A Serious Evasive Problem

[Tweak]

Here is an old timers tip for you, when your flying blind without video press F4 then hit enter and wait a minute or two, if your computer still hasn't shutdown then try it again, try that before resetting with the power switch.

Back in the day with FAT16 turning the power off without shutting down windows first was really bad, NTFS is better but you can still have problems. Make sure you always use NTFS and not FAT32

Alt then F4 perhaps? Or windows key and the letter U works well with XP.

 

[B Trevathan]

Thanks Tweak

Thanks for catching that Tweak, too much holiday cheer I guess and I did say old timer didn't I.

Alt+F4 to bring up windows shutdown and then enter to confirm.

Merry Christmas

 

[matthttam]

More issues (problem is not solved)

I turned off the computer last night and left it off.
This morning I turned it on and walked away (I was going to let it boot and log in when I got back).

I get back an hour later and I log in no problem but then I realize that this had happened:
Error 12/22/2009 10:51:57 AM EventLog 6008 None
The previous system shutdown at 10:48:24 AM on 12/22/2009 was unexpected.
also:
Error 12/22/2009 11:01:03 AM volsnap 20 None
The shadow copies of volume C: were aborted because of a failed free space computation.

BlueScreenView says this happened:
Mini122209-01.dmp 12/22/2009 10:51:55 AM PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA 0x00000050
fffff980`16e80d60 00000000`00000000 fffff800`0251596d 00000000`00000000 Ntfs.sys Ntfs.sys+dabd6 x64 C:\Windows\minidump\Mini122209-01.dmp

Yesterday when I booted in I immediately (while some applications were still loading) went into my Terabyte drive to see a file I had saved here. There were only folder directories. I could not see any files. I tried seeing it through my ftp (ftp://127.0.0.1) and again the directories I made were there but no files existed. I check teh freespace of that drive and it was correct. It took about 3 minutes for the files to begin to show.

Could the sata controller on the mobo be going bad?
I really don't know what to make of this...

 

[B Trevathan]

I am still betting on memory.

I still think it looks like its pointing to your memory, a least one of your problems anyway.

PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

Have you tried testing the memory one stick at a time? I know it calls for pairs but I think it can run on one stick, but double check before you try. Did you find your right memory settings?

With BlueScreenView in its lower pane does it show the same files in pink most of the time.
F6 = All drivers F7 = Only drivers found in stack F8 = Blue Screen

Have you tried System File Checker? have your OS disc ready
"sfc /scannow" or "sfc /scanboot"

Have you tried Process Explorer? it maybe something as simple as a missing dll file, it shows a lot of information. This helped me recently after a client did a bad update and system restore.

 

[ßilly§torm]

everything good and clean inside? heatsinks, etc. and please don't say you've bought a can of compressed air and used that to clean it, because that's a failure. if you don't have access to a REAL air-compressor with REAL power, find somebody who has one and BLOW the thing out real good. and don't be afraid you'll hurt something because you won't. well, unless the air-nozzle has a metal end and you touch it against something you shouldn't.

'elusive' failure of a processor fan? (seems to be working fine - slows down or stops/restarts when you're not looking) - maybe find another one, since it seems you've been doing the 'process of elimination thing' anyway.

touch things; feel the power supply, the heatsink(s) - hold your hand in various places inside and notice if you feel any strange temperature changes.

yank the ram - all of it - power it up with none in it - yank the power cord - put the ram back in - check it.
also try leaving out one stick of ram - the stick everybody will tell you to never leave out - the one closest to the processor. fire it up. if it runs, leave it out at least overnight and see what happens.

check - check - and double-check all the usb receptacles. be sure there are no bent pins or pins touching one-another.

one last thing, and this is not a joke;
if there's any possibility at all that the computer could have been somewhere that has roaches, you 'could' be screwed. because there's one little thing that most don't know, but will now - and that is;
roaches absolutely love the glues and resins on motherboards. they'll live in there "happily-ever-after" - eat away, and walk all over everything, sometimes arcing things.

i never bring a computer into my shop without first firing up the air-compressor and blowing it out thoroughly. and if i happen to see any roaches, i know it's gonna be an 'iffy' situation.

i do hope you get, or have gotten by now, your problems resolved.
yours is the type of challenge that i love so much. i wish i could actually see that thing.

 

[matthttam]

Have you tried testing the memory one stick at a time? I know it calls for pairs but I think it can run on one stick, but double check before you try. Did you find your right memory settings?

I tried 2 sticks at a time until I had an error and swapping them for the other two until I had an error. Never tried one at a time. As far as memory settings I set the 2.0 memory and left timings at auto. Christmas is a bit busy atm as I work retail with 40 hours.

With BlueScreenView in its lower pane does it show the same files in pink most of the time.
F6 = All drivers F7 = Only drivers found in stack F8 = Blue Screen

most of the errors are caused by Ntfs.sys

Have you tried System File Checker? have your OS disc ready
"sfc /scannow" or "sfc /scanboot"

I have and it is clean. I've done this multiple times with multiple operating systems and it has done nothing to fix any issues.

Have you tried Process Explorer? it maybe something as simple as a missing dll file, it shows a lot of information. This helped me recently after a client did a bad update and system restore.

Wouldn't a missing DLL cause an error not a blue screen? Also, I've been having this problem across multiple different operating systems. And, I have changed my usual installation of applications and drivers multiple times. I changed my anti virus, one time I didn't install any drivers manual (just let the default found new hardware do it and lived without my G15 screen for a while). I recognize all the processes that run and I often research any that I don't recognize by name.

 

[matthttam]

everything good and clean inside? heatsinks, etc. and please don't say you've bought a can of compressed air and used that to clean it, because that's a failure. if you don't have access to a REAL air-compressor with REAL power, find somebody who has one and BLOW the thing out real good. and don't be afraid you'll hurt something because you won't. well, unless the air-nozzle has a metal end and you touch it against something you shouldn't.

Well, I don't have a real air compressor. I have used the cans but they seem to clean the dust out very efficiently. As far as overheating I've added a fan on the case itself to help cool the CPU and GPU and north bridge primarily. My GPU runs at 38 degrees Celsius without hard graphics going on (which my computer crashes when NOT playing games so this should be a problem). My CPU runs cool but my mobo only lets me view this information while in bios. I have rebooted before though right after some serious abuse and the CPU was well within its limits (quad cores run cool without overclocking from what I've seen). I have noted the north bridge heatsink was a little loose but it doesn't seem to be overheating but when I get a chance I may reseat it.

'elusive' failure of a processor fan? (seems to be working fine - slows down or stops/restarts when you're not looking) - maybe find another one, since it seems you've been doing the 'process of elimination thing' anyway.

I'll keep an eye on the fans to see if this could be happening. If the CPU was overheating due to a CPU fan going bad would I be getting the bluescreens described? Just seems like an odd error to get for a CPU presumably malfunctioning.

touch things; feel the power supply, the heatsink(s) - hold your hand in various places inside and notice if you feel any strange temperature changes.

I've done this and everything is relatively cool enough for me to keep my finger on it. The GPU can run pretty hot but the 200 series are made for that and this is only during game play.

yank the ram - all of it - power it up with none in it - yank the power cord - put the ram back in - check it.
also try leaving out one stick of ram - the stick everybody will tell you to never leave out - the one closest to the processor. fire it up. if it runs, leave it out at least overnight and see what happens.

What good would not using a stick in the #1 slot? When I tested my pairs of ram I used 1 and 3 slots both times. Maybe I should test 2 and 4 this time and see... or maybe, just 1 stick in the #2 slot? I honestly don't understand how the ram checking program can make 9 passes through all 4 sticks and not have a single error and yet RAM can still be at fault.

check - check - and double-check all the usb receptacles. be sure there are no bent pins or pins touching one-another.

... Would this kind of damage cause a ground loop in USB headsets? My old USB headset developed a problem where I heard a loud BUZZ when trying to record my voice or use ventrilo. I switched to an analogue headset to avoid the problem. I will get out a flashlight and check all of them hopefully tonight.

one last thing, and this is not a joke;
if there's any possibility at all that the computer could have been somewhere that has roaches, you 'could' be screwed. because there's one little thing that most don't know, but will now - and that is;
roaches absolutely love the glues and resins on motherboards. they'll live in there "happily-ever-after" - eat away, and walk all over everything, sometimes arcing things.

Good to know actually. Unfortunately (or fortunately) my home has zero bugs and college (even though messy) does not have roaches; been there 3 years and haven't seen a roach one.

i do hope you get, or have gotten by now, your problems resolved.
yours is the type of challenge that i love so much. i wish i could actually see that thing.

I'm glad you like the challenge. I personally like challenges but I hate this one because there is no trigger. If I could trigger the BSOD I could more quickly analyze the solutions and determine there outcomes. But with this, I have to wait a week to see if it is fixed.

Hopefully I can figure out the problem and fix it! Again, I thank all of you for the insight into my problems.

 

[CompConfig]

I have encountered similar problems in the past. Of course I am only going by your description of your problems. If I understood you correctly your first sign of a problem appeared to be graphic card related and you addressed it by changing the graphic card. Did you try the old graphic card in another computer to confirm it was not working? Just curious on that one because even if the card was dead the problem may have been caused by the graphics port on the motherboard. See if you can swap out the motherboard for the same one and then just swap everything over and see if that solves your problem

 

[matthttam]

I have encountered similar problems in the past. Of course I am only going by your description of your problems. If I understood you correctly your first sign of a problem appeared to be graphic card related and you addressed it by changing the graphic card. Did you try the old graphic card in another computer to confirm it was not working? Just curious on that one because even if the card was dead the problem may have been caused by the graphics port on the motherboard. See if you can swap out the motherboard for the same one and then just swap everything over and see if that solves your problem

The GeForce 8800 GT with 512 onboard was definately broken. I took it to Computer's Plus and had them install it in one of their display machiens and that machine had the same artifacts and inability to run graphics without a BSOD.
In regards to swapping my mobo for the exact same model: If I have to change out the entire motherboard I would probably NOT choose this model again for personal reasons so swapping for the same one won't happen unless I can somehow acquire one for free. If everything is ruled out to the point that it has to be the motherboard then I will most likely do the research to determine an upgrading replacement mobo that still supports my current equipment.

 

[matthttam]

What I've done to address the issue just now

So, I took apart my computer here and did a few things that I haven't tried before:
1) unplugged the sata power and data chords from the DVD player/burner.
2) moved the Sata data cable for my 500 GB (C drive) to the 4th port instead of the 3rd port on the motherboard in case it is a motherboard port issue)
3) checked all 6 USB and 2 Firewire ports to see if the wires are lined properly (they are)
4) reduced my ram to a 2GB stick placed in the 2nd slot.
5) check all cards and chord connectivities to make 100% sure everything was connected.

2GB of ram ftw!
We'll see if this makes a change.

 

[matthttam]

Testing stuff

I ran batman Arkham asylum benchmark in window mode while monitoring temperatures with Speed Fan. My GPU temp went to 60 degrees Celsius but no higher. All other temperatures (CPU all 4 cores and temp1 and 2 which I am not sure where they are) remained below or equal to 40 degrees Celsius.

The heat sink for the north bridge is generally hot to the touch but I guess that means the heat sink is working? I am thinking about pulling up on it to make less contact to see if the north bridge overheating could cause the same errors I have been encountering. At the same time I am worried doing this could damage the mobo. And also at the same time I just want to replace the mobo with a better one... *sigh*... Well If I burn it up I'll be posting about it on my iPod.

 

[matthttam]

Northbridge

Looks like overheating the north bridge simply causes the computer to freeze up and be unable to move. Everything was simply frozen. No specific errors and no BSOD. I feel that this helps prove that the north bridge is not at fault (at least in regards to temperature).

I will probably upgrade back to Windows 7 after the Christmas season dies down. I figure since it isn't the OS then I might as well use the one I like.

 

[ßilly§torm]

so have you come to any conclusions at all? something like this really BUGS me. if i could get my hands on that thing, i'd make it behave itself one way or another.
keep me informed - because i really want to know how it's going, and if/when the problem is solved.

 

[Karmtanty]

Hm, i dono what the problem is, sounds strange to me.
If its particly working you soud deinstall it and reinstall in a other partition or folder struckture, maybe your hdd is damages or something else.
Good Luck

 

[B Trevathan]

Isolate hardware

Have you try to isolate these errors to the hardware by leaving your PC in safe mode or by running Linux on a live CD. I'm not talking about surfing the internet in safe mode but just leave it running in safe mode or on a live CD for a while, besides I think most of your errors happen when your not using the PC right?

When you run memtest on only one stick of memory and that stick is bad then memtest shows the errors but if you then add a good stick with that bad stick and run memtest on those two sticks it may not always show any errors. I don't know why this is and it may not happen every time but I've seen people say this in forums.

The reason I asked about using Process Explorer and missing files is because I had a PC come in recently where they had done system restore after a bad update and this caused windows not to work right, so with your power resets and system restores and errors do you think maybe a file might have become damaged and causing more errors? I didn't get any errors or BSODs with the missing dlls but different parts of windows would not work, if I did not replace the missing files then I am sure that I would've got errors later on.

It doesn't sound like you have a heat problem. I have come across some filthy PCs, I use a vac to suck out as much as I can and then I use the exhaust off the vacuum to blow everything out. Canned air doesn't cut it for me. I have heard of people using leaf blowers (electric not gas), if I done this I would worry about wires hitting the fans and breaking them and also the back charge from the fans frying the motherboard.

roaches absolutely love the glues and resins on motherboards. they'll live in there "happily-ever-after" - eat away, and walk all over everything, sometimes arcing things.

Ants are bad also, ants are attracted to electronics and they will cause sort circuits. They got into my HVAC unit this summer and fry the main board.

 

[matthttam]

I haven't found any definite conclusion however I seem to have ruled out some possibilities through trial and error. more and more I speculate RAM or mobo.

As far as reinstalling the OS I have done a total of 3 to 6 complete reinstalls over the past year with teh same problems. I used the same HD, yes, but a complete repartition each time. If my HD was going bad you would think the Western Digital health program would show problems. I would get more corrupt files or something. I should hear clicking... but I hear nothing. I was going to order another 1T HD for a primary HD and use it to see if it fixed anything.

As far as Isolating the errors, I have encountered this error once before when I was in the windows 7 recovery mode. The mode that loads up a block of RAM... It caused a page fault that I had seen when running hte normal operating system and forced me to reboot from teh recovery screen. This led me to believe it was not directly OS related but rather eithe rRAM or motherboard at the time. However I also figured that maybe if it loaded improperly from the HD then the HD could be at fault... then I figured that if the CPU processed improperly it could cause the error too... and then I figured out that I didn't know what was wrong again .

When I get a chance (will be after christmas) I will plug back up my CD tray and boot from a linux live CD and leave that up for a while. Note however, I don't know what tools Ubuntu or Fedora have to view errors that occur.

I will run memtest one stick at a time then. I'll do that after christmas though as I want to give the computer a few days to crash on its own again.

As far as OS corruption goes I am 99% sure that my OS is fine. Everything in windows works perfectly. As far as the HD's not showing files for 3 minutes I feel like that was hardware related. About a month ago my computer dismounted my C drive... all files lost icons on the desktop... the start menu lost all the shortcuts... nothing was running... then in a blink of an eye everything went back to normal. I don't recall what errors were associated with that.

As far as any bugs, I am 100% sure that I haven't been near ants or roaches with this computer. Maybe a fly or two and maybe a mosquito... but they usually go away from fans and towards food .

I have a lot coming up for the holidays and I will be gone for a bit but this gives my computer some time to Blue screen which will determine if the 1 stick of RAM I have in it could be bad. If it bluescreens then I will pull that stick and put a 2nd stick in; probably in slot 3 to verify that the slot isn't bad.

I feel like its a hardware issue. I just don't want to waist the money trying to replace parts until I know what to replace. When I get my paycheck I'll probably have enough excess to by a HD and CD drive. If the problems persists I will buy a new motherboard.

 

[Tweak]

Testing a single stick could help and with some of the linux flavors they seem to be more sensitive to hard drive failures and will report as such, good news is Win7 has managed the same I've found where Vista and XP did not, can't say it is as capable as linux in detecting the problem but that it did at all made me smile.

 

[PcTek9]

Sir, did you completely miss my post telling you that I had this same problem, that it was the motherboard disk controller? A simple fix is a pci raid card. Try that then let us know.

 

[matthttam]

Didn't miss it

Sir, did you completely miss my post telling you that I had this same problem, that it was the motherboard disk controller? A simple fix is a pci raid card. Try that then let us know.

Yea, sorry if I didn't acknowledge it. I recall you saying this.
My primary goal is to be sure of the problem before spending money to fix it. If it is truly the controller on the mobo then surely it will BSOD again even after I do the changes I have done. If I do not get another BSOD then it can't be that issue as that would mean it really is either a RAM problem or a RAM slot problem. If I get another BSOD I will get one as I see they are as cheep as 30 or so.
Is Sata II backwards compatible (I think it is)... I do not know if my old hard drive is Sata II or Sata I and I know my new harddrive is Sata II

 

[CompuMedic]

Hello Sir:

I am late to this party but I feel that I have some insight to add. You have tried replacing and removing the memory, so that rules out memory in my mind, unless your timing and voltages are off, or something on your motherboard is faulty. Motherboard problems in my experience are tricky because they can manifest themselves in a variety of ways. I once went through ram, a hard drive and a cpu, until I got to the motherboard; Luckily it was all spare equipment.

Have you tried installing a Windows version of your choice on a KNOWN GOOD spare HD?

Also I had a problem similar to yours, I had a higher end SoundBlaster card and my computer would BSOD when idle, or very seldom when I was watching a movie, but NOT when I was playing a game.

I got fed up with this and I removed the sound card as well as unplugging my joystick, printer, DVDRW, and all other unnecessary items. This solved my problem, and then I plugged the stuff back in one at a time until I got to the sound card and the BSOD came back.

I am using the on board sound now, and I haven't had any problems.

I digress, my point is rule out as much as you can, before throwing parts at the problem.

EDIT: when you installed the new video card did you just plug it in and install the drivers or did you uninstall the old card properly beforehand.