XP bluescreen error.

I have had this issue come up a few times now in two of my Dell Inspiron e1505 laptops. I am running Windows XP Home Edition. My two laptops are refurbished from Dell so my warranty is out of date with them. However, they are both roughly 6 months old.

I get these BLUE SCREEN shut downs on one all the time. I did a total windows reboot. I thought I deleted everything and started fresh. It appeared to me that everything was wiped clean. Also, just the other day I got the same type of message from my other laptop.

The error message I get is a bunch of numbers and it talks about a "dump of physical memory" "BIOS memory" "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGE_AREA" and stop "shadowing" or "catching". The messages usually have a series of numbers following them. The two I got yesterday were: "0x0000007e" and "0x00000050" and usually had "STOP" at the beginning of the message.

I went to the support.dell.com page and updated my BIOS driver and that has helped on ONE laptop (my good one, i have only received that message once on it, none after the driver upgrade) however the other laptop still gave me two blue screens yesterday.

I attempted to go to the support.microsoft.com page but I could not understand what they were saying to fix it.

I wouldnt say I am a total computer idiot, but when it comes to software issues like this, I am a total moron. ANY and all help would be so appreciated!

Thanks and Happy Holidays!!

 

Is there a way to know what driver it is?

I am going to try that DL you sent me when I get off of work later tonight.

 

Stop messages are almost always hardware related. Most often caused by corrupt drivers. The culprit here may be the Video driver. In the device manager uninstall the video card and then reboot, let the system re-detect the video card and install the drivers.

 

This thing is a total mess now. I started running the memtest and I got about 7.6% complete and I had well over 1500 errors.

Then it went to the BSOD on me during the test.
This is what the message said:

Stop: 0x0000008E
win32k.sys address bf81b225 base at bf800000 Datestamp 43446a58.

Now, I keep trying to restart it and I get the BSOD. Then I try to start it in safe mode and I get the same thing. The error message at this point is just the 0x0000008e stop message.

 

got another stop error with a address of HDAUDBUS.sys followed by a series of numbers.

I am guessing my new laptop is junk eh?

 

Thats actually your audio driver.

Try disabling your sound devices and see if the stop errors go away.

It would make sense if the driver is messing up that you would randomly get errors as "sounds" are made from the OS, or application you are using.

 

I know you went to Dell and updated your BIOS. Have you tried updated drivers for your other hardware?

 

Yeah, I have updated everything that I can.

 

Couldnt I just uninstall it and then reboot?

 

Yes, you could. I think he is telling you this for troubleshooting purposes. The driver may not be working properly with your computer setup. Therefore, when you reload it, you will have the same issue and you will not have eliminated the driver as the problem.

 

I un-installed my audio drivers and got the BSOD again.

This time the stop message was: 0x000000BE

ati2mtag.sys followed by the address...

 

You are getting different error messages with a different faulting application. This is a real good indicator that your RAM is the problem.

Don't run Memtest from within Windows. Download Memtest86+ create a bootable CD from the ISO image using your favorite CD creation software. Boot from the CD and run Memtest86+

Looking at the post I quoted, your RAM is definitely the problem. Make sure the RAM is seated properly before you run Memtest86+

 

Few things,

How do I create a "bootable CD" from ISO images?

Next, how can I make sure the "RAM is seated properly"?

I feel like an idiot asking you these questions honest, but I dont know.

 

I've had bad motherboards come up with the same type of random stop errors.

So if the ram comes up clean...I'd suspect it next.

 

hmm...any help on this?

 

What application do you use for burning CDs? If you don't have CD burning software, DeepBurner Free is a good application.

Adrynalyne is right if the RAM tests fine then the MoBo may be bad.

 

So, I just burn that file on a cd and try to run it?

I use Nero

 

You burn it as a CD-ROM(ISO) image file. This will allow the CD to be bootable.

Take the RAM out of the system and then re-install it.