BSOD driving me crazy...please help before I waste any more money

[duncand]

I've been having major issues with my computer for the past couple of months. I keep getting BSODs, usually when I first start the system (sometimes up to 5 times before I can get into windows). It also sometimes happens when I leave the computer idle for a while, and when I try to open a program like firefox or word.

So far I have done the following:

formatted and reinstalled windows (7)
bought a new harddrive

bought a new graphics card

bought a new psu

disconnected and removed a dead optical drive

When I get the BSOD, sometimes I get a message about rdyboost.sys, others it says IRQL Equal to or less than (or something like that), and others its just a series of numbers and letters.

All I can say is its driving me insane.

My next resort is to buy some new memory sticks, and if that fails, replace the motherboard (the nuclear option).

Before I do though I just want to see if I'm missing something really stupid here --- for example last autumn I did add another stick of ram (same brand/settings/etc) but 2gb. So I now have 2x1gb + 1x2gb installed. Is that possibly a cause? It's difficult to test because the BSODs are so random....sometimes I can go a week without a problem, then I can't get any use out of my computer for 2 hours because of them.

Rest of system as follows:

E6600
MSI P35 Neo
GF 460 NTX 1gb
4 GB Ram (2x1 + 1x2)
Windows 7 (64 bit - used to have 32 bit and problem was the same).
SB Audigy 2

Please let me know what else I can provide you with information wise.

 

[Emerald]

if I am not mistaken, memory should be installed in pairs except when using one stick.

1,2, or 4 sticks

refer to you Motherboard manual.

 

[WR2]

for example last autumn I did add another stick of ram (same brand/settings/etc) but 2gb. So I now have 2x1gb + 1x2gb installed. Is that possibly a cause? It's difficult to test because the BSODs are so random

Yes.
Were you getting BSODs before adding the RAM?
What is so difficult about testing with the last added 2GB taken out. And testing with just 1GB stick, and then testing the other 1GB stick?

 

[duncand]

that's what I'm going to do now...but the difficulty is that that crashes seem to be largely random -- it can go for a week without a problem ..that's a long testing period. I just wanted to see if there was anything obvious I was missing before I started messing around with the memory.

 

[WR2]

Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
And if does take weeks? That just means that your system is running good, correct?
You can also run some tests using MemTest86
http://download.cnet.com/Memtest86/3000-2086_4-10524193.html

 

[duncand]

OK, I've tested the memory sticks individually and still getting the same problem. The latest BSOD said it was a 'memory management' issue and I got the following report from WhoCrashed:

On Sat 29/01/2011 14:23:24 GMT your computer crashed

crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\012911-19234-01.dmp

This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x70740)
Bugcheck code: 0x1A (0x41287, 0x5F4A0, 0x0, 0x0)
Error: MEMORY_MANAGEMENT
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System

Bug check description: This indicates that a severe memory management error occurred.
This might be a case of memory corruption. More often memory corruption happens because of software errors in buggy drivers, not because of faulty RAM modules.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver which cannot be identified at this time.


Here is another one from earlier:


On Sat 29/01/2011 07:49:14 GMT your computer crashed

crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\012911-18906-01.dmp

This was probably caused by the following module: rdyboost.sys (rdyboost+0x134C1)

Bugcheck code: 0x1000007E (0xFFFFFFFFC0000005, 0xFFFFF880015D04C1, 0xFFFFF8800372F858, 0xFFFFF8800372F0C0)
Error: SYSTEM_THREAD_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED_M
file path: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\rdyboost.sys
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: ReadyBoost Driver

Bug check description: This indicates that a system thread generated an exception which the error handler did not catch.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system which cannot be identified at this time.

 

[duncand]

and now I've just got this:

On Sat 29/01/2011 17:09:25 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\012911-19453-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: hal.dll (hal+0x12903)
Bugcheck code: 0x124 (0x0, 0xFFFFFA8004AF1028, 0xB2000040, 0x800)
Error: WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR
file path: C:\Windows\system32\hal.dll
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: Hardware Abstraction Layer DLL
Bug check description: This bug check indicates that a fatal hardware error has occurred. This bug check uses the error data that is provided by the Windows Hardware Error Architecture (WHEA).
This is likely to be caused by a hardware problem problem. This problem might be caused by a thermal issue.
The crash took place in a standard Microsoft module. Your system configuration may be incorrect. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver on your system which cannot be identified at this time.

 

[WR2]

Have you updated to the latest BIOS and motherboard drivers?
Been monitoring your CPU/GPU temps?

 

[WR2]

P35 Neo drivers & P35 Neo BIOS


HWMonitor utility software

 

[duncand]

Thanks WR2....been through all that. I already had latest drivers but used Live update anyway and it actually rolled back to some earlier ones. Still the same problem though.

This time:

On Sat 29/01/2011 18:37:10 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\012911-18687-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x70740)
Bugcheck code: 0x1E (0xFFFFFFFFC0000096, 0xFFFFF80002E9D990, 0x0, 0x58000000000)
Error: KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This indicates that a kernel-mode program generated an exception which the error handler did not catch.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver which cannot be identified at this time.


I'm honestly starting to lose the plot with this now. The system runs largely ok when I'm doing stuff (playing games, etc) but as soon as I turn it off...leave it for a bit ... then turn it on again, it starts booting then blue screens as soon as I get into windows.

After a restart it then seems to be working fine again...until I turn it off....even manual restarts dont seem to be triggering the problem.