blue screen stop: 0X0000007E

[devjoy]

How do you fix a blue screen of death error that only gives stop and a bunch of numbers. The computer is a 2.7gig celeron with 2 gig ram on a Mach Speed motherboard with a VIA chipset. The screen comes up right after the welcome screen and reboots the computer. I am in safe mode right now and it is working fine. Thanks OS is Windows XP Home

[The Lodge]

Do you have a soundblaster audio card? I've had this issue myself in the past.
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=321637&sd=RMVP

[Ol'Tunzafun]

Does the blue screen name a file with a .sys extension?
Have you installed any new hardware or even software lately?

[devjoy]

The blue screen only has numbers. I do have a soundblaster card but it is not the one that the machine is using for sound. It is using the onboard sound chip.

[The Lodge]

Any particular reason why you have a separate sound card while using the onboard sound? Try going into your BIOS and disabling the on-board sound to see if that resolves your issue. I would still look into updating your soundblaster drivers as they can be a little temperamental.

P.S. That first link wasn’t the exact model of sound card I had either, but still worked.

[Ol'Tunzafun]

Most (75% according to Microsoft) are caused by third party drivers like those for audio, video or any other add-in card. Update drivers for anything in that category.
Running CHKDSK /F often helps with blue screens as well.

@ The Lodge
Good to see you back man, where have you been?

[The Lodge]

@ The Lodge
Good to see you back man, where have you been?

Running around like a mad man trying to keep the clients happy and biting my tongue. I’ve been so busy trying to stay on top of everybody’s issues and doing my own labs at home and the office. Plus one of my techs is on his honeymoon this week, gotta take care of his clients as well. Someday I can have a vacation too . Got all caught up and figured I’d pop in since it’s been way to long.

[devjoy]

I removed the sound card but that didn't solve it. I will go into the BIOS and see if their is something about the sound card that I should disable. I will run CHKDSK /F and try that. If there is a driver for the sound card that I should remove, will it be in the system32 folder? Do you know what the name of the driver will be?

[Ol'Tunzafun]

Removing a card effectively removes the driver. If the blue screens continue, try removing (through Device Manager) or updating other third party drivers.

[The Lodge]

Check your add-remove programs and uninstall anything related to Sound Blaster. Got anything in C:\Windows\Minidump? If you do, zip it up and post it. It’ll give us a little more info into the BSOD.

[devjoy]

I didn't find any reference to Sound Blaster in the Add/remove list. Here is the zipped minidump files.

[The Lodge]

Disconnect from the internet and uninstall Norton’s. After reboot, go to start>run and type sfc /scannow Let that finish, then reinstall your av.

edit: Gotta run and do a cutover an hour and a half away. So it'll be a bit before I can get back to you.

[devjoy]

I disconnected the internet and tried to uninstall Nortons but it would not allow me to because I can only boot into safe mode. Is there a way to uninstall Norton from safe mode?

[Ol'Tunzafun]

Just run SFC /SCANNOW anyway. It may replace a bad system driver.

[devjoy]

I got the removal tool from Symantec and uninstalled the AV program. I did what you said about running sfc /scannow. All it did was to flash a dos box up on the screen. It was gone in a second and I could not read anything if there was something in the box. How do I know it is working and when it is done?