Bad Pool Caller driving me insane

[TW]Fox

[TW]Fox

[TW]Fox

Man of Honour
Joined
17 Oct 2002
Posts
160,150
I'm still having loads of problem with a Bad Pool Caller BSOD, but now its getting weird.

Most of the time, I get advance warning of this BSOD by my PC acting strangely. I'll describe what just happened, it's typical of what usually happens.

Eve Online disconnected. Went to reconnect, the client crashed. Then I began to lose internet connectivty. Then I went to 'Repair' my wireless connection to fix that. Couldnt do it. Checked device manager, the wireless card was marked as 'Could not be started'. This is when you know its going to break. Hit restart, Windows closes down, plays the shutdown sound...

Bang. BAD_POOL_CALLER.

Thats usually how it happens. Sometimes it'll happen differently - earlier nothing would load anymore, IE refused to run due to no system resources then bang. BAD_POOL_CALLER again.

Earlier on I got IRQL_LESS_OR_NOT_EQUAL refering to my Realtek onboard audio. So I totally disabled it, but I'm still BAD_POOL_CALLER.

It's getting quite frequent and quite annoying and has been an issue ever since I built my PC from virtually all brand new components.

Any ideas?

Spec:

XP Pro Sp2
Gigabyte DS3 Rev 3.3
Core2Duo E4300
2Gb OCZ Platinum PC6400
GeForce 8800GTS
SB Audigy
Linksys Wifi card

I've tried running with the Audigy disabled, makes no odds.

Help! Tried with everything at stock as well.
 
Just happened again. Everything started going to pot.. internet stuff disconnecting, then no connectivity. Opened device manager, saw the wireless card was showing as fine. Hit repair to repair connection... trouble starting this devi....

bang.

BSOD. No actual error message this time, but I got the stop code:

0x0000008E (0xC0000005, 0x000000000, 0xB5DB30B0, 0x00000000)

Interestingly, I had to hard power off the machine as the reset button wouldnt work.

Windows started back up. Net connected. Suddenly no connectivity then bang.

BAD_POOL_CALLER

0x000000C2 (0x00000007, 0x00000CD4, 0x024C004C, 0x8995F5B0)

Reset button worked this time.

Any ideas?
 
Brilliant, thanks!

Here is the details from the last BSOD I had last night. I'll dig out another in a sec to compare. I've stripped stuff I don't think helps us found whats wrong:

BAD_POOL_CALLER (c2)
The current thread is making a bad pool request. Typically this is at a bad IRQL level or double freeing the same allocation, etc.
Arguments:
Arg1: 00000007, Attempt to free pool which was already freed
Arg2: 00000cd4, (reserved)
Arg3: 024c004c, Memory contents of the pool block
Arg4: 8995f5b0, Address of the block of pool being deallocated

POOL_ADDRESS: 8995f5b0

FREED_POOL_TAG: PcNw

BUGCHECK_STR: 0xc2_7_PcNw

CUSTOMER_CRASH_COUNT: 6

DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: COMMON_SYSTEM_FAULT

PROCESS_NAME: winlogon.exe

LAST_CONTROL_TRANSFER: from 8054a583 to 804f9f13

STACK_COMMAND: kb

FOLLOWUP_IP:
e10kx2k+dd46
b9d2cd46 ?? ???

SYMBOL_STACK_INDEX: 3

FOLLOWUP_NAME: MachineOwner

MODULE_NAME: e10kx2k

IMAGE_NAME: e10kx2k.sys

DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP: 3bb96776

SYMBOL_NAME: e10kx2k+dd46

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: 0xc2_7_PcNw_e10kx2k+dd46

BUCKET_ID: 0xc2_7_PcNw_e10kx2k+dd46

Followup: MachineOwner
 
Lots of them are very similar, all referencing e10kx2k.sys which I beleive is something to do with the SB Audigy.

This is the first BSOD I got last night. At the time, the Audigy was disabled in device manager and I was using the onboard Audio:

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (d1)
An attempt was made to access a pageable (or completely invalid) address at an
interrupt request level (IRQL) that is too high. This is usually
caused by drivers using improper addresses.
If kernel debugger is available get stack backtrace.
Arguments:
Arg1: 00000104, memory referenced
Arg2: 00000002, IRQL
Arg3: 00000000, value 0 = read operation, 1 = write operation
Arg4: b67b9695, address which referenced memory

Debugging Details:
------------------


READ_ADDRESS: 00000104

CURRENT_IRQL: 2

FAULTING_IP:
RtkHDAud+7b695
b67b9695 d860fc fsub dword ptr [eax-4]

CUSTOMER_CRASH_COUNT: 1

DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: DRIVER_FAULT

BUGCHECK_STR: 0xD1

PROCESS_NAME: Idle

LAST_CONTROL_TRANSFER: from b67a1002 to b67b9695
TACK_COMMAND: kb

FOLLOWUP_IP:
RtkHDAud+7b695
b67b9695 d860fc fsub dword ptr [eax-4]

SYMBOL_STACK_INDEX: 0

SYMBOL_NAME: RtkHDAud+7b695

FOLLOWUP_NAME: MachineOwner

MODULE_NAME: RtkHDAud

IMAGE_NAME: RtkHDAud.sys

DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP: 460a1d1b

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: 0xD1_RtkHDAud+7b695

BUCKET_ID: 0xD1_RtkHDAud+7b695

Followup: MachineOwner


Following this BSOD, I disbaled the Realtek Audio in the BIOS and re-enabled the Audigy. The next time the system BSOD'd, it was again referenceing e10xk2k.sys. I've searched most of the plethora of crash dumps and it appears always to be audio related.

Any ideas?
 
Last edited:
It's just gone again this time referencing something completely new:

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL (d1)
An attempt was made to access a pageable (or completely invalid) address at an
interrupt request level (IRQL) that is too high. This is usually
caused by drivers using improper addresses.
If kernel debugger is available get stack backtrace.
Arguments:
Arg1: 00000000, memory referenced
Arg2: 00000002, IRQL
Arg3: 00000000, value 0 = read operation, 1 = write operation
Arg4: e2027c0d, address which referenced memory

Debugging Details:
------------------


READ_ADDRESS: 00000000

CURRENT_IRQL: 2

FAULTING_IP:
+ffffffffe2027c0d
e2027c0d 8b2b mov ebp,dword ptr [ebx]

CUSTOMER_CRASH_COUNT: 1

DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: DRIVER_FAULT

BUGCHECK_STR: 0xD1

PROCESS_NAME: System

LAST_CONTROL_TRANSFER: from e20130f2 to e2027c0d

STACK_TEXT:
WARNING: Frame IP not in any known module. Following frames may be wrong.
bacc7f78 e20130f2 00000000 8863f198 88889cf0 0xe2027c0d
bacc7fc4 b9cebf7e 88889cf0 805451ff 88989268 0xe20130f2
bacc7fcc 805451ff 88989268 00000000 88989268 ctoss2k+0x6f7e
bacc7ff4 80544d6b baceb768 00000000 00000000 nt!KiRetireDpcList+0x61
bacc7ff8 baceb768 00000000 00000000 00000000 nt!KiDispatchInterrupt+0x2b
80544d6b 00000000 00000009 0081850f bb830000 0xbaceb768


STACK_COMMAND: kb

FOLLOWUP_IP:
ctoss2k+6f7e
b9cebf7e ?? ???

SYMBOL_STACK_INDEX: 2

FOLLOWUP_NAME: MachineOwner

MODULE_NAME: ctoss2k

IMAGE_NAME: ctoss2k.sys

DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP: 3b9d8ea6

SYMBOL_NAME: ctoss2k+6f7e

FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: 0xD1_ctoss2k+6f7e

BUCKET_ID: 0xD1_ctoss2k+6f7e

Followup: MachineOwner
 
I think its odd how this is affecting both my Creative and Realtek sound cards.

This, along with the fact that immediatly before it happens my Wifi card stops responding makes me think something is wrong relating to the PCI Bus. What do you reckon?
 
Gets weirder.

Audigy totally gone now - removed it and its sat on the desk. No BSOD's but...

My internet connection is incredibly unstable. The Wifi disconnects and reconnects frequently and when it is connected, it's so painfully slow its unusable. My laptop however, sat on the same desk, connected via wireless to the same router, is working perfectly.

Just connected via a wire now.. and internet access is perfect.

Getting bored, might just format. Although a format hasn't fixed the BSOD's before..
 
I'm still having problems and I dont know what to do next.

I formatted the machine last night. I now have a completely clean, new Windows installation. I've installed absolutely nothing bar the drivers for my Linksys Wireless card, and the Realtek Audio drivers along with chipset and video drivers. Thats it. There is nothing else at all on the system.

Whilst I've not had a BSOD, I'm getting truely bizarre internet performance. At times it's like being on a saturated 56k modem link - you load a page and half of it loads but the rest takes an AGE to appear. You click a link, it sits there thinking about it for literally 3-4 minutes before actually loading. Half the time I expect it to time out. Sometimes it actually does. Sometimes, however, it's perfect, and like lightning.

All this would point to problems with my network but sitting right on the desk next to my keyboard is my laptop - and this works absolutely perfectly. I've even done tests when the problem happens.

For example, just now, I loaded the OcUK forums and clicked General Discussion. In the time taken to actually load the GD forums, I was able to load the forums, click GD, and read 3-4 threads on the Laptop. They are both connected to the same wireless network, infact the Laptop is further from the router (by perhaps 20cm but you get the point).

It just seems like odd things are happening to PCI devices on my PC and I'm not sure where to troubleshoot from here.
 
Just put a different wireless card into the machine in a different slot, after uninstalling and removing the old wireless card.

The problem remains - sporadic periods of very slow internet performance, whilst at the same time, the laptop is perfect.

How can I test my PCI Bus for faults? How would I ever get a retailer to agree and replace it anyway even if it was at fault?
 
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