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*

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. 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.

[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 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