Could do with some help on this one please... Driving me mad.

Access

I am using an old dell with a 1GB hdmi out card as a media pc/HTPC under my sitting room telly with no problems for the past year.

I have not added or taken any hardware from the setup recently but now it just wont startup without giving me a blue screen... it gets as far as the desktop loading and then blue screens.

I really would like to sort this as i have relatives over for Christmas and we now have no way of watching movies or the kids movies either.

It is a 2GB ram, XP service pack 3. (i have no repair disc to hand for this machine either) I just dont know what is causing this... have removed all external usb devices and still gives same error. Not sure if it is a software or hardware fault. It crashed while streaming a movie last night from a wifi NAS located away from the PC. (checked internal fans as the pc was quite hot but all seems ok)

Here is one of the blue screens that comes up...

Thanks for any help with this. (the kids will thank you too! )

yoyo

Test the memory for errors using Memtest86+, you can also try updating your video card drivers, could be a faulty driver. It may also be a failing video card. Does it load Safe Mode?

Nick

Access

yoyo wrote: »

Test the memory for errors using Memtest86+, you can also try updating your video card drivers, could be a faulty driver. It may also be a failing video card. Does it load Safe Mode?

Nick

Just burned memtest to a cd there and ran it... its showing a lot of errors... (i have 4 x 512mb sticks of ram in the machine) still running the test... up to 700 thousand errors so far!

I take it so that my problem is more than likely a ram failure in one or more of the sticks?

When the test stops... will i just test each stick of ram one by one by removing the other three to see which ones are fecked?

yoyo

Access wrote: »

Just burned memtest to a cd there and ran it... its showing a lot of errors... (i have 4 x 512mb sticks of ram in the machine) still running the test... up to 700 thousand errors so far!

I take it so that my problem is more than likely a ram failure in one or more of the sticks?

When the test stops... will i just test each stick of ram one by one by removing the other three to see which ones are fecked?

It's likely RAM has failed, do reset the bios settings to default and try memtest with only one stick in, then the others, maybe only one has failed. Any errors from memtest=memory or motherboard issues typically

Nick

ED E

Access wrote: »

Just burned memtest to a cd there and ran it... its showing a lot of errors... (i have 4 x 512mb sticks of ram in the machine) still running the test... up to 700 thousand errors so far!

I take it so that my problem is more than likely a ram failure in one or more of the sticks?

When the test stops... will i just test each stick of ram one by one by removing the other three to see which ones are fecked?

That's a good plan.

First though dust the machine and reseat the ram.

Access

Thanks for that... i will try that this evening.

Dont think the machine was getting enough cooling there last night, it was running all evening for the kids and then we were watching a movie when it crashed.

There had been a stupid santa teddy plonked at the front of the pc up against the front grill air intake fan. I have a funny feeling that it could not get enough cooling and overheated.

Could this have cause the RAM to fail/bake in the heat?

Also why the need to reset the bios?

Thanks.

ED E

Heat can damage all semiconductors. The cpu is protected, as is the gpu, but other components aren't. The graphics ram and regular ram are two such examples as are mobo components.

Memtests write to the memory and then read back, making sure both values are identical. Damage to the ram cpu or links between the too could all cause errors.

Clean the box then test stick by stick as above.

yoyo

Access wrote: »

Thanks for that... i will try that this evening.

Dont think the machine was getting enough cooling there last night, it was running all evening for the kids and then we were watching a movie when it crashed.

It's possibly just the hardware failed, overheating is possible, but probably general failure.

Could this have cause the RAM to fail/bake in the heat?

Also why the need to reset the bios?

Thanks.

The bios stores settings to configure the memory modules, this is generally done automatically but these changes can be overwritten and may be unstable. Resetting the bios should make the bios re-identify the ram & adjust settings accordingly

Nick

Access

I tested each one of the four sticks of 512mb RAM... one failed

I reinstalled the three working sticks and xp boots fine now... until it gets to the desktop and it crashes everytime. I have also taken out the PCI 1 GB graphics card for now - just to make sure that was not causing the problem.

I even took off the CPU heatsink and cleaned and reapplied thermal compound to it. I took out the internal hard drive in the PC too and ran it in an external housing to check for errors and viruses etc. - It was all good with no problems.

All to no avail... below is the error i am now getting (different to the original error)

I have found an XP install disk... its service pack 1 (im running SP3 - Dont know if this would work or not - should i go ahead and repair the OS using this or should i be looking at something else?

Any Ideas?

Also, when i try safe mode it also crashes with the same page_fault_in_nonpaged_area error.

ED E

Had the same symptoms with a 6yo board recently, thought it was dead ram but in the end the board from all the testing I could do was f'ckd.

Doesnt mean thats the case with yours.


Try booting up a live CD of ubuntu/similar with those three sticks and see how that goes.

Access

ED E wrote: »

Had the same symptoms with a 6yo board recently, thought it was dead ram but in the end the board from all the testing I could do was f'ckd.

Doesnt mean thats the case with yours.


Try booting up a live CD of ubuntu/similar with those three sticks and see how that goes.

Will do...

Access

I had a live CD of ubuntu handy... it ran perfect with no problems.

I stumped!

I have the Hard drive out of the pc again and connected to my laptop with a usb external housing... currently doing a check disk on it again just in case i missed something.

I take it that it is prob the hard drive now with maybe a few bad sectors or something? would a total format of the hard drive and a clean install of xp sort out this or a repair of xp using the install disk?

I will report back when the check disk is completed shortly...

Thanks for the help so far!

Access

Check disk completed... no problems found on the drive.

Any ideas?

ED E

More likely windows corruption. Have a spare drive handy? I'd do test install of XP SP3 on that if you do, then run prime for 24hrs to verify stability. That passes then there's corruption in the original install.

Access

have a drive handy so will do... Whats prime though?

ED E

Prime 95, its a stress testing programs. Its the most intensive thing a modern CPU can do and will heat her up and push her to the wall. If a system is truly stable it'll keep going at it indefinitely. If she freezes, crashes or a worker stops, then you have a problem. Program is freeware and is a staple of the community for years(decades?).

Make sure you go to "Advanced; Round of checking" and tick it. Thats crucial for a thorough test.

Blend test is the default and is a good mix of RAM and CPU.