Ugh...Blue Screen of Death

[Euronymous777]

Okay So I keep getting the dreaded BSOD.
This was an upgrade to my system reccomended by some of the fine folks on this very site. And now I need your help getting it to run stable. so I guess we'll start with some system specs...
MSI K8N Neo2 mobo
AMD Athlon 64 3200+
1 gig (2x512) Corsair Value Select RAM

Those were the upgraded parts

Old Parts Re-used
ATI Radeon 9800 pro (1 year old)
Antec True Power 430 Watt PSU (1 year old)
Windows xp Home Edition w/ SP2 (I downloaded sp2 once the system was up and running)

Umm lets see I get the dreaded screen/restart at completely random times, and will restart every 30-45 minutes or so there after.
Sometimes it restarts mere seconds after booting up and sometimes it will run a good hour before restarting. I am usually not doing to much usually just one or 2 IE pages open, or ocasionally watching a dvd while surfing the web. Sometimes I get in a vicious cycle where it will restart like 3 times in a row in a very short period of time but this has only happened twice in the week since I put this together. I also play Star Wars Galaxies Online (or at least I used to until this upgrade). The game will load and I will be able to play for 5- 20 minutes and then it freezes and I have to manually restart the machine.

So Thats my problem some remedies I have tried...

Updated every driver I could think of (new ATI video drivers Caused problems so I stuck with the old)

CPU Temp seems to hold at 34c-39c idleing/surfing web
and got up to 41c while playing galaxies (all temps according to the MSI temp utility)

I ran memtest (although i didnt really understand it) for an hour and fourty minutes and it passed 4 complete sets of tests with no errors (hopefully that means something to you).

Umm thats pretty much all I can think of and I apologize for being so longwinded but I wanted to give as much info as possible. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank You In Advance
-Mark

[Direct1]

Have you done a repair install or clean install of XP since the upgrade?

[Euronymous777]

I did a clean install of xp after the upgrade. I didn't bother trying to repair as Its never seemed to work well for me in the past.

[Direct1]

Try testing the memory...

http://www.memtest86.com/#download0

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

Also, what stop error are you getting? Right-click My Computer Icon > Select Properties > Select Advanced Tab > Select Settings button under Startup and Recovery > Uncheck Automatically Restart > Select Ok and restart the computer. Now you'll get a Blue Screen instead of a re-boot. Tell us the error it gives you...

Good luck!

[Euronymous777]

Well that was well timed I just had a restart and here is what the error message says...

a problem has been detected and windows has been shutdown to prevent damage to your computer.

If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps:

Check to be sure you have adequate disk space. If a driver is identified in the stop message, disable the driver or check with the manufacturer for driver updates. Try changing video adapters.

Check with your hardware vendorfor any bios updates. Disable bios memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use safe modeto remove or disablecomponents, restart your computer,press f8 to select advanced startup options,and then select safe mode.

Technical information
***stop: 0x0000008E (0xc0000005, 0x805D3A97, 0xaa75EB8C, 0x00000000)

Beginning dump of physical memory
Physical memory dump complete.
Contact your system administartor or technical support group for further assistance

As far as memtest goes

I ran memtest (although i didnt really understand it) for an hour and fourty minutes and it passed 4 complete sets of tests with no errors (hopefully that means something to you).

[Direct1]

That error usually means you need a BIOS update or it could be a driver problem as well.

[Rocketmech]

Stop 0x8E
Your looking at a kernel mode program generated an exception which the error handler didn’t catch. I would try the following , a bios update ; disable Cool and Quite; disable the NV firewall ; although I don't think Digicell should give you issues, uninstall any of the MSI utilities. Try these one at a time and see if anything helps.

[CrazyCrusher]

Sounds strange but what Kind of DVD rom drive have you got? disconect the DVD rom drive for a while and see if you get the same error. even though you ran memtest I would still remove each stick and try them at diffrent times in diffrent banks.

[Euronymous777]

That error usually means you need a BIOS update or it could be a driver problem as well.

WOW! So many options Thanks guys for the speedy reply.

Hmm I went to flash the bios and it wanted me to make a backup with a 3.5 disk hmm I'm gonna have to dig up a floppy drive...


<<<Your looking at a kernel mode program generated an exception which the error handler didn’t catch. I would try the following , a bios update ; disable Cool and Quite; disable the NV firewall ; although I don't think Digicell should give you issues, uninstall any of the MSI utilities. Try these one at a time and see if anything helps.>>>

I'll try these but its been doing this since before I installed the MSI utilities. I installed them in hopes they would help me. And pardon my ignorance but what is the NV Firewall


<<<Sounds strange but what Kind of DVD rom drive have you got? disconect the DVD rom drive for a while and see if you get the same error. even though you ran memtest I would still remove each stick and try them at diffrent times in diffrent banks.>>>

I have 2 DVD drives both Lite-on one is a DVD/CDRW (from the old system). The other is a DVDRW (which is new)

[Euronymous777]

New Devlopment. Before I had a chance to try any of these things I got a new stop error message. It says all the other warning stuff except this is at the top... DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL and the technical info is as follows 0x000000D1 (0x00000000, 0x000000FF, 0x00000008, 0x00000000) Ugh this is getting outta my realm of Knowledge I'm just a Novice I'm gonna have to get ahold of my buddy who is considerably more knoeledgalbe then me. But in the meantime anymore suggestions will be welcome.

[Direct1]

That new error is almost always because of a driver or some software that casued an error accessing memory. Make sure to update the BIOS. Try a repair install - http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm or another clean install - http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

Good luck!

[Rocketmech]

Out of curiosity , does the details mention a file ? such as a .dll , etc. Anything in the Event Viewer logs ? ...it may help narrow down the driver .

Since these errors could be related to memory , and some people have had problems with some ram in dual channel , you might try testing with 1 stick of ram.
Also, its a long shot, but the page file could be corrupt, it wouldn't hurt to disable it , then reenable it.

[Euronymous777]

okay so I think I found at least a big chunk of the problem. I ran Memtest on the first stick for 4 hours and it passed 20 sets of tests no problem. Then I took that one out put in the second and went to grab a bite to eat. Came back twenty minutes later it had passed one set of tests and had over 170,00 errors so I guess its RMA time for newegg. I'll let you know of any more developments.

[Comage]

If it still doesn't work, you can try swapping your PCI cards around. Make sure they aren't using the shared slots. If they are, try to arrange it such that you don't have something like something else shared with your AGP slot. I tend to notice that AGP slots don't like sharing, but USB controllers normally work fine with sharing.

[Euronymous777]

If it still doesn't work, you can try swapping your PCI cards around. Make sure they aren't using the shared slots. If they are, try to arrange it such that you don't have something like something else shared with your AGP slot. I tend to notice that AGP slots don't like sharing, but USB controllers normally work fine with sharing.

Thanks for the tip bit as of right now I don't have any PCI cards. It ran smoothly with the one good stick all day yesterday. So hopefully once I RMA the RAM everything will be fine. Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to help me I greatly appreciate it.