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View Full Version : Blue Screen of Death!

andrewl
Jan 15th 2009, 07:47 PM
I'm kinda bored at the moment so i thought i would share a frustrating computer experience.

So back in April i decided to upgrade. (my home computer is pretty much for gaming, music, movies and internet). I went pretty much high end. Best video card, quad core, 2GB RAM, etc..

On Christmas eve i go to log into my computer and the keyboard is not working. i reboot. still not working. (mouse was actually plugged into the keyboard usb hub and worked fine). I go to my laptop and remote desktop into my computer, and notice that the a USB controller in the device manager has the yellow exclamation marks. I didn't know if this was normal for remote desktop or not but decided to try and update those drivers. Driver update failed and keyboard still did not work.

So i reinstall the operating system. Soon after the install i get the dreaded blue screen. So i re-installed again (thats about all i know how to do when it comes to fixing major problems with my PC). And soon after, i got the blue screen again.

I kept getting the blue screen intermittently for days, usually after idling for awhile, but not always.

I decided to try a different HDD. Still had the same problem. I decided to unplug all my peripherals except keyboard and mouse. Still got the blue screen.

I did a memtest on the RAM for a dozen or so passes. Everything passed fine, but I still got the blue screens intermittently.

Removed my audigy 2 sound card. Still got the blue screens.

I unhooked my computer and hooked up my old computer with all the same peripherals. No problems at all.

I finally decided to bring my computer into the shop and wouldn't you know it? They could not reproduce the problems. They did all the hardware tests and let my computer run idle for 48hrs. No blue screens. They even said my computer runs beautifully.

So i brought my computer home and it has run fine for 2 days, no problems.

What the f***? Im really confused as to what the problem was and why the problem all of a sudden vanished. Im now constantly waiting for it to blue screen, which is very agitating.

Anybody else ever have a problem like this?

Andrew
drgoodtrips
Jan 15th 2009, 08:07 PM
It could be a shady connection between the hard drive and motherboard or RAM and motherboard or something like that. I've fixed "unfixable" problems before by taking the thing apart, unplugging all IDE and power cables, and just plugging them back in.
andrewl
Jan 15th 2009, 09:13 PM
It could be a shady connection between the hard drive and motherboard or RAM and motherboard or something like that. I've fixed "unfixable" problems before by taking the thing apart, unplugging all IDE and power cables, and just plugging them back in.


I'm even wondering if just the act of moving the computer 'jostled' something back into place...

Andrew
Dominick
Jan 15th 2009, 09:26 PM
What the Doc said.
Though it could also be a fan that's not working properly. I've seen computers do the craziest things when overheating. And particularly the fans of certain graphical cards are just rubbish.

Incidentally, last night I had my first BSOD on my Vista. Shouldn't have said that I wasn't too critical about it :rolleyes:
Multiplum
Jan 20th 2009, 03:01 PM
Which video card?
andrewl
Jan 22nd 2009, 05:30 PM
Which video card?

9800GTX 512MB

Andrew
andrewl
Jan 22nd 2009, 05:31 PM
I solved the problem!!

Turns out the chipset driver that came with the MOBO did not like XP SP3.

I did one more reformat but this time i installed updated chipset drivers, and my computer no longer blue screens. Yay!

Andrew
drgoodtrips
Jan 22nd 2009, 06:29 PM
That's odd. I wonder why Microsoft would muck around with their kernel enough to cause that in a friggin' service pack. :shrug:
andrewl
Jan 22nd 2009, 06:39 PM
That's odd. I wonder why Microsoft would muck around with their kernel enough to cause that in a friggin' service pack. :shrug:


Well, i can't say for sure that was the problem, but it was the only thing i did different on the 5th consecutive reformat and reinstall and now it works... (the original problem started very soon after i did the sp3 update)

Andrew
andrewl
Jan 22nd 2009, 06:41 PM
I should point out that after my original post and 2 days of running fine, it started blue screening again, which is why i tried another reinstall.


Andrew
drgoodtrips
Jan 22nd 2009, 06:42 PM
Well, put another tick in the column of "don't get anything new from Microsoft unless you absolutely must..."
:lol:

I've had some issues with SP3 myself, though they were relatively benign compared to what you're describing.
Americano
Jan 22nd 2009, 09:28 PM
Being an advocate of 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' I didn't install SP3. I need to do a HD wipe and am wavering on installing Linux on my primary PC. Another snowstorm might provide the motivation.
andrewl
Jan 23rd 2009, 12:57 AM
Yes. But even though SP3 seemed to cause me no end of grief, installing it did appear to fix an annoying firefox problem i was having. It was taking forever to load on reboot, but after installing SP3 it started almost immediately (after the usual loading processes). :shrug:

Andrew