I think I bought a lemon! (BSOD)

[Kainen]

Hello everyone. This is my first post on the forums so before I begin I'd like to say thanks ahead of time.

A few months ago a purchased a PC from a company that i've bought a computer from before and never had problem with my first purchase. This new machine is a completely different story.

here are some specs.


intel core 2 duo 2.66
nvidia 8800gts 640mb
ASUS p5n-e SLI mobo
corsair 1g RAM X2
WD 250gig HDD
WD 500gig HDD (2 days old)
gigabyte wireless network card
some random dvd read/write
using onboard sound for now
Vista 32bit home premium (WD 500gig)
WinXP Professional (WD 250gig)

Almost immediately upon using my computer I started getting blue screen errors. I thought "oh well its probably just vista being vista". The problem persisted eventually leading to my taking the computer back to the people i bought it from. They told me it was a bad hard drive. I didn't wanna lose any of my data so I took the computer back and bought a hard drive (the WD 500gig). Installed vista fresh after formatting. The next day it BSOD.
****ed at this I swapped ram with my roommate. BSOD 5 minutes into startup. I switched out my serial ATA cable. BSOD. I installed Windows XP last night. Things seemed to be running fine for a few hours. Eventually BSOD.

Now I'm gonna guess its either the Motherboard or maybe the video card. Is there anyway I can test the motherboard or videocard without having to swap or change them out?

Btw. I've had about 10-15 different types of BSOD errors, at the least. It's likely there have been many more.

Two off the top of my head are IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL and PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON_PAGED_AREA.


BSOD is most often while playing TF2 (it doesnt always BSOD, the game/comp will mostly just freeze). It also happens when using any form of browser, firefox, IE. It pretty much happens all the time.

 

[Ensign_Expendable]

My old computer BSOD-ed frequently. Turns out that the fan on the motherboard chipset died and it overheated almost instantly. Exchange the board.

 

[veedubfreak]

Ya, if it is a 680i board, its highly likely that the board is going out. The early 680 boards had TONS of issues, usually with the memory controller.

 

[Really Useful Matt]

'PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON_PAGED_AREA' implies that it's a hard drive issue. Download the Ultimate Boot CD, burn to a CD, and run the included Western Digital Hard drive scan, that'll confirm whether or not it is a hard drive issue. Whilst you're at it, you could also run a Memtest.

UBCD Download Page

 

[mgcook]

do you have all the latest drivers and such?

 

[Yek]

I would be outside the door of the shop waiting for my refund, its most likley the mobo.