Stop Errors - totally stumped

valve90210

valve90210

valve90210

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17 Jan 2006
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Hi All

Fairly recently my computer at work was replaced with a new one. I asked nicely and was allowed to take the old computer home.

The spec is rather aging but it did me fine at work and if I can get it working again will be perfect for some multiplayer Halflife. The speci is:
AMD 1300+
Asus A7V333 motherboard
128MB Ram PC2700 (IIRC)
100GB HDD
Geforce 4 Ti Ultra
USB2 PCI card


It was running ok at work though did suffer from crashes at times (thought to be temperature related as it tended to happen on days when the office was really really hot.

Other than that it was running nice.

I decided to start from scratch with it so I formatted the HDD and installed an Nlited version of XP Pro. Which all seemed to go fine. The computer booted up fine and was working perfectly. Installed Steam, and downloaded Halflife and counterstrike, and played a few games of Halflife Death match against my girlfriend.

However, it has suddenly died on me!!!

I was investigating a slight problem I was having with counterstrike, the other evening when all of a sudden windows disappeared and became a stop error window. It mentioned something about an IRQ something being less than equal Or something like that.

I rebooted in the hope that it would be ok but when it got into windows it immediately came up with another stop error, this time mentioning invalid paging are or something along those lines.

From then on I was unable to load it into windows, so I’ve not be able to run any software to check for problems.

I checked out the error code on the Microsoft tech support site and it mentioned that it might be driver related.

I figured I’d try to reinstall windows and make sure all the drivers were correct.

After trying several different versions of XP I finally managed to get it installed. It was installing from disk and took a good 45mins or so do and didn’t have any problems in doing so.

It seemed to boot into windows ok. However, as soon as I clicked on my computer I got a stop error again.

I am totally stumped where to go from here cos I really don’t know what the problem is, and my technical knowledge of computers is pretty much exhausted.

I can’t get into windows to do anything like install drivers incase that is the problem. I can’t run anything to check windows for errors, or to check memory for errors or anything.

I figure it’s not a temperature related thing because it was fine for the whole time it was installing windows and I’d have thought that if it was over heating, it would have done so in that time.

What could be causing the problem? Could it be the hard drive failing? Of might it be the Memory is dying? What else could it be?

Is there any software that I could run from a CD to check the memory and hard disk without having to go into windows as that seems to be when I have the problems.

Does anyone have any ideas/thoughts or suggestions etc???

Any help much appreciated!!!

Valve
 
I dont think its a HDD problem really... run MemTest first and let me know the results, we can go from there

Stelly
 
Just running Memtest now.

Have had it on for about 40mins now. Test 1 started and went by very fast, with 152 errors. Then it stayed at that for a while but in the last minute or 2 it's gone mad with errors on several test, 4, 6, 7, 8 and it's gone up to 16384

I guess that means the memory is dead right??

Valve
 
In the words of the Monty Python Dead Parrot sketch:

"This Dimm is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! This is a late DIMM! It's a stiff, bereft of life! It rests in peace, if you hadn't kept using it in your PC it would be pushing up the daisies! ...This... is an X-DIMM!!!"

:)
 
valve90210 said:
Just running Memtest now.

Have had it on for about 40mins now. Test 1 started and went by very fast, with 152 errors. Then it stayed at that for a while but in the last minute or 2 it's gone mad with errors on several test, 4, 6, 7, 8 and it's gone up to 16384

I guess that means the memory is dead right??

Valve
Click to expand...

if the memory is set up correctly then yes


check your memory settings first
then check each stick singly
also check diffrent ram ports

this illiminates it being a motherboard problem
 
Funnily enough, I left the test running all evening, and for about 5 hours after having produced those 16384 errors, there were no more for the rest of the evening....

I only have the one stick of ram. Will I be able to check it in different ports on the mother board or will it require it to be in the first slot to work?

Valve
 
Yes try different port on the motherboard also see if you can reduce the RAM speed to PC2100 and loosen timings to 3-4-4-8 in BIOS then run the test again.
 
Annoyingly. I stuck memtest on again this evening without having changed anything. Ran it for 3 hours, then rebooted and tried again for a further 45 mins. And no errors at all!!!

Booted into windows with no problem and in fact I'm posting from the ill copmuter now.

I don't quite understand now what I should do. Is my memory dead, or suffering an intermitent fault (cam this happen with memory?) if this is not the problem, what else might it be?

What should be my next step???

Valve
 
valve90210 said:
Annoyingly. I stuck memtest on again this evening without having changed anything. Ran it for 3 hours, then rebooted and tried again for a further 45 mins. And no errors at all!!!

Booted into windows with no problem and in fact I'm posting from the ill copmuter now.

I don't quite understand now what I should do. Is my memory dead, or suffering an intermitent fault (cam this happen with memory?) if this is not the problem, what else might it be?

What should be my next step???

Valve
Click to expand...

It could be an intermittent fault in any number of places, actually my suspicions would start to lean toward the PSU, which in my mind would go partway to explaining the intermittency (is that a word? :P ) of the problem.

That said, I'd suggest stripping it down, cleaning all connectors where practical/possible etc, and reseating all DIMM's/cards etc. and then testing again. I'd stress it as hard as I can then (e.g. CPU, memory, vid card etc). With a bit of luck a good cleanout followed by rebuilding might either fix whatever's ailing it (if it's perhaps just a poor connection somewhere) or bring whatever's wrong more to the fore to allow you to troubleshoot it properly.
 
Thing is, this si my old work computer. It was crashing from time to time for the last year or so. The IT department had a good look at it, to see what what causing it but couldn't find anything. They stuck a brand new PSU in, so I'm fairly certain that part is ok.

I have switched it on again this morning and it seems fine again.

WHen I had it at work, when it crashed, it would literally just die on me and restart itself. Could it be that the computer is still crashing for the same reason but now settings are such that it stops and throws up an error message rather than restarting?

Valve
 
valve90210 said:
<snip>The IT department had a good look at it, to see what what causing it but couldn't find anything. <snip>

WHen I had it at work, when it crashed, it would literally just die on me and restart itself. Could it be that the computer is still crashing for the same reason but now settings are such that it stops and throws up an error message rather than restarting?
Click to expand...

That could be because the IT bods changed one of the Startup and Recovery settings to try and find the problem. There's an option under System Failure that will either make the system restart if it gets its knickers in a twist, or if this option isn't selected it just throws up a stop error message.
 
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