My computer is freaking out...

[Zadillo]

Hi all,

Hope someone can help me out. I have a custom built PC with an MSI K8T Neo2 FISR motherboard, an Athlon 64 3400+ CPU, a GeForce 6800GT, and 1.5 gigs of Kingston HyperX memory. Running Windows XP Home SP2.

Everything has generally been running pretty smoothly, but last night something odd happened...... I was just browsing around when suddenly my video went all flakey...... I can't quite describe it, but basically, the screen changed to be a bunch of lines, some active and some black lines...... I could tell that it was still sort of the same screen I had been looking at because of the overall colors, but it wouldn't change or anything. The odd thing is that my mouse actually continued working just fine.

I had to reboot my PC, but it worked fine after that.

Now, just a few minutes ago, the same thing happened.... I was actually in the middle of uninstalling software, because I was running out of space on my hard drives, and it happened again, with the video going strange like I mentioned above.

But now this time when I rebooted my PC, once it got past the BIOS, the Windows XP boot screen started, and then I get a bluescreen with the following error:

PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

I did some Google searches to see what this means, and it seems to possibly indicate bad memory, or running out of swap disk space, but I'm not sure if that's it. I did add another 512 meg stick of Kingston HyperX, but that was over a month ago and I haven't had any problems with it.

I also am not doing any overclocking, etc.

I've tried to let my PC just sit, but when I reboot again I still get the same error, and am basically stuck.

Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions for me?

THanks!

-Zadillo

 

[tangotracker]

Have you tried the basics?

Reset the CMOS and see what happens? Also you've got multiple sticks of RAM in there...

Turn it off...

Pull all but one... try to boot. If the same thing happens switch that one with one of the others, cycle through all the RAM to see if the problem remains.

It's unlikely all you RAM went bad at once so if it is RAM it should but with one or two of the sticks depending on if you have 2 or 3 sticks.

 

[Zadillo]

Just an update. I went ahead and removed the 512 meg stick of RAM that I installed a month ago, just in case that was it. But I got the PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA error after rebooting anyway. I also tried booting in SAFE MODE, but I still get the error even with that. I'm at a loss at what is causing this, and what I can do to recover from it.

If anyone has any advice for me, I'd definitely appreciate it.

Thanks!

-Zadillo

 

[Zadillo]

Thanks tangotracker, I'm going to give that a shot. I just pulled two sticks of memory and have left one in, and I reset the CMOS. It seems like something has changed at least......... but right now, my computer has been sitting at the Windows XP loading screen for a while (the black one with the moving status bar)...... this is at least an improvement from before, where it went to PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA almost automatically, but I'm not quite sure yet. I'm going to let it sit there, but it doesn't seem like it should be taking so long.

 

[Zadillo]

No luck. I had to reboot it again, it was stuck in that Windows XP boot screen without going ahead. When I rebooted again, I get the same error. I've tried it with the other sticks of RAM as well.

 

[talyn00]

a page fault error usually indicates software (OS) problem

 

[Zadillo]

Thanks talyn. I'm not sure what to do at this point though. If anyone else has any advice, I'd appreciate it.

 

[talyn00]

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/docu.../XP/all/reskit/en-us/prmd_stp_ccgm.asp

 

[Zadillo]

Talyn, I read that when I did a Google search info for the error, but I'm not sure what to do with it. I hadn't installed any new software recently, and I have tried out each stick of memory individually, and unless all three sticks did fail, I'm not sure what it could be.

I still can't figure it out..... I tried booting up again, and now it is again just stuck in the Windows XP booting screen (it hasn't gone to bluescreen yet). But I imagine that if I do reboot again it will just give me a bluescreen again.

 

[tangotracker]

Got an old 40 gig drive or something laying around? Toss that on there and boot to the install CD and try and clean install.

If it goes away you know something is hosed on your other drive/isntall.


A clean install only take about 20 minutes and it will definitely tell you if everything is working except the OS

 

[mountcarlmore]

press f8 when it restarts, that should let you go into safemode, or at least see at which driver it gets stuck at while loading.

 

[Zadillo]

I actually have three drives in my system right now, so I could attempt a clean install on another drive, I think. I actually just tried to boot up with my Windows XP Home CD, but it's an upgrade CD, and for some reason it isn't recognizing it as something to boot from.

mountcarlmore, I tried booting into safe mode, but I got the same error when doing that as well.

EDIT: Actually, when booting in safe mode, I see that it seems to get stuck at giveio.sys. Not sure if that means anything or not. It gets stuck there and then gives me the bluescreen.

-Zadillo

 

[talyn00]

Hrm try booting it with a Linux livecd? It would be a way to see if its really an issue with RAM. And then if it works you can probably just repair windows with the Windows CD or just clean install it

 

[Zadillo]

K. I'll see what I can do.

 

[Zadillo]

I tried using the "Repair" functionality of the Windows XP CD but it doesn't seem like it made a difference. I'm going to attempt a clean install and hope for the best.

 

[Zadillo]

Just an update; I just completed a clean install on one of the other drives in my PC, and that seems to have done the trick, at least in as much as that it boots up and seems to be in good shape. Of course, it's a completely vanilla install.

But it sounds like this does point to some sort of software problem. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I might be able to repair my existing Windows system? I'd love to manage that before I have to reinstall all of my other software, configurations, etc. from scratch.

Also, I haven't tried putting in the other two sticks of RAM yet, so I'll still need to do that too.

 

[Zadillo]

Hi all,

I have an update. I think I might have isolated what is causing the problem, but I'm not sure why.

As I mentioned before, I did a clean install of my OS onto another drive, and have been going through the process of reinstalling my old drivers, etc.

One of the drivers for my motherboard is for the Promise 20378, which is a RAID controller with an IDE connector and two serial ATA connectors.

I am not using it for SATA, but I do have a third IDE hard drive hooked up to it.

Now, I installed the various other drivers my motherboard needed, but when I installed the Promise 20378 driver, the computer basically becomes nonfunctional again. When I rebooted after installing it, the computer started loading Windows and then reboots again automatically. I tried safe mode, and it gets stuck at Mup.sys.

Now, the interesting thing is that I used the "disable automatic reboot" function and tried booting Windows again, and when I do that, the error is the same blue screen PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA error.

Is it possible something is wrong with the hard drive, and this is what is causing the problem (I'm not sure if this drive was being used to store the page file or not)?

If it is, what would be the remedy?

I guess one way I could tell for sure would be if I were to swap out that drive with another IDE drive.

I guess though what I'm hoping to do is find some way to correct this so I can go back to using my old Windows install, since it could be daunting to reinstall everything from scratch.

If anyone has any suggesgtions or insights, I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks!

-Zadillo

 

[boomerang]

I'm still running an (ancient now) Asus P4PE with a Promise 20376 controller.

I cannot run an IDE drive on that third connector unless it is RAIDed with one or two SATA drives. Your newer controller must not have that limitation.

Your board has the 20378 and, I am assuming the addition of an IDE drive to that third connector is not what hosed your system. But, did you recently add a SATA drive to the mix?

I know my board is very fussy about BIOS settings related to the SATA ports and that third IDE connector. But I do realize that this just occured out of the blue on your system.

I would try to run the manufacturers diagnostic on the three drives in the system as it seems as though you've narrowed it down to a HD problem.

 

[Zadillo]

Hi Boomerang,

Nope, I haven't added any SATA drives or anything (and I had been using that third drive for almost a year with no problems).

I can't think of anything I was doing that would affect it like this.............. I do think I was downloading to the drive at the time, and my other drives are sort of low on space, so maybe that is part of it.

The problem I'm having with running a diagnostic on the drives (specifically the drive on that third IDE slot) is that the system doesn't seem to recognize it at all (the only way I'd even know it was still there is that it still mentions the drive during the initial BIOS load screen).

-Zadillo

 

[boomerang]

Move that drive to IDE 1 or 2 temporarily and run the diagnostic.

If it checks OK, I'm feeling that a BIOS setting may be incorrect. How it could have gotten changed is a mystery.

Someone suggested resetting your CMOS. Do this and follow the directions in the manual exactly as stated. You may need to remove the battery or whatever. Follow those directions to the letter.

If that doesn't fix it, flash to the latest BIOS version if one is available.

It has all the signs of data corruption. This could be BIOS related, HD related (or cables) or RAM related. Could be a bad motherboard. Have you looked at the caps? Or, you've picked up a nasty virus.

Run memtest on each stick individually. Each in the same slot. Then move a known good stick to each slot to test the slot itself.

This'll keep you busy for awhile.

What are you using for a Power Supply?

You say you filled a HD. Your C drive?

List what drive is on what controller. OS, data, etc.

 

[Zadillo]

Thanks boomerang.......... I've been kind of busy, but I'm going to try those things out as soon as I can.

I did do a CMOS reset before (I used the method on the MSI motherboard where you can clear the CMOS by changing the position of the JBAT jumpers temporarily).

My motherboard is also using the latest BIOS version (although MSI hasn't had any BIOS updates for it for a while).

When you said looked at the caps, could you explain what you meant?

I think you must be right, it really sounds like some sort of data corruption. It seems pretty clear to me now, after I did a clean install and everything worked fine, but once I installed the Promise drivers (the ones that would enable me to use IDE3 and the HD attached to it), the clean install started giving the same blue screen as my original install did. With my clean install at least I was able to go back to Last Known Good, but I couldn't do this with my old version (possibly because I've had those Promise drivers installed and working fine for over a year and a half).

I'm hoping when I get a chance to remove the HD it will show this once and for all.

One thing I'm not sure of how to do though (I'm sorry, I'm really a newb at this kind of thing) is repair my old Windows install. I am guessing that if I could disable the Promise drivers on my old Windows install, it would probably work, but I don't quite know how to do this.

Regarding my drives. On IDE1 I have a 120 gig C: drive which is where my current clean install is. On IDE2 I have an 80 gig D: drive, which is where my previous Windows XP install is. IDE3 has a 160 gig G: drive (two optical drives had been taking up E and F), which has no OS on it, and was just used for storage.

I had been downloading to the G drive at the time (specifically the Dungeons & Dragons Stormreach client, which was about a 1.3 gig file) that everything started freaking out.

-Zadillo

 

[boomerang]

Take a look at http://www.badcaps.net/ for examples of bad capacitors.

As far as the repair, I would download those drivers fresh from the MSI website and put them on a known good floppy.

I have no experience doing a repair install from an upgrade disk. My feeling is that it should work. But I do not know for certain. I have had to change boot order in the BIOS to all being CD-ROM to get some systems to boot off a CD. I think it's a timing issue with certain CD drives. They don't spin up soon enough to suit the BIOS or some such nonsense. I've seen this behavior on older systems. Not so much on newer boards like yours.

If you can get it to boot off the CD, there will be a prompt to press F6 for third party drivers. The Promise drivers. Skip the Recovery Console and at the next opportunity, choose repair. If you've never done it before, it can be a little scary as it looks just like a fresh install for the most part. Sorry if you already know some of this.

I don't know what else to offer at this point.

 

[Zadillo]

Thanks boomerang. I actually did try a Repair on the old install (using my Windows XP install CD and the "repair" option), but it didn't seem to make a difference.

I've got some free time now so I'm going to go ahead and swap out that drive on IDE3 and see what I can come up with.

At this point I'm thinking that I may go ahead and try and just part out this PC (I'm pretty sure that the rest of my hardware is fine, so I figure someone might have more luck with me if they just stuck some new HD's in it and started from scratch).

Thanks,

Zadillo

 

[VirtualLarry]

Curious, which promise drivers did you have installed, and is it possible that Windows Update may have suggested/installed a newer driver set on you? I'm fairly familiar with Promise's non-RAID PCI IDE controllers and their driver revs, but not so much with their RAID and SATA products. I know that their Ultra66 and Ultra100 products suffered from some hardware data-corruption issues, as well as certain driver revs not properly flushing write-cache before OS/soft-off shutdown.

 

[Zadillo]

The specific drivers are:

Promise 378 S-ATA Drivers 1.0.0.16

I'm sorry I don't have an update on the other issues. I'm hoping tonight to finally get a chance to swap out the HD's and see what difference it makes trying to boot from my old OS install with the HD on IDE3 removed, and with a fresh HD on IDE3, and see what difference it makes.

-Zadillo