blue screen of death :(

[barrowmanandrew]

had a blue screen of death this morning.
at top of page is said "bad header" said "dumping physical memory before crash"

seems to be an ongoing problem with this pc.
its had a new h/d and fresh instal of legite vista and "cough"win 7, which hit has on it now.

i notice before the blue screen, the processer fan speeds up.
it only happens very occasionally, but is a bit of a pain.
after the blue screen, it ran check disk and deleted alot of corrupt files.


any idea's anyone?

i am wondering if it is a ram problem because it seems to happen when i have a few aprograms running at once.
today it happened when i was using google earth.
then again , im sort of guessing...
i have also noticed in "system properties" is says "ram: 4 gig, 2.75 usable..
is this normal? where's the rest of it gone?

any input gratefully accepted...

[RedSpider]

this happened to me, kept crashing, different messages on each BSOD. guaranteed to crash when i was doing something simple like converting a video file or running numerous programs. i feared for my processor, i feared for my ram, i feared for my PSU, twas my motherboard

[barrowmanandrew]

oh noo, dont like the sound of that...

is there anyway to test it?

[RedSpider]

oh noo, dont like the sound of that...

is there anyway to test it?

Motherboard Troubleshooting Procedures

[Shady]

another mobo is the only guaranteed way of testing mate.
look on the bright side, depending on how much ram you have, it will prob be cheaper to replace mobo

[RedSpider]

shady (if that is his real name) was the one to diagnose my mobo death. think it cost me around 40-45 squid to replace mine, including my need to buy another tower as the connections were all wrong

[the man]

had it with win 7 , would open in safe mold , so backed up on partision , and re instaled win 7 , now seams fine.

[RedSpider]

thats all very fine and dandy if you're not doing anything other than browsing the internet. can't do much else in safe mode

[mike77kl]

Happened to me and it was the RAM. Dun know about u. RAM is the easiest to change, give it a try b4 u go dig out other things. Slowly narrow down all possibilities. Gd luck mate

[bonus2010]

Agree with mike77kl.... if you've got two memory strips, remove one, then exchange it with the other. If you've got a faulty memory strip.... the blue screen will be immediate on boot up.

Alternatively, before booting up you could check each mem individually by running Memtest in DOS.



.

[cunny]

First things to do is :

New instal of operating system + latest drivers. Check all compatability of drivers and no related issues with them causing BSOD.

If problem persists then start to remove hardware bit by bit. Drives are easiest. RAM then look at changing the gfx card.

I would remove the heatsink on the CPU give it a very good clean out, re paste and seat back in

Then if problem still there maybe motherboard issue. The only true way to test parts is by swapping them for others that are known to be fine.

[barrowmanandrew]

right this is what ive done so far.

1. sent pc back for repair, h/d was replaced.

2. did a fresh install of vista using recovery disks i got with pc.

3. took pc apart and cleaned it out. it has a big processer fan sort of mounted on springs, this was really clogged up bad, and when i had cleaned it out i noticed pc was much quieter. (unsurprisingly)

4. i did a fresh instal of win 7. it was recommended to me as a non retail version which comes without all the garbage that manufactures usually add in.

5. updated win 7 (except for one update i was adivsed to hide if you se what i mean)

after this the pc seemed to be run fine for maybe 7/8 weeks without a problem,

now, every now and then various programs will stop and come up "program ot responding" especially if a have a few running at once...
also the dreaded bsod has reared its ugly head a couple of times......

i wish it would either work or not. instead of intermittant failure....

[cunny]

Each time it happens, write the code down. It will probably vary. It could be worth buying can of air from asda ?2, removing the heat sink, cleaning all out, reseating the heat sink.

Again tho, maybe try removing a dimm of ram at a time, or running RAM tests over night. Checking for BIOS updates ect.

Does it happen certain times? Whats the Temp of the CPU in bios?

Can you post the make and model of the motherboard?

[pipeman1]

i can tell u how to fix it mate

[the man]

thats all very fine and dandy if you're not doing anything other than browsing the internet. can't do much else in safe mode

yes you can , you can back up all important files , then re install a clean o/s i.e thats what i did , then just go on to update any missing drivers ect. its working fine now
i think some of the cracked win7 copy's have a hidden tits up date in them as i had the same blue scree on 2 lappy with in days of each other.