Greetings.

Greetings folks, i'm looking for some one with a bit more know how to help me determine whether or not i'm having hardware failure and to identify exactly what piece of hardware is at fault. I am quite often getting Blue screen stops a recent example code follows.

stop: 0x0000007E (0xFFFFFFFFC0000005,0xFFFFF8000220DDD3,0xFFFFF880023B17F8,0xFFFFF880023B1050)

I suspect it maybe the hard drive as it has been making suspicious noises for quite some time (kind of like a needle skipping on a record), however I want to make sure if its only this as it maybe a multitude of problems.

 

Welcome aboard. Yes, copy what's important to you on to optical media first. Then, download the drive's makers diagnostic software and test it.

I've seen the 0x7E error on one of my machines and found that one of my RAM modules was faulty. Run memtest86 just to be sure that's not the issue, all free to use, even one error means it's faulty. If you have more than one stick then test them separately.

BTW, not many here know what a record is.:-D

 

Thanks for the prompt reply, I have run memtest the windows one and it did't get far before it was bleeping negative noises at me, I have also run memschd and that didn't look good results wise. So it could be the RAM that is the root cause I suppose pretty much everything you do on a PC goes through it, i'm not convinced that it couldn't be the MOBO though as that could be the cause of so many different issues.

Seagate's diagnostic tools didn't raise any flags for the HDD, but how to account for the skipping, it usually only happens on start up and it sometimes wont complete a boot up if it doesn't stop said noises.

When it comes to testing the RAM i've read that you can remove one stick at a time to test which one is faulty, so is it fine to remove one and do this or would booting up with only one of the sticks in cause further issues?

 

Yes, of course, that's what I meant even if you do have a dual channel etc., missing one RAM stick won't hurt anything at all. One could have three or more sticks like I do. It could also be the RAM slot, but one thing at a time.