Random BSOD's

  • Thread starter Thread starter Healey
  • Start date Start date
H

Healey

Up until a few weeks ago, I had a happy computer..
Then, one day it crashed, and after resetting a few bios
settings (bus speed) it had lost, XP started again without
error.
However, since then It has been BSOD regulary - I've done
a repair install, uninstalled / reinstalled my video &
audio drivers, disabled caching of the ram in the bios,
yet the problem remains.... I get:
"The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck
was: 0x000000d1 (0x00000000, 0x000000ff, 0x00000000,
0x0012f44a). A dump was saved in: C:\WINDOWS\MEMORY.DMP"
So, from what I can find on Google / MS, it's a bad
driver..
I convert the 12f44a to decimal to get the memory
address, but when I do a pstat to find the offending
driver for the load address, I come up blank...

Any ideas, would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks!
 
Thanks for this,

But I'd still like to know how to determine which driver
is trying to incorrectly access memory.
Does someone know?

Thanks!
 
You can set up a kernel debugger and be able to determine what the offending
module is. If not you can try to load the .dmp files into a user debugger
like WinDBG and try to determine what made the call to the bad address.
There is a lot to learn but this site should get you going as far as tools
and documentation.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/ddk/debugging/

Joshua Smith
DirectInput and OpenGL Test Labs
Microsoft
-----

Get Secure! www.microsoft.com/security

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights
 
Healey said:
Up until a few weeks ago, I had a happy computer..
Then, one day it crashed, and after resetting a few bios
settings (bus speed) it had lost, XP started again without
error.
However, since then It has been BSOD regulary - I've done
a repair install, uninstalled / reinstalled my video &
audio drivers, disabled caching of the ram in the bios,
yet the problem remains.... I get:
"The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck
was: 0x000000d1 (0x00000000, 0x000000ff, 0x00000000,
0x0012f44a). A dump was saved in: C:\WINDOWS\MEMORY.DMP"
So, from what I can find on Google / MS, it's a bad
driver..
I convert the 12f44a to decimal to get the memory
address, but when I do a pstat to find the offending
driver for the load address, I come up blank...

Any ideas, would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

May be it is a good idea to run a comprehensive memory test first. For a
good tool, try http://www.memtest86.com/

E.P.
 
If the failure is due to a hardware problem like a power supply or heat
problem, you won't get anything interesting from the crash dump files.
It'll just be random failures.

So if you load all the dump files (one by one) in %windir%\minidump into
windbg and the stack for each crash looks different, the probability of a
hardware problem goes way up. On the other hand, if all the dump files show
the same stack trace for the failure, a software problem is more likely.

But if your not familiar with debugging, this will be a lot of work. The
first and easiest thing I would do is clean out the dust from the machine,
check the fans, and possibly add an external fan. The next step is to run
hardware diagnostics (memory, disk, etc), and if the problem is not resolved
yet, then I'd spend time looking at the dump files for a pattern. Replacing
hardware in the box should be a last resort...

-Andre
 
Back
Top