Desperate, Blue Screen Bootup Suspect Driver but No Idea What Doin.......

**devsah** · #1 1st Jul 2009, 04:49

Desperate, Blue Screen Bootup Suspect Driver but No Idea What Doin....... Im a computer user for sure but hardware & maintenance I suck at badly. But my computer has been blue screening badly and seems to be getting worse, she just came back from the shop and got hardware tested for the second time and yet everything they said was fine....

So once i got it up i installed everything on it thinking it would settle and no it hasnt. I keep getting different errors and its really driving me nuts....

Can anyone help me in trying to isolate the issue.....

Apologies put this accidentally in the software area and not sure how to remove

**philthomas** · #2 1st Jul 2009, 05:21

We need to know the exact error messages and what Operating System, to be able to help you.

When you say the shop tested the hardware, what did they test and what shop ?

Also when you say , you "got it up i installed everything on it thinking it would settle" .... are you saying you reinstalled Windows ? ..... or ?

The more info you provide, the more likelly someone will be able to help

**devsah** · #3 1st Jul 2009, 05:42

Okay sorry i hadnt put the details yet cause i wasnt sure who would respond or what they would want, here is the history.....

The parts are about 10 months old now she has a 9600gso graphics card on a P5n - MX motherboard. But she was constantly blue screening and as i didnt know how to freeze the screens initially didnt see the messages.

So i returned her to the repair area of austins to be checked out, one problem was there was a bios update and i know not to toy with it if you dont know what your doing. They apparently Prime95 and i think memtest 86 and stress tested the board and they said it never blue screened or played up while there. So i brought it back home again.....

Once connected she was reminding exactly why i dont like her....and continued......initially DRIVER IRQL errors and some page fault in a non-paged area and IRQL.

It had windows XP professional sp3 on it, (had been installed 4 times before going into the shop - last one a few days before)....put all the software on unsure if this would affect the drivers......then found the graphics driver and installed it.

once up it will only freeze at random, it is only overnight or morning she will blue screen to death, todays messages were a combination of page fault in a non paged area & nv4_mini.sys. After the first install all it would say was NTFS error in the event logg and thats about it and plug play manager.....

Hope this helps more.....

**philthomas** · #4 1st Jul 2009, 07:56

OK ... you didn't mention whether you have 1 or 2 sticks of Ram, but assuming 2, try removing one stick and see if this helps the problem ..... if no better swap them around, keeping to just one stick.

Also ... check for dirt and gunge around the heatsink & fan, although your repair guy should have done this.

**devsah** · #5 1st Jul 2009, 08:12

umm okay i have 2 sticks of Ram @ 1GB each, i thought it was two but they have been pulled out checked and okayed with the directions of a pootah mate of mine the other day.

umm not sure about the heatsink n fan but the repair people had it open and i assume they checked that as well, as im not sure what im lookin for there.....

**philthomas** · #6 1st Jul 2009, 09:07

Well .... it's a process of elimination really ..... sometimes bad Ram can cause the sort of problems you have, so it's better to remove it than just software test it.
Get your friend to help you and see how things go.

**devsah** · #7 1st Jul 2009, 19:00

They did say they tested it at Austins and it was fine, should I be retesting? and if so do i use the memtest 86 as i think thats what they used?.....

**devsah** · #8 1st Jul 2009, 21:51

Apologies for not putting the specs earlier as i took them to work and couldnt access from my home computer.

Attached is the list of what is in the new girl......

**philthomas** · #9 2nd Jul 2009, 00:28

As I said, try removing one stick of Ram and see if this helps the problem ..... if no better swap them around, keeping to just one stick.

Memory testers are not fullproof, but if you have either a bad stick or incompatible stick, removing a stick and swapping them, will show it up.

**devsah** · #10 2nd Jul 2009, 01:55

okay....umm yes I booted up with each set of RAM and it was fine, did that mostly because my friend and I thought we brought 4GB not 2GB kit and we were wrong. But no problems with booting on them.

Will however switch them around tonight and see how I go.......

Also i'm curious if reformating and hardware checks isnt picking up the issue and two different shops have tested the hardware, could it be a driver or cable thats currently connected to the computer.

The monitor is an old style but with a pin converter on it to connect to the board, then there is modem, keyboard & mouse and of course power.

I will rebackup again incase of crash or reformat again and since i turned off windows updates thinking it was the issue i will return those back on and see what happens and get back to you with the results of the RAM.

Also a note to keep in mind, once the computer is finally up and running she rarely blue screens again, even if restarted or turned of briefly, it only occurs when left over night or when i get home from work, so she has to be shut down for some length of time before it will repeat. Once up it will only lock n freeze everything on the odd occasion.