the cause?

where do i get the STOP msg exactly? in dumpchk.exe it has a bunch of things but not the stop msg

[PangingJr]

the most important information (from a debugging standpoint) is the following portion of the Dumpchk output:

BugCheckCode ........0xxxxxxxxx
BugCheckParameter1 ..0xxxxxxxxx
BugCheckParameter2 ..0xxxxxxxxx
BugCheckParameter3 ..0xxxxxxxxx
BugCheckParameter4 ..0xxxxxxxxx
ExceptionCode .......0xxxxxxxxx
ExceptionFlags ......0xxxxxxxxx
ExceptionAddress ....0xxxxxxxxx

How to gather information after a memory dump in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314084

[MitchRapp]

ahh ok ok ok
here





weird thing is the only time the word "Exception" comes up is "ExceptionOffset" which is 000007d0 in both cases... no other mention of the word "Exception"

[PangingJr]

General Causes of STOP 0x7F Errors...
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=137539&sd=RMVP

0x8E: KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED...
A kernel mode program generated an exception which the error handler didn’t catch. These are nearly always hardware compability issues (which sometimes means a driver issue or a need for a BIOS upgrade).

[MitchRapp]

hmm it has to be driver incompatibility then .... cuz i tested my hardware and it passed everything ..... ram was perfect, processor was as fast as it was supposed to be, cache was right there, hard drives are top notch ...
i'm really thinking it has something to do with the sound or video drivers ... I'll see if there's any updates for my drivers, but like i said earlier, my nForce, ATI and Audigy drivers are up-to-date .... orrrrrrrrrrrrrrr hmmmm ....

i'm using a Beta bios
1008.005 Beta .... and before that 1008.004 Beta .... and before that 1008.002 Beta .... I think I've had this issue since 002........................ think I can downgrade my BIOS .... I thiiiink...........


hey thanks for your help man
last question is

Are you Tim?

If so .... man your toons are crazy... You're gonna get my donations buddy lol just keep making Ethan do f**ked up things

if you're not Tim .... thanks for the help too !!!

[MitchRapp]

downgraded my BIOS to 1006 Final .... froze 25 minutes into Day of Defeat
using ATI 5.1 drivers ...
only thing left before i take a baseball bat and smack my computer is downgrading the Audio drivers ... maybe it's the Audigy crap I Dunno.....

[PangingJr]

ok, pls keep us updated.

[MitchRapp]

anger level rising ... nothing's working...

[fOOkHA]

u try different versions of hte nforce drivers?
after i built a new comp and installed the nforce drivers i was having crashing/rebooting problems also with the comp
i had to try buncha versiosn before i foudn one that worked
i have a nforce 2 mobo by the way

[PangingJr]

try turning off the Data Execution Prevention (DEP) feature, to see if any driver is not compatible with it.

[MitchRapp]

for DEP there's ON and ON for windows stuff only ....... no off........

[MitchRapp]

fookha u know what I think my problem may have started when i installed the nForce 5.10 drivers .... u never know.... i'll downgrade to the previous version and see

[PangingJr]

manually modify your Boot.ini file and reboot. and see...

to turn off the DEP, follow these steps...
Click Start, click Run, type sysdm.cpl, and then click OK.
On the Advanced tab, under Startup and Recovery, click Settings.
In the Startup and Recovery dialog box, click Edit.
Change the /noexecute option to the following...
/noexecute=alwaysoff
On the File menu, click Save, and then click Exit.
Click OK two times.

[MitchRapp]

ok dude I'll do that after testing my new stuff right now
Far Cry crashed after 5 minutes (downgraded audio a loooooot)

so now I'm using the nForce 4.27 drivers (version right before 5.10)
let's give it a gooo
if that doesn' work I'll test the DEP/off ..... what will /noexecute=alwaysoff do again?

[fOOkHA]

u mite wanta to drive some of the beta nforce drivers after 5.10
those are the only ones that i could get running on my computer

[PangingJr]

The system-wide DEP configurations are controlled through boot.ini switches.
The Boot.ini settings are as follows :-

/noexecute=policy_level

where policy_level is defined as AlwaysOn, AlwaysOff, OptIn, or OptOut.

AlwaysOff - This does not provide any DEP coverage for any part of the system, regardless of hardware DEP support. The processor does not run in PAE mode unless the /PAE option is present in the boot entry.

[MitchRapp]

so what will turning off DEP affect ?

Also... I just played 25 minutes of Far Cry on the old 4.27 nForce drivers .... then it crashed I thought it worked... damnit
ok DEP is up next

[MitchRapp]

DEP is changed. but i got class. I'll be back home at around 9pm ET and will give any game a try .... if games last more than 45 minutes without crashing, i consider it fixed

funny thing is I played KOTOR2 2-3 weeks ago (well when it first came out) for like 6 hours straight sometimes with no issues ..... i dunno.......

[PangingJr]

remember, this does not mean you'll have to keep using this system-wide DEP configs. i'll tell you about the DEP later.

we are now trying to find out what is the cause of this problem...
software or hardware ?? or...

'IF' one of your device driver is not compatible with the DEP and you cannot locate it, then this is to work around the issue IF there is an incompatible driver installed on the system.

[MitchRapp]

I just got home ...
and I didn't even need to test gaming with my new non-DEP settings
I started downloading the ATI 5.3 drivers and after a few seconds my PC rebooted by itself again ... f**********************ck.