Blue Screen Of Death!?

D

Doctor Varney

Cave dwelling Luddite
What would you say is the most likely cause? My internet computer, which is quad core AMD Phenom with 3GB RAM & Windows XP Professional blue screens every time I turn it off, after just a little bit of ordinary surfing or office work. I have to keep the power switch on the front depressed for a while to get it to power off or pull the plug. I cannot understand most of what it says on this screen, except "Beginning dump of physical memory". It's the same machine which kept rejecting my E-MU sound card, which works fine in other systems. Could this be a RAM failure? I'm rather concerned, because this is my highest specced system so far and was supposed to be 'the nuts'. Yet it vomits and has a blue fit, after a few menial tasks. :(
 
Something tells me you might get a few more answers if you had posted this in the Computers section.. But maybe one of the mods will move it for ya, who knows.

I must say however, you've gotta be one of the most un-lucky guys I've heard of when it comes to computers... :D
But I really do feel bad for all the crap that keeps happening to you with this.
 
Ah well, I have my health, a beautiful girlfriend and wonderful family. Computers ain't everything. And yes, I'm really sorry for posting this in the wrong section. Could have sworn I was in the Digital section.
 
Thread moved.

It must be your kiss of death at work.

Has it just started doing this. or has it been doing it forever?
 
gecko zzed said:
Thread moved.

It must be your kiss of death at work.

Has it just started doing this. or has it been doing it forever?
Click to expand...

Thanks! And sorry about the inconvenience.

I guess it started doing this after I removed the sound card. Though it's done this once or twice before. Now it is regular. Every single time I power down. I'm just uninstalling the sound card drivers now, to see if that will make a difference.
 
Well, yes and no. I pull/ pushed the sound card when it stopped working to check the connections and reinstalled it, then it stopped again for no apparent reason. So I've pulled it and put it in an older machine, in which it worked fine before. If the sound card stops in other machine, then I know the card is at fault. Except that machine has developed a problem with it's OS and I haven't had time to address it yet.

I don't think this quad core machine has been quite right since the day I had it. I need to speak to the builder - but first I'm going to remove a few things I don't need. Get it into safe mode and strip it down to see if it's not a software problem. But there shouldn't be anything wrong there, as I have run the same software and OS on other machines without them blue screening like this.

The blue screen actually says it could be a fault with hardware or software that you installed recently, so that's all I can think to try at the moment.

The girlfriend's laptop is working nicely by the way. Since the memory was changed, it's been perfect. It's using provisional RAM the shop owner gave us while the new Kingston RAM is being ordered. I'm calling in for that tomorrow.
 
Hey Varney.
Reseat that soundcard, or try it in a different slot.

With you computer's track record, that'd be where I'd look first.
 
The BSoD means there's a hardware issue somewhere. Something in your computer isn't happy. You may want to swap the hard drive to a different tower and see if you can still boot from the drive. If you can't, the hard drive is to blame. That'd at least be a good first step.
 
Thank you!

Question though. If I swap the system drive into another tower, then won't there be problems related to the motherboard drivers, etc? Could it cause big registry problems?

Thing is, it boots up alright. Runs smoothly... then blue screens only when I try to power it down.
 
Yeah, pulling a working m$ system drive from one machine and trying to boot from it in another machine is a recipe for BSOD.
I'd leave that.


First rule of BSOD - Undo whatever you just did.
That could be installing a program, a driver, removing a sound card.....anything.
 
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Not sure what happened there. Posts came in out of sync.

Doctor Varney said:
Thing is, it boots up alright. Runs smoothly... then blue screens only when I try to power it down.
Click to expand...

Oh, I see!
It's very likely to be a software thing then.


Could you find and publish your DMP file?
Google will tell you how.
 
Steenamaroo said:
Yeah, I know, but put it back in to see if the machine will boot.
If it boots, properly remove the sound card in device manager, shut down, then physically remove it.
Click to expand...

Oh! See what you mean now! If I didn't remove it 'properly' but just 'pulled it out' I suppose that means the machine is looking for it. Why didn't I think of that?! Thanks for that, Steen. That's the very next thing I'm going to do.

Cheers

Dr. V
 
Arcaxis. I haven't run degrag for a few weeks but then never do, as it always seems to just sit there and do nothing. A lot of people have told me Windows defragger is crap and to use a third party one. I usually just reformat a drive when it runs slowly. I'll do what you suggest and look in the events manager. Thanks!

Cheers

Dr. V
 
Doctor Varney said:
Oh! See what you mean now! If I didn't remove it 'properly' but just 'pulled it out' I suppose that means the machine is looking for it. Why didn't I think of that?!
Click to expand...

That's what I'm hoping. ;)
It'd do no harm to refit it, uninstall it from device manager, remove any software that came with it, then shutdown.

Arcaxis gave some great advice there too.

If neither work out for you, find those mididump (DMP) files.
I'm a bit behind on windows though. Event viewer may well hold the same info.
 
DrumRookie said:

I must say however, you've gotta be one of the most un-lucky guys I've heard of when it comes to computers... :D
But I really do feel bad for all the crap that keeps happening to you with this.
Click to expand...



:p I know! I too feel bad for ya Dr. V.

I would have already taken that computer out behind the shed and done away with it.
 
YES! Put it right out of it's misery.

I liked this quote further down the page .....
*mmmmm absorb that fresh sweet smell of radioactive phosphorous dust!*
 
I followed your suggestion in post #15 and noticed that I had a few old programs running in the back ground.

Uninstalled those right away. ;)
 
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