Sudden, random instability (PFN_LIST_CORRUPT??)

[MurderCityDevil]

I thought I'd post this in the OC forum because insofar the only clue I have about this problem is that the culprit may be my OC.

My system has been running rock solid stable for the past year or so with the same overclock - Q6600 at 3.6, 1.38 vcore, and DDR2 at 1066 5-5-5-15 timings. About 3-4 months ago, I upgraded my 4 gigs of Dominators to 8 gigs. After a little bit of fooling around with settings, I got the whole thing running smooth at the same frequency and timings and left all my settings alone, figuring my OC was finally finished. And for those 3-4 months, everything continued running well just like before.

All of a sudden, about 4 days ago, in the middle of watching a youtube video, I get a BSOD. No freeze, no lock ups, nothing, just a random BSOD. I didn't see what the code/error was because it restarted instantly. Rebooted and changed it so that there's no automatic restart on system failure. As soon as I hit enter, get another instant BSOD and restart. Now I'm getting worried. Restart again, and everything boots up fine. Thought it was just a random hiccup. Well ever since then, my computer has been running mostly normal, although every time I leave it idle for long periods of time, I come back to see that it's either locked up at the windows loading screen (as in, it got a BSOD, restarted, and froze on boot), or my monitor is in standby and my computer is running but hasn't passed POST (again, BSOD, restart, failed POST).

The only time I've been able to catch the BSOD in action, the error was "PFN_LIST_CORRUPT". I googled this and found a whole bunch of different symptoms/solutions. None of them seemed to make much sense. The main explanations I found were either - a bad driver is corrupting memory, or the physical RAM itself is unstable.

About the first explanation - I have not changed my drivers at all recently. The last thing I updated was my video drivers (182.06) and those have been running with no problems through all the latest games at maxed settings for multiple hours. BUT, another very weird thing happened that might be responsible for this. Upon startup a few days ago, I'm greeting with an odd message - "vista is installing drivers for a new device". I have not installed any new devices. I haven't added any new hardware in months. The little wizard runs for a bit, and then tells me it can't find any drivers for this mystery device. I open up device manager and after clicking "show hidden devices", notice an "unknown device" with an exclamation sign next to it. It's categorized under "other devices". The properties window shows me nothing. There were hardware IDs but I don't remember them because, get this - it's gone now. I just checked device manager and the mystery device is gone from the list.

So the most recent problem - I leave the house for a few hours and come back to see my computer locked up after a restart. I restart and now am unable to boot whatsoever. Instant BSOD as soon as vista starts loading. I panic and decide maybe I'll load system defaults in BIOS. I do that, and am able to boot. So here I sit, trying to troubleshoot this thing and the old familiar frustration of computer issues is creeping up on me, made even more agonizing that it's probably a memory problem; in my experience, the most difficult to solve.

That's all the information I have about this, and can give more details if necessary. But I need your help [H], I am lost as to what to do about this whole thing. I just hope it's not a hardware issue because I have neither the time nor money to start replacing components again... I was just enjoying the fact that my first build was finally finished and stable. Any help is appreciated! Thank you!

 

[MurderCityDevil]

update - ran both the quick test and extended test with wd diagnostic tools, both passed fine. this rules out the hard drive failing or having bad sectors. also after removing my OC I left my comp on all night and there was no crash. anyone have any ideas about how to fix this so I can get my OC back?

 

[killster1]

i doubt it rules out hd fail.. since i ran same tests on a hd before and it failed just few days later with smart errors and more crashes.. was a wd 640gb black.. and having issues with another wd black tests fine but gave me a few errors like page file cant be written to hd/2 etc.. maybe your cpu needs more volts to be stable or your ram wants more volts? asus mobo going bad? how long did you run stress tests? memtest for a day? check sata cables?

 

[MurderCityDevil]

Well I have not yet tried any other tests; my plan is to try keep system uptime as high as possible for at least a week with stock clocks and settings to narrow the problem down to the OC. Like I said the system seemed fine after disabling all my overclocks and since then I have not experienced any crashes. If my comp goes a week without a single crash or hiccup, I will assume that the problem is either directly linked to clocks being too high/lack of voltage, or that some components are experiencing failure when overclocked regardless of settings - e.g. RAM running fine at stock clocks yet producing errors/BSODs when overclocked regardless of voltage/timings/etc. If that's the case, then I will start OC'ing from the beginning, or worst case scenario, leave the settings untouched just because it takes so much time to achieve perfect stability.

On that note, I already knew my OC was not perfect because my computer could not pass extended runs of Intel Burn Test, but because it worked in every single other aspect with zero issues, I left it as is. I have heard that sometimes previously stable OCs become unstable over time, so perhaps this is the case with me. I hope, though, that it's something as simple as bumping up a few voltages marginally or maybe loosening timings a tad. We will see.

 

[killster1]

well there you have it.. overclock wasnt stable.. sometimes when all the ram slots are full you need lil more volts as well.. you can run orthos to stress cpu only and memtest overnight

 

[roary]

I would say to first try increasing the voltage slightly since you have all of your ram slots full. Once you have done that and still can't get it stable, try loosening up the timings and see what you get with the extra voltage still going to your ram.