BSOD problems.

[Loony BoB]

In the last four or so days I have been getting BSOD's for the first time in possibly over a year, which isn't generally a good sign. Either my PC is finally on it's way out (it's been sounding like it's trying to die for a while), or else the problem is fixable (I like this possibility better).

The BSOD's have been at random times when doing either nothing at all (I've been on the phone talking to someone and just seen a BSOD appear seemingly at random).

The BSOD's have been the following types:

0x50 (0x00000050)
0x0A (0x0000000A)
0xE8 (0x000000E8)
0xD1 (0x000000D1)

Most of these advise that either drivers or memory or hardware is at fault. If it's memory, I intend on upgrading that within the month anyway (along with HDD, if I can afford it), so yay. If it's drivers, that is a bit of a problem as I can't think of anything I've installed within the past four days aside from Civ II: Test of Time (which also included DirectX). I went to Microsoft Windows Update and downloaded all the latest stuff from there (aside from SP2, which I may end up having to consider, I guess). That includes downloading and installing the new version of DirectX. I've not installed any new hardware on the 4th of October, the previous hardware I'd installed was installed around a fortnight before I had any problem (that hardware was my router).

I'd like to know if:

1) there is any way to figure out what drivers I've installed recently so I can reinstall them.
2) there is any way to find out what the problem might be at all. Aside from vague "memory, other hardware, software and/or drivers."

Any help would be great.

I need a new computer. :(

[Yamaneko]

Could be memory problems, could be overheating problems, could be driver problems, could be many things.

Try running your computer with the side panel open to allow good airflow and see if the BSODs continue.

Run <a href="http://www.memtest86.com/">this</a> to check for faulty RAM.

Scan your computer for viruses and spyware.

If all else fails, reformat. Finding troublesome drivers is a big hassle. Your best bet is to reformat and install drivers one by one and see if they cause problems. Oh, and don't bother with SP2 if you're coming from a non SP Windows install as it'll just bloat your system. Stick with SP1.

[Dr Unne]

BSOD doesn't automatically mean hardware problems. (I can't think of a reason a router would be causing that kind of problem, but God only knows.) I definitely wouldn't go buying a new computer until you try to format it and start over. Reinstall Windows and don't update any drivers at all and see if you still BSOD. Then start upgrading drivers one by one over time like Yamaneko said.

Personally I would skip trying to figure out the problem. You can backup everything important and reformat and reinstall Windows in a matter of hours and it's guaranteed to fix everything (for sufficiently low values of "fix"). You can spend the next month trying to figure out what the problem is and very likely never find an answer. Windows isn't meant to be fixable or even decipherable. Over a year without a Windows reinstall is pushing it.

[Rainecloud]

Over a year without a Windows reinstall is pushing it.

I know what you mean. Right now, my Windows is on life-support.

Perhaps it's time for a re-install, BoB. :/

[Loony BoB]

*has lasted over three years* :p

The annoying thing is that right now it's only happening about once a day, so installing the drivers one by one would probably mean installing one ever 48 hours if I was to get a decent idea of which one was actually causing the problem.

I guess it's about time I backed up my data, though.

[Leeza]

Definitely back up any data you don't want to lose. After having two hard drives go on me it's one lesson that I've learned. Back up on a regular basis. And, the only time I've ever seen a BSOD on my computer is when my hard drives quit.

[Yamaneko]

Open the case first and let it run with the side panel open. Before I got a new PSU, I was getting memory and page fault errors because of overheating / terrible voltage flux.

I reformat about every three to four months, but that's because I tweak my setup to bits. I don't know what I'd do if I had one of my HDDs fail because I haven't made CD/DVD backups in years.

[Loony BoB]

I ran that Memory test thing for a while last night, Yams - hours on end - it went through 39 passes at least. But after it said there were 3 errors after around 10 passes, I went to sleep. I woke up and it said there had been 0 errors after 39 passes, and I was a bit confused as to where those errors went. I might do it again tonight and pay more attention, but yeah, if the error count reverts to zero for some reason, I'm a bit confused as to how the thing works. :(

EDIT: On a more positive note, I've been using my PC all day and have had no BSOD's, so hopefully it was just a heating problem like you said, or something else temporary. I control the heating in my flat since it's freaking cold outside in Scotland, so I just turned down the heat overall. Having said that, it's never been a problem in the past three years when I've had the flat at 22 degrees C, so I don't really know if that was the cause.

[Yamaneko]

While you've had your computer running for a while, could you reboot and check your temps in the BIOS, if possible? The CPU shouldn't be running hotter than 60C.

[Loony BoB]

It's running 24/7, so yeah. :D I doubt it gets that hot, but how do I check this? I haven't touched a BIOS since I was using a 386.

[Yamaneko]

While your computer is in POST (while it's starting up before the Windows loading screen appears) hit either F1 or the delete key (it's usually one of those keys), or just hit a bunch of the F keys randomly.

[Loony BoB]

I'll give it a go later tonight.

My computer is having other problems now. It struggles to play songs on winamp (that is to say it doesn't play them smoothly) while downloading something on Azureus.

EDIT: All this while the CPU usage is cruising at around 5-15%. Yeesh.

[MecaKane]

Mine did that too! (Azureus winapm thing)
I use ABC now and it still sometimes happens if like the computer's been on for a few days and the download's really giving it.
I dunno what's up with it though, it only started doing it sometime after I formatted last year. :confused:

[Shoeberto]

Do you reboot much? Doing intensive stuff a lot without rebooting regularly will kill your resources. Once every few days, at least.

[crono_logical]

Sounds like a heating problem to me, BoB, with such a small number of errors at first, then none later in the night where it should be cooler :p You might want to consider opening the PC and cleaning out the cakes of dust that builds up on the CPU heatsink and sometimes around the RAM - it acts as insulation making cooling less efficient, so since it builds up slowly, it makes sense it's effect wouldn't have been noticable until recently.


As for torrent programs making music play slowly even with low CPU load, it's can be because you're downloading+uploading at a high speed, so there's a lot of hard disk activity due to a high number of random read/writes, getting in the way of Winamp reading the mp3 or whatever in a timely manner. This can be made worse if your drive's very fragmented. It can also happen if you're using a lot of the swap file, because a lot of memory is being used, more than the amount of RAM you have. I think Azureus has some options in it to ease the amount of disk activity it generates.

You could do what I do and tell winamp to buffer the entire file before playback into RAM if it's 32 MB or less, which works nicely for almost all my tracks :D

[Loony BoB]

Heating problem: It's actually BSOD'ed more often at night than day. Also, my flat has been a lot hotter than this during the summer and never had any problems. For three years running.

Dust: I cleaned out the dust in my PC a month ago.

Download: It was only 10-15 kps :p I've downloaded 100kps and had winamp playing fine. :p

Reboots: I've had my PC running for seven weeks without rebooting and had no problems - obviously, these BSOD's mean that I've never had it up for long. But I'll say again that over the past five or so days, this has been a very sudden thing, as I've not had BSOD's for probably well over a year. For this to be heating, rebooting, etc... you'd think this would have happened more often in the past three years.

Defrag might be an idea, although I do have over eight gig free on a 40 gig hard drive.

[Yamaneko]

Just reformat already. Regardless of problems or not, you're due for one.

[Loony BoB]

I will once I get a second hard drive. My CD writer is duff and Tiff can't find space on her 160GB hard drive. >=(

[MecaKane]

You could do what I do and tell winamp to buffer the entire file before playback into RAM if it's 32 MB or less, which works nicely for almost all my tracks :D
How would you do that?

[bipper]

Open the case first and let it run with the side panel open.

That is very oxymoronic! The processor makes a heatbubble, and with out a stream of air going through the case, the bubble will merly compress. Its strange, but its the way cases are supposed to be designed. Unless of course, your fans are dying and there is no air flow.

Like Dr. Unne said, time for a reninstall I would say. Unless you just used windows for the seldom game of solitare, then you should prollly reinstall once every six months, or a year. I find myself doing it about 7 months.
I have only reinstall linux once, and that was the cause of my own stupid ass self.

Bipper

[rubah]

I've left the sides off of my case for a few months now and havent' really noticed any difference. The fans are inclosed in a little box anyways.

[Yamaneko]

Having the side panel open lowers overall temps within the system. A lot of gamers keep their cases open when playing system-intensive games. The heatbubble you speak of should be pushed onto the heatsink and the heatsink fan should blow off the hot air, regardless if the case is open or not. Having the case open allows the hot air to dissapate into the cooler room air faster instead of having it bottled-up in the case waiting for the outake fans to push it out.

[crono_logical]

The downside of having the case open is it's easier for the components inside to collect dust :p

*going 2+ years on laptop's WinXP* :p

[bipper]

:love: lol, good thing, cause me being the hippocrate that I am, does not have a side panel on my XP puter. I dust it everyday with my little soft air compressor, and upkeep it. The irony is it runs cooler by ten digrees, its always been a mystery to me, but whatever works I guess.

I just would really never recommend it to anyone though. As cl_out said it collects buttloads of dust and as for the tempature issue, my one puter is the only one I have seen ever run cooler with out the box. I think this is purley due to the fact I have a 2' 4" tall server case that is entirly under fanned. (It was a beast back in the day, when I actually used the space) Anyways, yeah, It just seems weird :)

My nix box is liquid cooled, and I would assume when I upgrade this xp box it will be as well. I had a server that ran hot, so I tried it with out the side panel on (idiot) and it fried (overheated Processor) after about 48 hours. I dunno, just dumb luck or a Micro$oft concpiracy!? ;)

Bipper

[Loony BoB]

I don't think I could really do it in a safe manner anyway - if you checked out my room (http://www.aiyon.com/myflat/), you'd see why. My PC sits in the small space between wall and bed. The only place I could find to put it at all, really, without having it sitting in the middle of the small area there is to open drawers and walk in and out. :p

[Dixie]

I get BSOD's all of the time. Never trust Office 2000. Just now, I got one.

Get Windows XP. If you already have it....Oh well.

[rubah]

I haven't had a bsod since I ran win95 more than four years ago, and I didn't have them often then.

when I took the sides off my case, we did an extensive cleaning of stuff, and there must've been at least a centimeter of dust on the fans after four years of having this computer xD

and B0BxD, I don't know why, but for some reason I always imagined that your flat had no lights in it xD

[Loony BoB]

Turns out I still have a year of Coverplan left. I'm gonna get an engineer in to fix my CDRW, back up all my data, then get him to format my hard drive and all that jazz and if I still have problems, I should be able to at least get some free memory or a free hard drive out of it all.

EDIT: Backing up 10GB of music should be fun. =|

[crono_logical]

My PC ran around 20 C cooler when I had it with the case open and a large desk fan blowing directly into it :p

And 10 GB is nothing, BoB :p

[Yamaneko]

Yeah, try backing up 200+ GB worth of data. Not fun.

[Loony BoB]

It's a lot when you don't have a DVDRW or a working CDRW or enough space on any of the PCs on the network or a second hard drive. I'll have to wait for the CDRW and then get a bunch of CDs, I guess.

[rubah]

at 20 kbps, it would just take a mere 2500 hours to back up 200gb to several gmail accounts!

92 hours with ten gb and 30 kbps

and all figures are subject to being wrong, on account that I probably told $calc() to divide by something wrong xD

[Loony BoB]

How would you do that?
*waits for the reply to that*

Formatted hard drive. Whee. Still not at it's best, though. Looking to get some RAM, I guess.