BSOD... help please :-(

[tensim]

Hi Guys,

Just tried to start my PC and ended up with the following BSOD message...



Any ideas on what's going wrong and how to fix it? I did have a crash prior to this that resulted in a BSOD as well, but I didn't take a pic of it unfortunately, just turned the computer off... probably shouldn't have done that I guess?

System specs are on the left. I haven't installed any new hardware or anything like that. No overclock on the CPU, mild overclock on GPU (via ATi Overdrive).

thanks for your help :-)

[TAKTAK]

have you installed new drivers for anything?

can you boot into safe mode?

[tensim]

Updated Catalyst 8.9 the other day (17SEP). But I'd had a couple of BSOD prior to this, so that's why I updated the drivers.

What's the troubleshooting process for this?

BTW, when you're stuck on a BSOD, do you just turn your PC off by holding down the power button, is this OK?

cheers

[rootjuiceUK]

Normally a driver or memory issue mostly graphics driver in my case. Maybe your mild overclock has produced this bsod try and put it back to default and see if you still get it. You could try updating your drivers starting with graphics card driver first and if that don't fix it test your memory using memtest. I know your ati but I've been getting all sorts of bsod from the 170 graphics drivers from nvidia. The latest ones 178.13 have not bsod yet but have broken phsyx for me, removed my wallpaper and crashed explorer.exe on install. I have got to learn if it's not broken don't update your drivers!!
When I get stuck on bsod I just use the reset button and I have had a few of them and am still ok.

[MSIC]

What's the troubleshooting process for this?

BTW, when you're stuck on a BSOD, do you just turn your PC off by holding down the power button, is this OK?

The process to troubleshoot something like this is to start from the bare minimum of hardware, and build up.
This means to unplug all but one memory stick (even if it's dual channel, dont worry, we're not after performance here yet), all hard drives apart from the one with the OS on, any USB or firewire cards etc (remembering any USB mice or keyboards!), soundcards etc etc.

What you want left is:
Motherboard
CPU & fan
1 RAM stick
Graphics card (if you dont have on-board VGA).

Then, when it boots, go into the BIOS, and set any overclock back to square one.

If you still cant get this, i'd try swapping the memory into different slots. Also try to find the CMOS jumper to swap it over to clear any BIOS settings (and move it back again to reboot).

PS when you have a BSOD simply pressing the power button quickly should turn the power off. If not, yes, hold it in.

If, after all this, you are able to partially boot but end up with a BSOD part-way through a windows boot up, then you need to go down the windows repair process.
I would STRONGLY advise getting an Ubuntu LiveCD or similar to rescue all data off first before trying to repair anything.

[GoNz0]

can also happen if the paging files taken a dump, google how to delete it

[tensim]

Probably a dumb question, but if I disconnect my usb keyboard and mouse, how do I control my PC?

Anyhoo, will disconnect everything (except my keyboard), take out a memory stick an disconnect the DVD drives. I'll do a reset of the mobo as well. Will this be a good start? Anything else I should do?

Cheers

PS. Away from my PC just now, will carry out everyones suggestionsin a little while and report back

[acrobat]

You'll need a keyboard (and maybe a mouse but maybe not). So if you haven't got a spare one to test stuff then just you'll have to use your usual one.

As for rebooting, always try holding Control-Alt-Delete on your keyboard first. If that doesn't work, then use the reset switch. As for your problem, I can suggest stuff later if you are still having trouble. In the meantime, and for future reference, when you get these kinds of errors, the messages may seem obscure, but the more obscure the better in a way, because you can just google them. So when you google that main message, the first link is from microsoft, and says this:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pro....mspx?mfr=true

It is usually easy to find a solution from these things, but at first at least, you can at least get an explanation of what is causing the problem, and once you know the cause, then you can work on fixing it .

[tensim]

Hmmmm.... looks like I have a bad stick of RAM.

If I take one out, computer boots fine into windows. If I put the removed stick back in, BSOD... I've swapped the single sticks around and booted with the 1 (suspected) bad stick and BSOD... switch back to the other single stick, boots fine. Put the other 1 back in and try again with 2, BSOD...

So does this mean I should RMA the 'suspected' faulty stick? Or have I jumped too quickly to a conclusion? Can I test RAM (though don't suppose I can if I can't get my PC to boot with it in there?)

Cheers

[s3ds]

download the free image of memtest86
http://www.memtest86.com/memtest86-3.4a.iso.zip
http://www.memtest86.com/
burn to a disk and reboot pc from disk it will check the memory for you

[tensim]

Do I just burn this .iso file a CD and then pop it in the CD drive and restart? Do I need to go into the BIOS and tell it to boot from CD?

Thanks

[TAKTAK]

Do I just burn this .iso file a CD and then pop it in the CD drive and restart? Do I need to go into the BIOS and tell it to boot from CD?

Thanks

use a program like imgburn to burn the iso file (the iso file itself is like a container for the files within, so you don't burn the actual iso, you burn the files within.. but imgburn will sort that for you and it is free...)
then restart, and set the bios to boot from cd
and then start the test

[tensim]

Ah bugger it... for some reason I can't write a CD using my laptop, I get an error message when I try and use imgburn, something along the lines of 'I/O error!' and then a whole string of code...

I'll try on my pc I guess! I'll just run a 1 x 2gb RAM for now...

cheers

[TAKTAK]

Ah bugger it... for some reason I can't write a CD using my laptop, I get an error message when I try and use imgburn, something along the lines of 'I/O error!' and then a whole string of code...

I'll try on my pc I guess! I'll just run a 1 x 2gb RAM for now...

cheers

have you got windows media player or some-such running?

[acrobat]

Do you have Nero? Even just a free trial of it or something? If so, you can just double click any .ISO file, and it will automatically load up Nero for you and set it all up properly, and then you are just a few clicks away from burning it to a disk.

When you burn a bootable ISO like that, you can just put it in your drive and it will run when you restart your computer. Some computers will require you to change the bios to boot from the CD before the Hard Disk, but some computers just boot from the CD anyway, if it finds a disk in there. It may give you a message like, "Press a key if you want to boot from the CD Drive".

Those tests can take a long time by the way. Sometimes a whole night if you want to do a thorough test. To me it sounds like your conclusion was right, but it costs nothing to test it with memtest so you may as well give it a shot to be sure.