crash out of the blue (screen of death)

Well, there are a couple of topics here about this particular BSOD but every situation is different so I'll explain mine and update with progress in case it helps anyone else or if anyone else has advice on the best approach to take.

The system has been stable for some time but today while working in Excel I got an IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL 0A BSOD, rebooted and within 5 minutes got SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION 3B BSOD and now getting this repeatedly.

My best guess right now is that a stick of RAM has failed so have removed all but one 2GB stick and no crashes so far - will run some memory tests on each stick in turn tomorrow. I really hope that's all it is (& I can get it replaced under warranty!) and it's not a mobo fault. The BIOS did go into recovery mode when I tried to enter it, that's okay now but the raid 5 array is re-initialising as a result . The auto memory timings have never matched the spd (slower) but that never bothered me but I think I'll manually set to the stated timings of 4-4-4-12 depending on what the tests reveal.

Only real SW change apart from usual MS updates is I installed VMC TV Pack and USB wifi adapter a few days ago but I'd have expected to see this sooner if that was the cause. From what I've read a 3B is more likely hardware anyway?

So, any advice would be appreciated and a link to a memtest iso would be great - I'm busy backing up what data I can right now.

Cheers,

Marv

Here is the link for memtest

http://www.memtest.org/download/2.01/memtest86+-2.01.iso.zip

Thanks mansrm81,

Have downloaded ISO for memtest86 and memtest86+ but neither will boot on my system It boots okay and runs tests fine on my laptop (the machine I used to burn the CD image) but just sits at "Loading.................." on the problem PC!

It's definitely reading the CD otherwise it wouldn't get to loading... So I'm stumped. Must be some incompatibility with the chipset perhaps? or could be dual screens - will try now with just one.

Anyway, the system is at least stable on the one stick of 2GB so will have to make do with that for now

Cheers,

Marv

Crucial Ballistix PC6400 CL4 RAM with a Gibabyte GAEP35DS4 Board and an E8400 Core 2 Duo did not get along in a system I built for someone.

First I had the Ballistix PC8500 / 1066Mhz 2G kit in it. It would not run stable @ 1066Mhz, so I down graded the memory to the PC6400 / 800Mhz 2G kit with which it ran fine for about 2 months then began exhibiting random blue screen crashes. Even when the system sat idle, the owner would come back to the unit looking at a BSOD.

I had to run MemTest over night before I could get the memory to finally fail, but fail it did.

When I took the defective memory back, I decided to try a different brand since Crucial's memory had failed twice. Even tweaking up the RAM voltage to Crucial spec and manually setting timings didn't help. It was time to try something different.

Since I put the PC6400 series Patriot brand memory in it 5 months ago, it has run fine.

After torturing the box with Prime95 for a couple of hours to warm it up, I ran MemTest on the Patriot memory for over 24 solid hours with no problems before I returned the unit to it's owner. They have not had any more problems.

Just my experience for what it's worth.

Jim R said:

Just my experience for what it's worth.

Click to expand...

That's good information thanks. I've managed to get the Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool to work, still no idea why the others wouldn't but at least I can test now.

I've always used Corsair in the past and only went for Crucial because it was on the QVL might try Patriot though based on your experiences. Now to test each stick and find the faulty one!

Cheers,

Marv

MemTest 2.01+ should run on that P35 chipset. It ran on the subject machine I had the RAM problems with.

Perhaps with that system running OK with the one 2G stick, you could burn the MemTest iso on a CD with the target system. If then Memtest still does not run in the target machine with the one 2G stick, I'd say you have another issue with that build.

Just my humble opinion.

The fact that WMD (I'm sure they came up with that acronym on purpose ) runs I'm inclined to think that the CD-RW of the memtest iso is okay but will burn from target machine to be sure, will test each with WMD first though.

I really hope it's not a motherboard issue, they're much harder to prove when asking for a warranty replacement, plus it means completely rebuilding the system

Cheers,

Marv

Well, the system has been running fine on 1 stick of 2gb for a while, I did try 2x2 in dual channel but after a while another BSOD

I'm really kind of stuck with not being able to run any DOS based diag tools

Latest is that a drive has failed (in a raid5 array) so I've moved it to a spare port to test with SeaTools (another DOS based diag tool from boot CD) but SeaTools won't boot from CD either, just displays "FreeDOS" and goes no further.

I need a sanity check please, is there something in the BIOS that I'm overlooking that could possibly stop DOS from loading like this?

It's not that far fetched to have both a memory fault and a drive failure but I'd really like to have confidence that the mobo is at least sound.

Any help appreciated.

Marv.