Blue Screen of Death - Is it my Vid Card? Mem? or...?

Eric Boyer · #1 10-04-2010, 08:55 PM

Hi guys,

It seems like I'm turning to the OT forum every months with PC problems...but you guys have always come through, so why stop now?

Two times now - once earlier tonight and another a couple of weeks ago - a seemingly random times I've gotten what looks like looks like a Blue Screen of Death. I say "looks like" because my monitor turns off to too fast (or rather the signal to my monitor gets cut off too fast) for me to read the error message.

So, because my monitor is shutting off, this leads me to think it's a video card problem. However, after after searching I see that it could also be a memory problem.

Is there any way to diagnose, one way or another, what my specific problem is?

I have a Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L mobo, 4GB of DDR-2 OCZ ram, and an EVGA E-GeForce 8800 GT vid card. I'm running XP sp2.

-Eric

sloasdaylight · #2 10-04-2010, 09:14 PM

If you had a problem with your video card you almost certainly wouldn't get the BSOD. Chances are something about your HDD is corrupt or your processor is on the fritz. Are you seeing any odd pixelation or distortion of your screen while it's running normally?

anyonefortennis · #3 10-04-2010, 09:24 PM

Ha - I ran into something similar before. What I did to see the err code was tape the screen with a video phone and then frame by frame it to see the error code to start debugging.

Eric Boyer · #4 10-04-2010, 09:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sloasdaylight

If you had a problem with your video card you almost certainly wouldn't get the BSOD. Chances are something about your HDD is corrupt or your processor is on the fritz. Are you seeing any odd pixelation or distortion of your screen while it's running normally?

Oh okay. I suppose that's somewhat good news. Should I defrag my hard drive? Would that even help?

No signs of pixelation or distortion.

HDD is Western Digital 500GB and the processor is an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 for full disclosure.

Quote:

Originally Posted by anyonefortennis

Ha - I ran into something similar before. What I did to see the err code was tape the screen with a video phone and then frame by frame it to see the error code to start debugging.

You mean literally? With an iphone or something similar? A this point it's not happening frequently enough to quite warrant that yet.

Thanks guys.

anyonefortennis · #5 10-04-2010, 09:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eric Boyer

You mean literally? With an iphone or something similar? A this point it's not happening frequently enough to quite warrant that yet.

Thanks guys.

Literally. Used an iPhone. Took 2 or 3 tries but I could recreate the issue on demand. Ended up being bad RAM chip on a MOBO that shared RAM with the on board video. If you have more than one DIMM, I would try one at a time to see if it still happens.

sloasdaylight · #6 10-04-2010, 10:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eric Boyer

Oh okay. I suppose that's somewhat good news. Should I defrag my hard drive? Would that even help?

No signs of pixelation or distortion.

HDD is Western Digital 500GB and the processor is an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 for full disclosure.

Like that dirty corn husker said, knowing the error code is the best way to figure out the problem. If it constantly happens whenever you're doing a particular process or task, then it's easier to figure out what the problem is, but if it seems to just be random then it's kinda hard to diagnose anything.

Munjibunga · #7 10-04-2010, 10:05 PM

Valerus · #8 10-04-2010, 10:13 PM

Try a different stick of RAM and see what happens. This happened to me and it ended up being one of my Corsair Dominator sticks failing.

DigMe · #9 10-05-2010, 12:16 AM

Run memtest86. Download and make a bootdisc. Run it with only one stick of RAM at a time in there or it will take way too long. Leave it running overnight so that it goes through at least 7 passes. Do this with each stick. I no errors then it's probably not your RAM. Also be sure that each stick of RAM is absolutely completely seated all the way into the RAM slot. It's easy to only partially seat a stick of RAM and that can cause random errors of all kinds.

I've had a similar problem in the past when my video card has overheated or pushed too hard while playing graphic-intensive games.

bc

MIJ-VI · #10 10-05-2010, 01:10 AM

OP, if your PC was running fine up until recently the issue might be related to this:

Tips for knowing when the CMOS battery is getting weak

What is a CMOS battery and what does it do?

HaPpYfAcE · #11 10-05-2010, 01:49 AM

lol...

your pc is set to automatically restart in the event of a failure (bsod). you have to turn that off and it will leave the bsod on screen when it happens.

a blue screen will happen for many reasons, including video card/driver issues, so verify what is going on before leaving something out.

disable the auto restart and then you will know what the error code is...and you're on your way to actually fixing the problem instead of letting everyone speculate w/o the proper information. there's a possibility that something could be listed in the event log as well.

how to get here:
XP: Right click My Computer, click properties, Advanced, Startup/Recovery Settings
Vista/7: Right click Computer, click properties, Advanced System Settings (click continue if prompted), Advanced, Startup/Recovery Settings
Uncheck "automatically restart" and try to replicate error.

Eric Boyer · #12 10-05-2010, 06:07 AM

I know exactly how Lt. Cmdr. Data feels!

At this point there doesn't seem to be any one consistent thing I'm doing to cause the BSOD. My PC is just over 2 years old, so *hopefully* it's not the CMOS battery at this point?

Thanks for the help everyone!

And thanks Happyface, that's definitely the most logical way to start diagnosing my problem.

I'll try to run a mem test as digme suggested, when I get a chance.

Thanks again guys!

Strat-Mangler · #13 10-05-2010, 08:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eric Boyer

Oh okay. I suppose that's somewhat good news. Should I defrag my hard drive? Would that even help?

This is something I see with every single PC issue somebody has.

No, defragging will never (and I mean *EVER*) fix a problem.

Having said that, I'd suggest running an application such as Memtest86 to test your RAM's integrity. If the tests come back great, then your RAM is fine... and the culprit is most likely something else.

http://www.memtest86.com/download.html

Random BSODs can be generated by any number of things ranging from a defective power supply, to software conflict, to an IRQ conflict, to almost anything else.

You'll need to go by process of elimination. Good luck.

Eric Boyer · #14 10-05-2010, 05:22 PM

Just looking into memtest86...

Based on some research apparently memtest86 3.5 has problems with PCs that have 4GB of ram installed and quad core processors.

So...am I actually going to be able to run it with much success?

Strat-Mangler · #15 10-05-2010, 05:52 PM

Not much research involved. In the link I provided you, it states clear as day ;

Quote:

Version 3.5 does not work with 4+ GB of memory. Please use the 3.4 release for testing 4GB or more of memory.

Eric Boyer · #16 10-05-2010, 05:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Strat-Mangler

Not much research involved. In the link I provided you, it states clear as day ;

Right, I guess I should have used something other than wikipedia for my research

my bad

Nappa · #17 10-05-2010, 06:00 PM

To OP, why do you not upgrade to SP3?

MIJ-VI · #18 10-05-2010, 07:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eric Boyer

I know exactly how Lt. Cmdr. Data feels!

At this point there doesn't seem to be any one consistent thing I'm doing to cause the BSOD. My PC is just over 2 years old, so *hopefully* it's not the CMOS battery at this point?

Thanks for the help everyone!

And thanks Happyface, that's definitely the most logical way to start diagnosing my problem.

I'll try to run a mem test as digme suggested, when I get a chance.

Thanks again guys!

If it is (and that's just a guess) then they can be bought for a few bucks at most computer shops.

Please consult your motherboard's manual for details on exactly which battery type it requires.

As well, you may wish to read up on how to reset the m/b's BIOS to its default settings as a means of further troubleshooting what's causing the BSOD.

Eric Boyer · #19 10-05-2010, 07:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nappa

To OP, why do you not upgrade to SP3?

*cough,cough* let's just say my OS has *cough, cough* issues, and I don't think I can upgrade right now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MIJ-VI

If it is (and that's just a guess) then they can be bought for a few bucks at most computer shops.

Please consult your motherboard's manual for details on exactly which battery type it requires.

As well, you may wish to read up on how to reset the m/b's BIOS to its default settings as a means of further troubleshooting what's causing the BSOD.

Cool, thanks for the tips MIJ-VI. I'll look into it for now. I don't don't have a CD of a mem stick handy (pitiful, I know) to run memtest86 right now anyway.

MIJ-VI · #20 10-05-2010, 07:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nappa

To OP, why do you not upgrade to SP3?

Good catch.

OP, Windows XP SP2 is no longer supported by Microsoft (no more security updates)...

Support for Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2) ended on July 13, 2010.* (32 bit)

...thus the seeming BSOD your machine has recently begun displaying may be caused by (or may itself be) a malware infection.

Please consider:

- backing up all of your personal files to another drive (which should be done on a regular basis anyway)

- checking that your DNS settings haven't been hijacked by malware or a hacker

- re-formatting your PC's hard drive

- re-installing Windows XP SP2 and then immediately updating to SP3 etc before going anywhere else on the Internet.

- and then finish up by installing & updating a good anti-malware utility and scanning the disk that you backed up your files to.

Optionally you may wish to install the latest version of Firefox augmented with some of the add-ons mentioned in the above hijack link--after reading the Wikipedia description of each one to learn what they do.

Internet Explorer is required to install Windows updates but Firefox is more secure.