BSODs and ultra-slow boot

[tdbs]

Hello everybody,

I've recently been greated by BSODs from WinXP Pro, and had no luck in solving the problem.

It happens when launching almost all 3D application (including some games), and in SiSandra's Windows Video module. There is no specific message, and no filename. The code is 0x0000008e.

I've reinstalled WinXP Pro - even worse. Previously, the moving bar in the WinXP logo screen passed 7-9 times, now it goes 25-30 times. The system runs much slower and sometimes hangs.

I have removed and reinstalled video drivers, even swaped video cards (from Inno3D GeForce4 MX 440, to a Leadtek WinFast 340T GeForce FX 5200), no change. I exchanges memory modules, no change. I think it is an HDD problem, i will try swaping drives soon). I need the computer constantly for schoolwork, so formatting is a really last option.

I know for sure it is not a cooling issue - i have great ventilation.

My specs:
Pentium 4B 2.4 GHz (Northwood, 533 FSB)
GA8IE800 mobo (i845e)
2 ram sticks, 256mb each (PC2100).
Inno3D GeForce4 MX 440 OR Leadtek WinFast 340T
Enermax Dual fan 350W PSU (new unit)
generic floppy/CD ROM

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

[elroy]

I would try the following:
try the memory 1 stick at a time in case one is bad
run anti virus and adware/spyware scanners
run a registry cleaner

any chance you have installed an incorrect video driver?

[tdbs]

Thanks for replying,

and yes i have tried both ram sticks - same thing.

NAV 2003 reports no viruses, Adaware and Spybot came out clean, the Norton Utilities registry scan finds no errors.

Can the Page File setting be the cause (i now set it to "system managed")?

[tdbs]

some more info -

the HDD is a WD 60GB, 7200rpm, 2mb cache. I have tried several correct video drivers (the newest ones from nVIDIA, and the ones on the vid card CDs) - no change.

[johnnyis42]

have you looked int he event viewer at all for any specific error messages?

your 0x8e stop maessage should have some more info, at least 4 strings of 32 bit hex values. post any of them that seem really random and full of different things (the one or ones without a bunch of zeros in it) that will tell you which address range the device that has the problem or the problem driver falls into. usually it is an address in the PCI bus, but sometimes you will get lucky and it lands in the AGP buss's range and you will know where to look for problem.

a simple thing to look at, however, is to go into BIOS and start checking settings. disable anything that refers to shadowing, disable fast writes, force 4X AGP, make your memory timmings set "by SPD" and make sure all your voltages are set to auto and default. also, go ahead and disable any onboard devices that you don't use (parallel ports and serial ports usually).

you mentioned you suspect the HDD.... while you're in BIOS, go ahead and see if you can enable S.M.A.R.T. if you can, there's a good chance that the hard drive will send a message to windows through S.M.A.R.T. that it is about to fail (this has worked for me before on a western digital drive) lastly, make sure your mus mastering setting is enabled. for some wierd reason some motherboards have it disabled by default, and that can cause alot of congestion on the PCI buss as well as slow drive activity.

good luck!

[tdbs]

The event viewer does have the records of "system error", right where BSODs happened. Category 102, event 1003, user is N/A for some reason.
Parameter 1 was always c0000005. The rest of them (2nd-4th) changed, like:
(00000098, b63b6cc8, 00000000)
OR - (0000034d, b9392cc8, 00000000)
OR (0000006d, b9926cc8, 00000000).
Unfortunalelly, i dont know how to identify the device by those nums.
All my BIOS settings (memory timings, voltages etc) are at default, i never OC'd and dont plan to, the BSODs happened with an AGPx4 card in an AGPx4 slot, and with a x8 card in a x4 slot, @ x4.

As for SMART, my BIOS does not have the option for it, but programs like SpeedFan show near perfect numbers. Sandra on the other hand says SMART is not enabled...weird.

Event viewer also shows DCOM erros (i dont know what that is), and never seen them before (DCOM got error "The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it. " attempting to start the service SENS with arguments "" in order to run the server:
{D3938AB0-5B9D-11D1-8DD2-00AA004ABD5E}) ...
My PCI 56k modem (my only PCI device) has been there for ages, never had any trouble with it.

Thanks for the advice - i'll keep looking..

[johnnyis42]

it looks like the b9392cc8 address is you most likely lead.

bring up the start menu, then go to programs\accessories\system tools\ and click on the system information icon in there. from there expand the hardware resources list, and click on memory. it will take a second to refresh system information.

ok, now you have all the memory address range listings for all your hardware. look through there for a listing that has b9392cc8 in its range.

looking at my particular system, this memory address is within the PCI bus. this is probably the same for you because the way windows deals out these addresses is pretty standard. this is usually associated with failing hardware or corrupt driver or incorrect BIOS setting.... basically it could be alot of things. if you haven't already run a disk check at boot up with both additional options cheched for fixing bad sectors and recovering from errors, go ahead and try that as well.

you could also try the "simplest first" troubleshooting method, where you start out with only the essentials of motherboard, cpu, memory and video card and hard drive, remove or disable everything else and run the 3d app you know will BSOD your machien and see what happens. if everything goes fine then add or enable the additional hardware until the BSOD occurs again.

but, from what it sounds like the chances are that it is somewhere in your current windows installation or the main hardware components. all i can suggest there is some low level memory tests like "mem test" to ensure the memory is working, run a cpu benchmark to see if that causes a BSOD, and finally use sisoft sandra to run a hdd benchmark, see if that has any errors.

ok, we never discussed this, but have you updated your motherboard's chipset drivers? try that as well. i'll be optimistic here and say that this is likely a driver issue, and either you have some remnants of old video drivers causing this problem, or a conflict with a recently updated driver and an alder driver that needs to be updated. either way, there's some more suggestions, good luck!

[tdbs]

The memory addressing was a surprise:

0xA0000-0xBFFFF PCI bus
0xA0000-0xBFFFF Intel(R) 82845 Processor to AGP Controller - 1A31
0xA0000-0xBFFFF WinFast A340

I am no genius with hex nums, but all 3 of these ranges cover b9392cc8 , is that normal??????

I have run the disk error check (only for C:\).. no errors.

As for chipset drivers, the only thing Gigabyte has on their site is the intel app accelerator, which isn't a driver.. right?

I will try the simple troubleshooting and benchmarking.. just no time for that now.

Thanks.

[johnnyis42]

go to intel's site and download both the intel aplication accellerator and the chipset inf updates.

the intel aplication acellerator is the bundled IDE utility that had the intel IDE driver in it. no, the software is not a driver, but yes, it has the driver in it.

yes, this is normal because all of those addresses are shared because they all touch common busses. think of them as intersections on your motherboard, but in this case windows just needs to have them able to access eachother for the way their driver archetecture/Hardware Abstraction Layer works. often times when drivers are causing blue screens, it has to do with them not properly addressing these memory addresses correctly, and the really funny thing is that bios updates will also effect this situation. this would all be int he name of integration, and having all your pc peripherals being able to work right when you plug them in without having to go through 30 minutes of setup just to get windows to recognize them.

anyway, yeah, think about looking for a BIOS update too, and don't forget to look on intel's site for the drivers, not gigabyte.

[tdbs]

thanks you for your help johnnyis42,

I have downloaded both Intel app accelerator (2.3), and the inf thingy....
but i see that i already have the IAA installed on my system (almost same version), should i remove the old one and then install the new one?

and i do have the BIOS update downloaded.. but i read that those things can screw up a system so bad, the entire board may need to be replaced, so i won't risk that for now....

tdbs.