I'm back with a serious question; Im stumped

[Slam'n Systems]

Hello all,
Haven't been around in a long time, I kind of moved away from being involved into the tech-forums and went elsewhere getting involved in cars and such.

I have been having this problem for a long time which is as follows...

Randomly, my computer will lock up on me, normally when playing video's or games and will come to the BSOD. I was totally lost as to what it could be, I kind of noticed it after installing a new video card so I tried various other video cards and the same thing happened. So a friend of mine told me it was probably my memory by how it locks up and such; one of my memory sticks must be bad. So today since I had time, I decided to take 1 stick out..try it, still locked up. Then I took this cheap stick out, like a no-name brand and then walah, video after video played..constantly having various things up (AIM, IE, Music..etc..this would also cause it to lock up) and it worked great for hours. Then all of a sudden I decide, ok, lets go play some America's Army which I haven't played in many months because of this problem. I get into the game, its loading and boom .. BSOD. The only memory stick I left in is my Corsair 512MB. I am so lost what it could be.

Please help and its good to be back; sadly, this isn't the way I wanted to come back though

 

[0p71mu5pr1m3]

Any specific error codes on the BSOD? If so those would help. I had the same problem for a while, ended up being my video card.

 

[Slam'n Systems]

Next time it happens, which will probably be tomorrow..sadly, I will take a picture and upload it

 

[OutThere]

no need. My educated guess would be a motherboard controler failure. If you are blowing out Ram, the controler must be the issue. Try the memory in a known good, or try a known good motherboard in the system, see if it works. You may require a new board.

 

[MrCoffee]

if you want to check your memory to find out for sure if its bad use a program like memtest86 and run it for an hour or so.

get memtest86 from www.majorgeeks.com (search for it)

if you can tell us what the error code from the bsod is or better still get us a recent minidump file and attach it to your post. (c:\windows\minidump\*)

 

[Slam'n Systems]

Here is a picture I took yesterday of the BSOD..

All the minidump files are old, the most recent is from about 10 months ago I believe.

As I said, I figure it can't be my video card because I also tried a nVidia 6800GT in it and it still locked up with most recent drivers and everything. I've been trying all different ram in, 1 stick at a time, different slots and it still locks up .. Im stumped.

I tried to get that memtest to work and am lost. I put it on a floppy, but directions said it cant run in windows or dos. I said what the heck, double clicked on floppy and said "Not formatted, want to format" as if nothing was on it. So I formatted, put it on a floppy again and had it boot to floppy. Came up an error during start up that it wasnt a boot disk or system disk...something like that and wouldn't run. Installation doesn't tell how to run it after putting it on floppy. Help!

 

[superdave1984]

Memtest will show up as not formatted when you try to open it. You put the memtest disk in and restart. It runs on its own. Run the memtest with each stick individually just to be sure. And let it run for a couple hours too.
Does it lock up and BSOD if you just power it up and let it sit? If so, then you are looking at a hardware issue most likely. If you have to run a program or game to get it to lock, then uninstall it and re install. Maybe your version is in need of an update. I am leaning toward agreeing with OutThere and it being a board problem. Unless your RAM is different speeds or something. I try to use identical RAM sticks (speed, manufacturer, etc.) because sometimes they don't play nice together otherwise.

 

[Slam'n Systems]

Memtest will show up as not formatted when you try to open it. You put the memtest disk in and restart. It runs on its own. Run the memtest with each stick individually just to be sure. And let it run for a couple hours too.
Does it lock up and BSOD if you just power it up and let it sit? If so, then you are looking at a hardware issue most likely. If you have to run a program or game to get it to lock, then uninstall it and re install. Maybe your version is in need of an update. I am leaning toward agreeing with OutThere and it being a board problem. Unless your RAM is different speeds or something. I try to use identical RAM sticks (speed, manufacturer, etc.) because sometimes they don't play nice together otherwise.

I do have (2)256 and (1)512 but that cannot be the issue as it still locks up with only 1 stick in the computer. I will try the memtest again, thank you.

It doesn't really lock up if it just sits there..there is the occassional lockup when I come back to the computer though but on a lesser occassion, more of streaming video's, music and games. Not a particular movie, music or game though so I cannot pinpoint the problem. This BSOD has been going on for many months.

Maybe I should just format and if it continues again, it would probably be my motherboard?

 

[Slam'n Systems]

Well I formatted the other day hoping a fresh clean harddrive may fix this stupid problem...well, it didn't. So then I popped a fresh 512MB Stick of memory in and took my other 3 out, figuring if it locks up still, then it can't be my RAM. Come to find out, it still locked up!

So, I just bought a Gigabyte Motherboard and will be basically rebuilding my computer Friday. If it still locks up, I'm throwing my computer off a building.

 

[HPtechsupport]

good luck with the new motherbord