Random Freezes and boot errors

Hey,

 

I am encountering some very strange and fruhstrating problems with my computer and I was wondering if anyone could help me out. It gets quite complicated so I will explain the problems that I am currently having and how I've got to this stage.

 

First heres my computer specs -

 

Cooler Master 690 Case

Corsair TX850 watt

ASUS Crosshair III Motherboard

AMD Phenom 2 Quad core 3.2ghz

Corsair DDR3 1333mhz 2x4GB

Nvidia Geforce 260 GTX

Sound Blaster X-FI Sound Card

80GB Sata Drive (Primary with OS)

1TB Sata Drive (Storage Drive, no OS)

External 750GB (Storage Drive)

Windows XP home 32bit SP3

 

Basically over the past week or so I've been having random freezes during start up. For example what happens most of the time is that the computer will load up the OS, I will enter my password and it will then load. I can see all the icons and the start menu. If I decided to open my computer it will do so and I can use windows explorer to see data on my drives, however If I try and execute an application or enter Hard drive management via right clicking on my computer the loading symbol will appear but nothing will load up. I also cannot use the startup, shut down function it wont execute.

 

Sometimes, but on more rare occasions the computer will freeze on the windows login screen where I enter my password and on even rarer occassions when I turn on my computer it will keep trying to start up but stop and then try again. I can hear everything trying to power up (fans etc) but it keeps stopping then starting again.

 

First I tried to remove all unwanted applications in windows and remove as many applications from msconfig startup but had no joy.

 

The next thing I tried which is the weird bit was the memtest86. When executing memtest86 with both memory sticks in the program would crash at 49% at the beginning of the test. This made me think that It could be a memory issue. I then clicked option 3 of memtest86 to run an older version and it got to the same percent but said "Error - haulted". Something along those lines.

 

So I next decided to test each stick heres one what happened (Theres 4 banks on my motherboard, I ran each test for 5 minutes)

 

Stick 1, Bank 1 - ran fine with no errors for 5 minutes

Stick 1, Bank 2 - ran fine with no errors for 5 minutes

Sitck 2, Bank 1 - ran fine with no errors for 5 minutes

Stick 2, Bank 2 - ran fine with no errors for 5 minutes

 

As I haven't been using banks 3 and 4 I saw no reason to test them. I then put both sticks back in banks 1 and 2 and the test continued to crash after about 20 seconds at the same 49%. I then put both sticks in banks 3 and 4 and the test still crashed at 49%.

 

How very odd is this? memtest86 doesn't like the two sticks in my computer together.

 

 

The reason this gets complicated is because I've been having an endless chain of problems with my computer over the last 3-4 months. Initially I was getting blue screens and after lots of testing I managed to isolate the problem. It was my ram which was also corsair (the same model as which I have now) so i contacted corsair and had it replaced under warranty. Shortly after my hard drive started ticking which was a 400gb samsung spin point so I sent that off for warranty replacement. That hard drive has been gone for 3 weeks and I'm still waiting for a replacement. In the mean time I installed the 80gb and put XP on it to find that I'm still having problems.

 

I've been getting freezes, blue screens and all sorts for ages and its been because of different problems so I'm finding it extremely difficult to indentify what the problem is now.

 

I'm currently testing each individual stick. I've had 1 stick in and it booted up twice in a row fine. However it seems that If I leave my computer powered down for some time then the problem is more likely to happen.

 

If anybody has any advice I would be extremely grateful!

 

James

Please include your current memory timings. You'll definitely want to include those so others may properly assist you.

 

My issue was similar to yours and may be resolved now thanks to a member of this forum. It was suggested that I change my command rate from 1T to 2T. It's only been a couple of days, but so far, so good.

Hey guys,

 

Okay well I've recently tried something else to make sure it wasn't XP. I've installed a third hard drive with Windows 7. Everything was fine few a few days and I've installed and started playing a couple of different games (Battlefield Bad Company 2 and World of Warcraft). Both are blue screening at random times). I remember one of the error messages in wows bluescreen was "DXGMMS" . However this messages vary, sometimes i get Memory_management.

 

How do I find out the timmings? I just put the ram in and use it as it is so if I tell you the model number does that help? I'll pull it out and have alook. I'll also try a newer version of Memtest and let you know what happens.

The test crashes at 49% of test 1 Everytime time in the latest version of Memtest. It doesnt give a reason the computer just resets itself. These is as I explained previously in my first post. Each individual stick runs the memtest fine in every slot on my motherboard. But as soon as I put them in together to test crashes at the same place.

Okay I heres my ram -

 

2 x Corsair CM3x2G133C9 1.50V V2.2

Just tried reseting Bios to default settings. Still no prevail. I got a BSOD in bad company 2 after about 10 minutes. This time the error message was Page_fault_in_no_paged_area

Okay I apologise I have downloaded the ACTUAL latest version of memtest86. I've been running it for 30 minutes and its found no errors (currently on test 8). So the memory isn't faulty I dont think.

I doing a system restore, windows booted up fine, ran bf bc2 again and it crashed with BSWOD Memory_management error. It then started BSOD when trying to load windows. I switched off the machine, switched it back on again and its now back in the OS. What the hell is going on?

Update****

 

I've tried doing a windows file checker scan, It reboots and begins the check normally... but it blue screened on part 3

Woops I mean stage 4 verifying file data

Okay I'll give it ago leave it running tonight. Its very odd, I had my pc working fine with no crashes between about 3pm and 11:30pm. I had battlefield on for an hour and a half, then played world of warcraft for several hours later and it was fine.

 

I was starting to think windows was corrupt as prior to doing this I attempted a disk cleanup and repair (which crashed a couple of times) after I finally completed the test it seemed fine and ran all night.

 

I've just turned on my computer this morning booted up wow and 10minutes after playing i recieved the dreaded BSOD message with "Dxgmms1.sys".

 

It automatically rebooted, got into the windows screen where I am to enter my password and after I hit enter it started loading and froze.

 

Then I turned my computer off for 5 seconds, back on and it froze at BIOS. The LCD Poster that came with my motherboard was frozen at "Init-Rom".

 

I Switched it off and booted it again, this time it froze at ""Check CPU".

 

I then switched off the power switch on the PSU for 10-15 seconds booted and now I'm back in windows. This is making it really hard to pin-point what the problem actually is. I did update my bios fairly recently so I'll also try rolling back that.

Okay so heres whats happening to date.

 

Since I last posted, a couple of days ago I turned on my pc and executed a Battlefield Bad Company 2 to find that the BSOD occurred 10 or 15 minutes into it.

 

I decided to test the memory modules individually, I found that the blue screen messages no longer appeared (No matter which memory stick or which slot I used) but then strangely enough I put them both back in and it was running fine no blue screens. I had also switched the CPU fan around which is located near the memory. It now blows away from the motherboard.

 

I also achieved 3 passess in Memtest so it seems that the memory is fine.

 

I thought this may have fixed, however days later the blue screen has happened again, about 10 minutes ago in World of Warcraft.

 

I can't think what left to try. Here is the Windows error report from the last crash. -

 

EventID 41

 

Version 2

 

Level 1

 

Task 63

 

Opcode 0

 

Keywords 0x8000000000000002

 

- TimeCreated

 

[ SystemTime] 2010-07-22T19:49:55.067611400Z

 

EventRecordID 11392

 

Correlation

 

- Execution

 

[ ProcessID] 4

[ ThreadID] 8

 

Channel System

 

Computer JamesMazur-PC

 

- Security

 

[ UserID] S-1-5-18

 

 

- EventData

 

BugcheckCode 59

BugcheckParameter1 0xc0000005

BugcheckParameter2 0xfffff80002aac7a9

BugcheckParameter3 0xfffff88005f9dc60

BugcheckParameter4 0x0

SleepInProgress false

PowerButtonTimestamp 0

 

 

EventSourceName] BugCheck

 

- EventID 1001

 

[ Qualifiers] 16384

 

Version 0

 

Level 2

 

Task 0

 

Opcode 0

 

Keywords 0x80000000000000

 

- TimeCreated

 

[ SystemTime] 2010-07-22T19:50:05.000000000Z

 

EventRecordID 11415

 

Correlation

 

- Execution

 

[ ProcessID] 0

[ ThreadID] 0

 

Channel System

 

Computer JamesMazur-PC

 

Security

 

 

- EventData

 

param1 0x0000003b (0x00000000c0000005, 0xfffff80002aac7a9, 0xfffff88005f9dc60, 0x0000000000000000)

param2 C:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP

param3

Okay, I've set the Dram Voltage to 1.6. It was currently set to auto (operating around 1.5-1.54)

 

I didn't want to start playing with the other power options and it seems to have booted fine with the changes I've already made. I'll test it out today and see if it works. I'll let you know the results, thanks ramguy!

I also increased the CPU/NB voltage by 0.1 . I think it was sat on auto at 1.1 and I increased it to 1.2. Again I'll let you know the results!

Hmmm another BSOD happened this morning, they do seem to have been less frequent since I took the memory out and tested them individiually and increased the voltage. Maybe I should increase it some more? I dont want to blow anything up though :|

I've increased the voltage going to the NB/CPU by an additional 0.05. So it now sits at 1.25 and its booted fine. I'll post the results

Okay still no luck it BSOD again in wow. I've increased the voltage slightly again to 1.22.

 

Heres the last BSOD windows report if its of any use! -

 

Problem signature:

Problem Event Name: BlueScreen

OS Version: 6.1.7600.2.0.0.768.3

Locale ID: 2057

 

Additional information about the problem:

BCCode: 1000007e

BCP1: FFFFFFFFC0000005

BCP2: FFFFF88003F82A5C

BCP3: FFFFF88004FCD6D8

BCP4: FFFFF88004FCCF40

OS Version: 6_1_7600

Service Pack: 0_0

Product: 768_1

 

Files that help describe the problem:

C:\Windows\Minidump\072410-16083-01.dmp

C:\Users\James Mazur\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-30513-0.sysdata.xm

It seems that increasing the voltage was no help, I've had two BSOD events tonight in world of warcraft. After the second one windows failed to boot and the following error message appeared

 

"The file header checksum does not match the computed checksum""

 

I then reset the computer and it booted fine.

I've noticed that It can occur once or twice in a couple of hours then afterwards It will run fine for the rest of the day.

Hey Ramguy,

 

Thanks for the reply, since I last posted I've tried installing a brand new hard drive with a fresh copy of Windows 7. tried Starcraft 2 Wings of liberty and it played fine all night. I booted up my computer started playing it again this morning and the same BSOD again!

 

If I could please send the memory back under warranty again that would be great.... Do I just need to set up an RMA form?