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Help! BSODs

S

skhuu

n00b
Joined
Apr 28, 2009
Messages
29
I built my first computer a few months ago based on all your helps :)

However recently, I've been getting A LOT of BSODs, about once every day. Sometimes it occurred when I was watching something on Hulu, majority of the times it crashes when I'm not doing anything (when I go to sleep). I got fed up with it and decided to wipe it and reinstall my OS.

But now it has been happening even more frequently, about once every hour. I noted the error messages, and I mostly get "System Service Exception", hexadecimal error # 3b. Sometimes I get "DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL".

I googled some things but couldn't find any solutions that worked. I tried updating my drivers, uninstalling new programs, ran the windows built in memory diagonstic tool, virus scan. I also ran memtest86 and it came out clean. I'm currently running Prime95 but after 6 hours, still no errors.

My specs are

GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3P
Intel Core 2 Quad Q8400 Yorkfield 2.66GHz
4GB Corsair
Western Digital Caviar Black 750GB
Antec 650W
EVGA GeForce GTX260

Also, I do plan to upgrade to Windows 7 next week, if that is important.

Please help me figure out what to do. I can also get the minidmp files after Prime95 finishes. I'm using the Ultimate Boot CD too, so if anyone has any other tests that you think I should run from that, let me know.
 
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Unfortunately I don't have another video card to test out.

I let Prime95 run about 10 hours and no errors when I stopped it. I ran a WD HDD test and it came out clean. But when I tried running HDTune, the computer crashed. When I tried starting it up again, it immediately crashed with error 0x1E. Currently, it's running another HDD test through Ultimate Boot CD and I will check results when I return later tonight.

I also checked the inside of my case and everything looks alright, no burnt fuses, double checked all the connections.

Any other suggestions?
 
This sounds like more than an OS issue, since you've already reinstalled once and the blue screens came back. Windows 7 might help, but then again, it might not.

My first thought is that this is related to video, since DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL is thrown a lot with corrupt drivers or failing video cards. When these BSODs happen, have you looked in your system event log? That would be more helpful to me than the minidmp at this point, and if you'd like for me to review the log files, you can email them to me at heather@maingear.com.

Also, if you can give me the sourcing file names that the BSODs are pointing to, that helps me figure out whether it's driver, OS, or hardware related.

I think I can probably help you fix this if I can get that information from you.
 
A few weeks ago I had that same BSOD and a lot of other ones...after 3 hdd's, diff ram, multiple os installs, turns out it was my 3 year old Antec PSU. Havnt had a single problem after putting in a corsair 650.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
So, I just talked to my friend and I believe that I may have gotten incompatible parts:

My motherboard is DDR2 1366+ CrossfireX
My video card is SLI
and my RAM is DDR2 1066.

He told me to update the chipset and now I'm trying to force it to crash. If it does end up crashing again, he told me most likely that it's the incompatibility of the mobo and that I should get a new one. :(

Agree?
 
skhuu said:
So, I just talked to my friend and I believe that I may have gotten incompatible parts:

My motherboard is DDR2 1366+ CrossfireX
My video card is SLI
and my RAM is DDR2 1066.

He told me to update the chipset and now I'm trying to force it to crash. If it does end up crashing again, he told me most likely that it's the incompatibility of the mobo and that I should get a new one. :(

Agree?
Click to expand...

Incompatibility between parts, maybe... but with that explanation, hell no.

Since you're not running an SLI config, there's absolutely NO NEED for an SLI chipset. Intel chipsets support Crossfire, yes, but that does NOT mean you must use an ATI vidcard -- that would be the dumbest restriction ever. SLI chipsets work perfectly fine with ATI vidcards and Crossfire chipsets work perfectly fine with NVIDIA vidcards. Intel chipsets work perfectly fine with BOTH brands of vidcards. The only reason you'd need a ATI cards with a Crossfire board would be if you wanted to take advantage of Crossfire, and the same goes for NVIDIA and SLI boards.

Your motherboard supports up to DDR2-1366 and higher, and it also supports lower speed RAM. It does NOT matter if you do not use the highest supported speed -- in fact, its quite useless to do so in your case, since you wouldn't notice any performance difference between DDR2-1066 and DDR2-1366 if you're not OC'ing the Q8400 to 6.8Ghz (10x683; which is impossible anyhow).

Get Driver Sweeper to delete all your device drivers properly and re-install them, unless you know the driver file the BSODs were pointing to, as Heather mentioned (in which case you can simply concentrate on that device's drivers). I agree, its most likely your vidcard driver, though, but without further info, we can't know. Also, run memtest overnight before you go to sleep.
 
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What Enginurd said...I think that sometimes technicians fall back on the whole "it's not compatible" thing WAY too much. An NVIDIA card works fine on a crossfire board as long as you're not trying to do crossfire. That's not the issue. The board is likely not the problem. Updating chipset drivers, however, is pretty sound advice in any case.

However, let's think about this, since there's always been some instability and your tests are mostly passing. Are you using all default motherboard settings, or have you changed something? I should have asked if you'd changed your memory timings, but I always assume that one doesn't mess with such things unless you are doing some overclocking. If you're using defaults, ignore what comes after this sentence. :)

If you have problems with BSODs, the best thing to do is let the computer decide how to allocate resources, so if you've changed anything in the BIOS other than the obvious stuff (such as boot order or splash screens), set it back to auto for now. The Intelligent Tweaker feature in the BIOS is awesome, but it can really create problems if you're not experienced. Robust Graphics Booster should also be set to Auto. Alternately, you can just use the "load fail-safe" details to rule anything abnormal out.

As I said earlier, the logs might tell me something that could help you. I'm offering. :D
 
I haven't changed anything on the settings, I'm just running everything on default.

I actually ran memtest the other day and it errored out and by googling the results it looks like both sticks are faulty. Here's the picture of the error.

http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/1106/pa200218.jpg

Then I ran each stick separately but they passed... Also, I didn't get any errors running both sticks at the same time when I was testing it on v3.5. It only errored on v3.4

Heather, I did email you some eventlogs from my gmail account. It probably looked like spam and you didn't read it :)
 
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What model RAM do you have? You could also try setting the RAM timings/voltages manually.
 
If they work individually, its very possible that its a voltage/power issue when using two sticks instead of one. You can try increasing the MCH voltage one step (+0.1v), as well as setting the speed to DDR2-800 (2x400FSB), the RAM voltage (vDIMM) to 2.1v and timings to 5-5-5-18-2T as specified by Corsair. Also, try it with the "other" version of memtest (.com vs .org).
 
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Well so I got some OCZ ram and it seems to be working right now, it hasn't crashed overnight like it used to, but it's only been on for 1 day.

I'm going to try testing out the voltage on the Corsair and if I manage to get that to work, I'll just have 8gigs of ram :D

Thanks for all the help
 
Ah, I'm in the middle of moving from one PC to the other...lol. I apologize. I will look at them today and see if I can find anything that might help you. Hopefully, you've nailed the problem...keep us informed.
 
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