constant bluescreens: "hardware malfuncion. call your hardware vendor for support"

U

ug_rulz_all

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 28, 2002
Messages
378
the problem started at least two weeks ago and seems to show no signs of stopping. it MAINLY occurs when i play 3d-intensive games, but ive had several occasions (especially recently) where it will happen after a few hours or so of normal use.

what irks me is how vague the blue screen is: it simply says

Hardware malfunction.

Call your hardware vendor for support.

** The system has halted **
Click to expand...

system specs:
epox 8k5a2
athlon xp 1900+
768mb ram
geforce 4 ti4400

what ive tried:

SEVERAL reformats, including installs with xp SP1 or SP2 - no luck
SEVERAL different driver configurations, thinking that the newest drivers were the prime culprit - no luck
SEVERAL bios battery clears - no luck
SEVERAL supposed bios settings - no luck
tried without the network card in my pci slot - no luck
tried taking out one of the ram sticks then the other (using it with 512 and 256 megs respectively) - no luck
a bios flash to the most recent version - no luck

yes, i know its not the best computer for half-life 2, but im dying to get this game and i dont want to have to upgrade all my hardware JUST YET. i will eventually upgrade anyway, thinking that maybe it WAS a hardware malfunction and that in the process of upgrading my computer, will correct the error too.

short of actually replacing the hardware, which i will do eventually, is there anything else i can try that has worked for those who have experienced a similar error in the past?
 
Well, so far I can tell it really is a hardware malfunction. Check the temps on your video card. Hopefully it doesn't reach 80C or something on your intensive gaming run. :-/ That would make sense.

-J.
 
Start with overnight runs of Memtest86+ with the memory, one stick at a time.

Sure sounds like a memory issue to me.......

Good Luck - B.B.S.
 
How's the PSU in your machine?

So often a weak/flaky PSU can be the cause of instability and shutdowns/reboots.
 
Either BIOS is all jumbled up, memory (Patriot should be fine but, oh well), or that little PSU. Perhaps it cannot handle the power of your intensive habits.

Edit: or video card.

-J.
 
<stupid magic 8-ball toy> all signs point to the aging video card </stupid magic 8-ball toy>

it's gotta be that ancient ti4400... it's not capable of directx 9 as far as i know... and it's gotta be running hot enough to burn a hole in the floor.
 
starhawk said:
<stupid magic 8-ball toy> all signs point to the aging video card </stupid magic 8-ball toy>

it's gotta be that ancient ti4400... it's not capable of directx 9 as far as i know... and it's gotta be running hot enough to burn a hole in the floor.
Click to expand...
....not true. I just started up a P4 3.4 for a buddy who is using my old Leadtek Ti4400 until his heavily back ordered BFG 6800GT gets here. It actually runs amazingly well.....Far Cry / UT2K4 / D3 / etc.....not as schmoove and pretty as my 6800GT, but very playable @ 1024 * 768 nontheless.....

FWIW - B.B.S.
 
first of all, i should have mentioned that yes, i do have the leadtek geforce 4 ti4400 to be exact, and from what i know, theyre a very reputable brand

i dont know exactly how to check the video card temperatures - ive felt it after i had to shut down from the bluescreen (like, say, when i wanted to reset the bios) and it was pretty warm, but its been like that for the past two years after any intensive game playing so i feel its somewhat normal. remember that while the error does usually occur when playing 3d games, it has, on some occasions, occured just out of nowhere when im doing something simple like surfing the web.

memtest86: ill try that program tonight. ive done the gaming test with each individual stick of ram at a time (i have a 512 and 256 stick) and each one by itself did trigger the error. i dont know if itll exactly work, but it sure cant hurt to try. i think. :(

my psu is whatever 300 watt psu came with the case. i dont have it too excessively loaded - just two hard drives, a floppy drive, a cd burner and the motherboard with only one pci card used (my NIC) and the agp. although its handled that configuration fine for the past six months, i wont necessarily rule it out as a possibility.

if the bios really was "jumbled up" that badly, one would presume that the computer wont even boot to the point of loading the OS. itll load the beginning of the OS fine, but sometimes its just to display the "hardware malfunction" message, which sometimes occurs at boot-up now. :\ i recently flashed it, and the flashing itself was at least a success, but i had been getting the error prior to the flash, so it didnt necessarily help or hurt the situation. it could be a possibility, but it might be one i can rule out

as far as checking video card temperatures: does anyone know a good program i can download to do this? ill perform the memtest program, possibly one stick at a time, but i dont know about overnight because...

UPDATE

i left my computer on overnight, like i usually do anyway, and when i woke up, i came across an even stranger and possibly more serious error. im on campus now, and will be for several hours, so i wont be able to post the exact message its displaying right now, but the gist of it was a black screen with white, DOS-esque text something along the lines of "EXCEPTION", "TRAP" and a whole bunch of assembler status information from what i presume is the cpu directly. ill post the exact message when i get home tonight, but thats what its giving me now. keep in mind that i also got a similar error on one boot-up

END UPDATE

anyway, ill perform some of those tests you all mentioned, but from what ive tried, what im receiving now (exceptions, traps) and other such factors, im currently inclined to believe that it really is a hardware malfunction of undetermined origin. unless i can pinpoint the error by some hint of luck, my only option is to just build a whole new system (sans the hard drives) from the ground up. a possible temporary solution may also be to temporarily convert myself to linux, which would mean having to temporarily give up on some of my pc games (warcraft 3 is the only game i play that does not have a linux port that plays somewhat well in cedega) and having to learn a new operating system. it shouldnt be that bad though - im generally quite knowledgable about computers so learning linux wouldnt be too hard for me even though ive never used it, and my xbox, especially with live, is seeing a bit of play from me. still, im not buying HL2 until i get this error squared away.
 
My advice is to run prime 95 and see if it spits out any errors.

I doubt it's the video card, since hours into a boot it can happen whether you're playing a game or not, so I would say HDD, PSU, Mobo, and Proc.

Of those I would personally lean towards proc/mobo.

I think your cheapest option would be to pickup a used socket A processor and a used pci video card to test with. Then you'll have a much better idea what's going on.
 
update: im home now, heres the exact text of the error im getting now:

Code: 
TRAP 00000002 ============== EXCEPTION ==================

tr=0028  cr0=80000011  cr2=00000000  cr3=00039000
gdt limit=03FF  base=0003F000     idt limit=07FF  base=0003F400

cs:eip=0008:0041B7D5  ss:esp=0010:0005FAC8  errcode=0000
flags=00000002  NoCy NoZe IntDis Down TrapDis
eax=806C3C92  ebx=806C3C08  ecx=8067A702  edx=00003718 ds=0010  es=0010
edi=FFFFFFFF  esi=800D4000  ebp=0005FADC  cr0=80000011 fs=0030  gs=0000
 
i ran memtest86 overnight and it completed 12 loops without any errors, but it may be because i disabled ECC as one of the remedies for the blue screen

this leaves it down to the psu or motherboard and possibly the vid card
 
another update:

i booted up knoppix in order to see if it would give a similar message from linux's perspective: although it did boot up and work fine, the console said, at the beginning, something along the lines of "nmi received for unknown reason 3d" and something about a weird power mode. acpi perhaps?

any correleation between that and hardware malfunction? i may be able to cure the problem by disabling acpi and reinstalling xp (because disabling without reinstalling will render xp unbootable since the HALs dont match)...
 
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