Blue Screens, Restarts, etc.....

Hey Everyone, I am having some computer trouble and have not been able to diagnose my problem or fix it. So here it goes.

System: AMD 1800 XP processor, Gigabyet GA-7VTXE motherboard, Nvidia Geforce III TI video card, Coolmax 450 watt PS, Soubdblaster 5.1 sounds card. I am running Windows 2000, it was XP a while ago.

Symptoms: Computer will randomly restart windows and give me the blue screen of death. The restarts appear to me to be random. Sometimes it happens right at startup, or sometimes it is while I am surfing the net, or while the computer is just sitting there. The blue screens do give me error messages that I will list below. This problem started about 3 months ago. First I reformatted my HD and reinstalled XP. But my problem persisted and became more frequent. So I reformatted agains this week and installed Windows 2000, same problem. Here are the error messages that I have recorded in the past week. (note: with XP, I didn't get blue screens, just restarts, with 2000, I get the blue screens, that why I just started recording them). I have tested my memory with Sandra Sisoft and with memtest86 and have come up with no errors.

1. 0X00000051 (0x0000000C, )x0000005, 0xBCE37B1C, 0xBCE37774)
REDGISTRY_ERROR
2. 0x0000007F (0x0000000D, 0x0000000, 0x0000000, 0x0000000)
UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP
3. 0x0000001E (0x000005, 0x804547A0, 0x0000000, 0x4576630B)
KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT HANDLED
Address 804547A0 base at 80400000 Data Stamp 427b58bb - ntoskrnl.exe
4. 0x000000D1 (0x00000001, 0x00000002, 0x00000001, 0xEB59F4B51)
DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_:ESS_OR_EQUAL

I'd say that about sums it up, any help of any kind would be most appreciated.

 

try running Prime 95 and do the torture test for the RAM ( i think its the Blend test) its much better than memtest... run it at least for 5 hours and see if any errors come up

 

Is that a stand alone program or does it run through windows? Cause if it runs through windows, chances are my comp with restart before even an hour is up.

Also, does this sound like a motherboard problems, a Power supply, etc...

I am a poor college student and don't have money to replace alot of stuff, I need to narrow down the prob.

 

i had the same sort of problem a while ago and also it wudntt run games. similar error mesages, i had 2 sticks of SD ram and i later found out that one of them was faulty, u could be experiencing the same probem.. wud suggest if u do have 2 or more sticks of ram.. remove one at a time and see if that is the problem

 

I will see about my RAM. I'll take a stick out and see what happens with the computer. I am pretty sure this is a hardware problem of some kind. I doubt it is the power supply, so that leaves me with motherboard, RAM, video card, hard drive I believe. More suggestions would be appreciated as well. Thanks

 

Blue Screens, etc,UPDATE WITH PIC.

Hey again guys. I opened up my tower to take out one of my RAM cards to see if one of them was my problem, and I noticed this. Note the orange buildup on the four "round things" surrounding the heat sink. Do those indicate that my motherboard is going bad on me?

 

Re: Blue Screens, etc,UPDATE WITH PIC.

Those look like capacitors to me, also they appear to be rusting. I'd look into a new motherboard. Also, how long did you run memtest86+, was it the default settings or did you run all the tests?

If you are a poor college student, I'm sure you may have friends who may have similar memory. So, I'd try replacing the memory and see if similar issue arrive. Also, how much ram do you have? Do you have 2 sticks of ram? If so try taking out one and see if you have issues.

 

Re: Blue Screens, etc,UPDATE WITH PIC.

The capicitor in the top center looks like it is leaking with that much rust? BTW, when's the last time you blem the dust out from the CPU fan and heatsink, cause it looks quite full.

 

THEFOOL - ok, I ran the memtest for about 2-3 hours. I just loaded the disk, and told it to start testing, I did not change any setting. I let it go through about 10 tests I believe in all, and they all came up with nothing.

I have two sticks of 256MB for my ram. So, I was going to take one of them out when I noticed the deposits on my capacitors. So, do you guys think I should take one out and test them anyways? I believe I will need a new mobo anyways because of what those capacitors are doing. Could bad capacitor cause the problems I listed in the first post?

RUEBARB - I am cleaning out the dust right after I type this. Dorm rooms have alot of dust in them, I actually cleaned out the tower about 6 months ago.

 

Well, I'm not electronics expert, but I know when the capacitors begin to leak your motherboard's days are numbered. It is just rust that you could wip off or is it deep into the capacitor.

 

I have not tried to remove the rust on the capacitors. There appears to be some extra dust (white powdery stuff, I assume this is just dust) around that one capacitor that is most rusty in the center. Do these things acutally leak something?? I am looking into getting a ASUS A7N8X-E Deluxe to replace the one I have. My currect MB is a Gigabyte 7VTXE by the way.

 

For the cheap method, I'd try taking out one of the memory sticks and see what happens, if you still have errors, try replacing with the other one. If it still seems bad, then I'd either try a different cpu or try a different motherboard. But that is just my thoughts....

 

Capacitors will leak energy when that start to decay, I'm don't think they use liquid chem ox for energy storage. Found 2 good article, this one is general http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/capacitor.htm, this one http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci211742,00.html lists something of interest "apacitors can be fabricated onto integrated circuit (IC) chips. They are commonly used in conjunction with transistors in dynamic random access memory (DRAM). The capacitors help maintain the contents of memory. Because of their tiny physical size, these components have low capacitance. They must be recharged thousands of times per second or the DRAM will lose its data.". Rust is a form of chem ox, therefore the potential of the capacitor has changed, may be the reason the system won't boot, no data for the CPU to handle from the mem.

 

Well that would explain why I have been getting memory errors and why my programs have not been running very well. And I dud try taking one of my memory sticks out, same problems, tried the other one, same problems, so it is not my memory. So the new motherboard is on it's way, and hopefully my computer will run like a champ. The motherboard I have now is 4 years old, so it's probably getting tired anyways. Thanks for all the help guys.