Fatal system error, tried every fix I know of

G

Glaive

n00b
Joined
Mar 25, 2005
Messages
9
Hey all, I figured I'd see if any of you could perhaps shed some light on a problem I'm having. I spent all last night Googling trying to find a fix and have had no luck so far.

Ok, I built a new computer a couple of months ago. Specs are as follows:

AMD Athlon 64 3200+ Winchester
Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe
2 x 512MB Corsair XMS 3200XLPro RAM
eVGA 6800GT
Western Digital 74GB Raptor SATA HD
Seagate 120GB 7200.7 PATA HD
Windows XP Home SP2

Everything was running great up until last night. I was watching a video file when suddenly the picture (along with my mouse and everything else) froze, but the sound kept going. I waited a few seconds to see if it would fix itself, and then my computer crashed to a blue screen. The error message said something about a problem with nv4_dsp.dll, or something like that. Obviously a display driver issue. I rebooted thinking I'd probably need to reinstall the display driver or something.

Upon rebooting, right after the little Windows XP loading screen, I again received a BSOD, this time with the following error (or at least something similar as I am typing this from memory):

STOP: c000021a {Fatal System Error}
Windows logon process has been terminated blah blah blah....
0xc000005 (0x0000000 0x0000000)
System has been shut down.

Tried booting into safe mode, debugging mode, VGA mode, and Last Known Good Configuration. All gave me the same error.

I tried doing a repair install of XP, but it doesn't list Repair as an option.

I went into Recovery Console and tried the whole file replacement thing (make a temporary directory, move the important system32 files there, and then copy replacement files from the C:\windows\repair directory). I've done this before to fix other people's computers, and I've seen it suggested on this site before as well. Went through all the commands, rebooted, and still have the same problem.

Any suggestions? I have data on this drive that I definitely do not want to lose (ironically I was just waiting for my next paycheck to get another backup drive to copy it all onto).

I've Googled till my fingers bled and can only seem to find sites suggesting that I do things I've already done.
 
Whoa, what's with the rash of people a: posting their actual problem description and b: letting us know the backround? --Not that there's anything wrong with that. ;)

I haven't read the post yet, but give me a bit, I'll see what I can find just because you layed it all out.

*cookie*

edit: you may or may not have run into these KBs, so bear with me.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;156669
The STOP 0xC000021A error occurs when either Winlogon.exe or Csrss.exe fails. When the Windows NT kernel detects that either of these processes has stopped, it stops the system and raises the STOP 0xC000021A error. This error may have several causes, including, but not limited to the following:
• Mismatched system files have been installed.
• A Service Pack installation has failed.
• A backup program that as used to restore a hard disk did not correctly restore files that may have been in use.
• An incompatible third party program been installed.

I'm betting it's one of the two bolded above. You may be able to run SFC /scannow to correct mismatched system files.

edit2: also consider getting the BSOD's dump information and have Ranma_Sao analyze it for you.
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=828696
 
Wow, thanks for the quick reply and the help but that just flew right over my head.

I did find that KB article you posted, but while it seems to offer a nifty little explanation I didn't see anything that actually explained how to fix it.

And in case it matters, I had not installed any Windows updates, new programs, or made any registry tweaks in weeks.

Since I got the display driver error first, I can only assume that the root problem lies with that, but it seems strange that if it's a display issue that it wouldn't let me boot into either safe mode or VGA mode. I'm assuming then that somehow the first error corrupted or otherwise borked one or more important Windows files, which is why I can't boot into Windows at all now.
 
Just an update.

At the suggestion of a friend, I went into BIOS and took the RAM off of the Auto setting, and manually put in the timings. I was surprised to find that they were not correct. I have Corsair 3200XLPro RAM, which should be at 2-2-2-5, and when I first built the computer it was. When I went in this time it was at 2.5-3-3-5. I set it to Manual and put in 2-2-2-5.

When I rebooted, I didn't get the same error as before. I didn't even get the windows loading screen. I got a black screen that said something to the effect of "your system can't start because C:\windows\system32\drivers\ntfs.sys is missing or corrupted."

So I rebooted into recovery console, moved the ntfs.sys file to a temporary directory, and replaced it with the same file from my roommate's computer. Now when I try and reboot I barely get past BIOS before the screen just goes black. No error message, no BSOD. Sometimes the normal text that you see during bootup will show up, sometimes it looks almost like the brightness on my monitor is turned down really really far and there will be a faint green line around the bottom and right edges of the screen. Either way, I still end up with a black screen with nothing.

I ran Memtest and got nothing but errors. Reseated my RAM, same thing. Changed the settings back to Auto, and now it seems to be running without errors. I still have both sticks in, so now what I'll do is try each separately at different timings and see what the problem is.

My CPU is also overclocked, but I can't seem to find a way to remove the OC because I did it using Asus AI Booster in windows, not in BIOS.
 
Good response and good ways to go about troubleshooting the errors. My guess is that you are going to find something wrong with the RAM, but who knows. That you can't run Corsair at the timings it's supposed to be at is a strong indication.

I had thought that the Asus OC utility only clocked the proc up when the program started Windows so you might just double check that as well. Reloading all BIOS defaults might help you there. You should also be able to pull the BIOS battery for a few minutes (times are different for different mobos) and that should reset everything back to the way it came from the MFG.

Don't discount other hardware in the machine. Make sure that all the other hardware looks ok or, better yet, pull out everything that isn't essential for PC operation (proc, one stick of RAM, video card, hard drive) and test again. Speaking of video card, are you sure it's in full operational state? Fan working? Perhaps you are getting a failure there. Throw in another to see what happens. What about the power supply? A flaky PS will throw up all sorts of weird (seemingly unrelated) issues.

Perhaps heat related issues overall. Pull off the side of the case and test. If you have a fan, point it inside the case while on and see what happens.

You sound like you're being very patient with things. That's a huge bonus. Go slow. Be methodical. Rethink past steps. Only so many things can happen with hardware and it's usually a slow process to figure out what the issue is.
 
Rule #1 when TSing. Remove all OCs, and move on.

*sigh* (not to the OP, but to this next suggestion ;))

Run memtest86+ for several hours.
 
Phoenix86 said:
*sigh* (not to the OP, but to this next suggestion ;))

Run memtest86+ for several hours.
Click to expand...

See, wouldn't it just be easier to replace yourself with a small script? lol :D:p


Back on topic though. The RAM really is sticking out like a sore thumb, and I'm sure memtest will spank it around pretty well.
 
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