Fast running out of options - End of tether

stoofa

stoofa

stoofa

Soldato
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Long - Sorry.

I've got a misbehaving machine belonging to my wife and I'll be honest - I'm at the end of my tether with it.
Never have I owned a machine that just keeps on having problems - and I've been working with PC's and been "in the business" for 14 years or so now.
The machine has the following specification:

Antec Case with Antec 430w PSU
Gigabyte DS3 Rev. 3.3 Motherboard
Core2Duo E6400 (2.13Ghz) CPU
2GB DDR2 (GeIL Value DDR2 800Mhz 2x1GB)
POV 7800GTX 256MB PCIe Graphics Card
Onboard Realtek Audio
Onboard Marvel NIC
Seagate 7200.10 320GB Hard Drive
Samsung SH-W183 SATA CD/DVD-R/RW
Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit

Everything is running at stock, nothing at all is overclocked.
All the latest drivers are in use - have also tried previous driver releases in most cases, not using any beta or unofficial drivers.

As you can see there really isn't anything special about this machine.
Standard components, nothing overclocked.
Over the past few weeks I have replaced the following pieces of hardware in an attempt to find out what is causing the problem on the machine (above is the current specification, below are the items that have been replaced).

Generic case with generic 350w PSU
Intel DG965SS Motherboard (Micro ATX 965 Chipset)
2GB DDR2 (Kingston Value DDR2 800Mhz 2x1GB)
Pallit 7900GS 256MB PCIe Graphics Card
Creative X-Fi ExtremeMusic Soundcard
WD 200GB SATA Hard Drive
Pioneer DVD-109 PATA DVD/CD-R/RW

As you can see I have replaced almost every single hardware component with the exception of the Core2Duo inside the machine yet still have the same problem.
The symptom is basically:

She'll be just generally using the machine, iTunes will be playing some music, she'll be on Myspace online, she'll fire up a Flash game and BSOD, Stop error.
A reboot and she'll try the same again, this time it will be fine for 15-20 minutes and then out of nowhere, BSOD, Stop error.
Another time she'll be playing Flash games, be on Myspace and she'll launch iTunes, BSOD, Stop error.

The BSOD, Stop error does not list any module or file - it's simply a Stop code.
I've run the memory dump through the MS debugger and it lists the most likely file/module to cause this problem as being part of the Kernel.
It also lists IRQ1 as a possible problem - pointing at the CPU.
So this really leaves me with two options now - a total reinstall of the system, probably rolling her back to Windows XP for the time being and/or a CPU swap.
I'm less inclined to believe it is the CPU - in the 14+ years I've been working with computers I've seen maybe 3 or 4 faulty Intel CPU's and that is it.
However BSOD are rare since Windows 2000 days and in 99% of cases do point at a hardware fault rather than a software/OS (with the exception of bad drivers, however the BSOD/Stop isn't listing any modules, driver or otherwise, so it doesn't seem like a bad driver).
CPU swap is the most awkward as it means totally stripping the machine down to try the one I'm borrowing from work.
The system reinstall is just so damn annoying, having to reinstall everything etc.

So there is the situation.
I've got a machine that just continues to misbehave.
As you can see it has had most components replaced - basically the CPU is the only thing left to try.
It could be OS, application or driver.
As said above, everything is at stock and I've checked more than once for shorting issues, overheating or heatsinks not attached correctly etc.

Which out of CPU and OS would you try next if you were in this current situation?
Would you try something different I haven't looked into yet?
I've never had a machine that caused me so much hassle before and I've built a lot of machines over the years for myself, family members and friends.
 
I've not used Vista yet but that would be the area I'd be looking at first probably since I'm not sure it is 100% with drivers etc although the components themselves shouldn't be a major problem as they are all fairly standard.

Have you tried memtest86, Orthos Blend etc? Just to see if they highlight any problems. As you say BSODs normally point to hardware now so it is as well to get that issue out of the way.

Other than that have you tried running XP on another hard drive in the machine to replace the one with Vista on it? Does it work? If so I'd be tempted to use that since Vista doesn't appear to give any major benefits yet. :)
 
stoofa said:
Long - Sorry.

I've got a misbehaving machine belonging to my wife and I'll be honest - I'm at the end of my tether with it.
Never have I owned a machine that just keeps on having problems - and I've been working with PC's and been "in the business" for 14 years or so now.
The machine has the following specification:

Antec Case with Antec 430w PSU
Gigabyte DS3 Rev. 3.3 Motherboard
Core2Duo E6400 (2.13Ghz) CPU
2GB DDR2 (GeIL Value DDR2 800Mhz 2x1GB)
POV 7800GTX 256MB PCIe Graphics Card
Onboard Realtek Audio
Onboard Marvel NIC
Seagate 7200.10 320GB Hard Drive
Samsung SH-W183 SATA CD/DVD-R/RW
Windows Vista Ultimate 32bit

Everything is running at stock, nothing at all is overclocked.
All the latest drivers are in use - have also tried previous driver releases in most cases, not using any beta or unofficial drivers.

As you can see there really isn't anything special about this machine.
Standard components, nothing overclocked.
Over the past few weeks I have replaced the following pieces of hardware in an attempt to find out what is causing the problem on the machine (above is the current specification, below are the items that have been replaced).

Generic case with generic 350w PSU
Intel DG965SS Motherboard (Micro ATX 965 Chipset)
2GB DDR2 (Kingston Value DDR2 800Mhz 2x1GB)
Pallit 7900GS 256MB PCIe Graphics Card
Creative X-Fi ExtremeMusic Soundcard
WD 200GB SATA Hard Drive
Pioneer DVD-109 PATA DVD/CD-R/RW

As you can see I have replaced almost every single hardware component with the exception of the Core2Duo inside the machine yet still have the same problem.
The symptom is basically:

She'll be just generally using the machine, iTunes will be playing some music, she'll be on Myspace online, she'll fire up a Flash game and BSOD, Stop error.
A reboot and she'll try the same again, this time it will be fine for 15-20 minutes and then out of nowhere, BSOD, Stop error.
Another time she'll be playing Flash games, be on Myspace and she'll launch iTunes, BSOD, Stop error.

The BSOD, Stop error does not list any module or file - it's simply a Stop code.
I've run the memory dump through the MS debugger and it lists the most likely file/module to cause this problem as being part of the Kernel.
It also lists IRQ1 as a possible problem - pointing at the CPU.
So this really leaves me with two options now - a total reinstall of the system, probably rolling her back to Windows XP for the time being and/or a CPU swap.
I'm less inclined to believe it is the CPU - in the 14+ years I've been working with computers I've seen maybe 3 or 4 faulty Intel CPU's and that is it.
However BSOD are rare since Windows 2000 days and in 99% of cases do point at a hardware fault rather than a software/OS (with the exception of bad drivers, however the BSOD/Stop isn't listing any modules, driver or otherwise, so it doesn't seem like a bad driver).
CPU swap is the most awkward as it means totally stripping the machine down to try the one I'm borrowing from work.
The system reinstall is just so damn annoying, having to reinstall everything etc.

So there is the situation.
I've got a machine that just continues to misbehave.
As you can see it has had most components replaced - basically the CPU is the only thing left to try.
It could be OS, application or driver.
As said above, everything is at stock and I've checked more than once for shorting issues, overheating or heatsinks not attached correctly etc.

Which out of CPU and OS would you try next if you were in this current situation?
Would you try something different I haven't looked into yet?
I've never had a machine that caused me so much hassle before and I've built a lot of machines over the years for myself, family members and friends.
Click to expand...

I get this a lot too, when on flash sites. Probably need to update Windows and update all my drivers.
 
I got a similar sort of problem, turned out to be not enough vcore - what's yours set to?

Also I would dual boot with XP, see if you can recreate
 
Do you have a minidump file from the crash you can post, the last 4-5 recent ones zipped up could help narrow down the problem.

Or you could try an interperate them yourself and download the Microsoft "Debugging Tools for Windows"

I'm new to this forum so dont know if you can attach downloads.
 
Paradiso said:
Do you have a minidump file from the crash you can post, the last 4-5 recent ones zipped up could help narrow down the problem.

Or you could try an interperate them yourself and download the Microsoft "Debugging Tools for Windows"

I'm new to this forum so dont know if you can attach downloads.
Click to expand...

I did actually use the MS debugging tool.
I haven't got the actual file name to hand which appeared under the "most likely cause" line.
However although it wasn't ntkernel it was something deeply rooted inside Windows.
It wasn't your usual NVidia, Creative Labs file causing the problem.
So although the debugging tool gave the impression it could well be the OS, I still cannot help feeling it is hardware at fault, but at the same time I just can't believe it is the CPU.

Memtest passed fine with the old Kingston memory installed, however I swapped it anyway to the GeIL value stuff and that too passes the tests.

I think I may give putting another HD in and installing XP on to that and seeing if I still have the same problems a go.
A totally clean XP install, latest Flash, iTunes, drivers all installed and see if we have the same problem - if so then we can definitely blame the hardware and then I'll swap the CPU over as that really is the only piece of hardware I'm yet to try swapping.
 
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