Constant XP Kernel crashes.

jradminjradmin North Kackalaki
edited January 2006 in Hardware
Ok, I moved my gaming rig into a new case this weekend. Now for some reason I am getting constant blue screen kernel crashes. I did put in 2 new SATA HDD's and at first I tought maybe that was the problem, so I put the old IDE drive back in. It still keeps crashing. I've reseated the graphics cards and the sound card incase that might be the culpret but that didnt help either. I've used the most up to date drivers for everything in the case (my components are in my sig) including chipset and bios but I continue to get kernel crashes.

Crash times are very random. If I dont make it do anything then it may not crash for hours. Soon as I try to get it to download or surf the web it crashes. The only thing I haven't done so far is check the RAM. I'm using OCZ plat rev 2 and an OCZ modstream PSU. PSU voltages are well within good levels.

Any ideas?

Comments

  • jradminjradmin North Kackalaki
    edited January 2006
    any ideas anyone? This is highly irritating.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited January 2006
    What's the exact error message on the BSOD?
  • jradminjradmin North Kackalaki
    edited January 2006
    Soon as I get another one I'll post it. It got to the point lastnight where some windows setup files were having problems being copied. There is also an extremely long pause while setup is looking for a HDD, even though there is only 1 SATA drive (like a 2-3 min pause). There is also up to 5 or more mins before the CDROM will start spinning durring XP setup.
  • jradminjradmin North Kackalaki
    edited January 2006
    First BSOD durring setup was this: 0X0000004E which is a PFN corruption. Soon as I get home this evening I'll restart setup and see what the next one is.
  • GrayFoxGrayFox /dev/urandom Member
    edited January 2006
    Run memtest if it comes back as good then reinstall your drivers.
  • jradminjradmin North Kackalaki
    edited January 2006
    I know its not a driver issue. I've reinstalled them all over 10 times each now using the newest as well as the included ones. I'll run a memtest, but I've never seen a computer do what this thing is doing because of bad RAM. Usually you just get reboots and freezes, but I am also having information lag. I've never seen ram cause a 10 min pause in setting up windows because it takes that long for communication to get to the CDRW to start the thing up. I've also never seen windows installation file copy errors because of bad RAM, and those just started lastnight. I'll run a memtest this evening...but my gut just tells me its not ram.
  • DonutDonut Maine New
    edited January 2006
    If you get desperate, pull the board back out of the case and see if it will run on you desktop.

    I'm kinda thinking also it could be a power problem, double check all your connections. I'm assuming everything worked fine before the case move.
  • GrayFoxGrayFox /dev/urandom Member
    edited January 2006
    jradmin wrote:
    I know its not a driver issue. I've reinstalled them all over 10 times each now using the newest as well as the included ones. I'll run a memtest, but I've never seen a computer do what this thing is doing because of bad RAM. Usually you just get reboots and freezes, but I am also having information lag. I've never seen ram cause a 10 min pause in setting up windows because it takes that long for communication to get to the CDRW to start the thing up. I've also never seen windows installation file copy errors because of bad RAM, and those just started lastnight. I'll run a memtest this evening...but my gut just tells me its not ram.
    You haven't seen bad ram many times have you.

    Bad ram can cause lots of funny things to happen (same with a bad psu... check that well your at it).

    Bsod's, errors copying files, random reboots,failed windows installs,ect.
    All can be caused by bad ram.
  • jradminjradmin North Kackalaki
    edited January 2006
    I'm going to run memtests on every stick as soon as I get home. I've never seen bad RAM give copy errors on a windows install, but yes your right it does make a comp do wierd crap when its bad. at $170 a gig for OCZ plat rev 2, you want to be in denial that its bad ram.

    As for the PSU it ran fine in the old case and all voltages are still good even after the case move.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited January 2006
    PFN = Page File Number

    This error usually means that a faulty driver is making a bad call to your memory or that your memory is bad. I'd start with what GrayFox suggested and run Memtest-86. If that turns up no problems I'd then run the test from the HD manufacturer. :)
  • GobblesGobbles Ventura California
    edited January 2006
    I had a system with bad memory cause IE to crash, but only when I browsed to Microsofts update site. I found it ironic. Replaced the memory, did a clean install, the machine runs like a top now.
  • jradminjradmin North Kackalaki
    edited January 2006
    I had been getting errors like "address on module XXX could not be read (or written)" for a long time, but it rarely caused a program to crash on me. I just clicked cancle so it would debug the problem and go about my business or game. I'm guessing the stick may have finally pooped out all together. Kinda rough though for such a nice stick of ram to fail in less then 6 months with no OCing done.
  • muddocktormuddocktor
    edited January 2006
    Hey, those kind of things happen. One good thing is that OCZ is good about rma'ing though. I got a DC set of VX3200 that had a bad stick and when they RMA'd it they replaced it with VX4000 which is a damn good upgrade. If it checks out bad with memtest, get in touch with MackanzOCZ here and he'll fix you up good.
  • jradminjradmin North Kackalaki
    edited January 2006
    This problem has been fixed. The RAM wasn't bad at all, but it seems that my ASUS board doesn't like 4 full channels of DDR400 RAM. I took it down to 333mhz and put in some different timings that the OCZ guys gave me and so far I have been up for almost 2 days with no crashes or BSOD's. I guess this means that I'm going to have to get 2 sticks of 1 gig if I want to get efficent use of it.
  • ArmoArmo Mr. Nice Guy Is Dead,Only Aqua Remains Member
    edited January 2006
    The A8n defaults to 333 unless you change it yourself, i belive it dose that to ensure that different sticks of ram from diff manufacturers wont have problems. i have 2 different manufactures and cas latencies and runs fine @ 400, is all of your ram from OCZ?
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited January 2006
    jradmin wrote:
    ...it seems that my ASUS board doesn't like 4 full channels of DDR400 RAM...
    I haven't needed to do it yet, but I've read that with my MSI K8N-Neo2 if you use all four slots you must change to 2T timing. Could that be true in your case, too?
  • jradminjradmin North Kackalaki
    edited January 2006
    I did have to change it to 2T, and yes all the sticks are OZC plat rev 2. Origionally when the ram was in the last case I had it bumped up to 400mhz, and I was getting read/write errors that didn't BSOD me...but would sometimes crash apps. So far with it set to 333 I haven't had a BSOD or read/write errors.
Sign In or Register to comment.