Random restarts, BSOD, boot fail...

[UkGamer]

Ok this is my worst problem yet and I have little idea as to what the cause is...

Before I begin I will apologise for the length of this :p

Previously I made a post in the case power and cooling section about what I originally thought was the problem; an underpowered PSU, here (http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=54822) . Now however I believe this is not the case and that the problem lies elsewhere.

Now I will list the symtoms in the hope anyone else can make a positive connection :)

The problem started a while back, at least 3 months ago I would occasionally get a BSOD which were mostly the STOP variety or IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. These were very infrequent and I just took it that it was just chance or unlucky.

Anyway they started becoming more frequent up to now where i cant have my computer on for more than 5 minutes without it BSOD or restarting completely sometimes with the warning of it closing all my programs and sometimes just restarting for no apperant reason with no indication. Occasionally it will also give me a error dialog " svchost.exe instruction at (mem location) could not be read" before restarting.

After rebooting from this it would either hang at the memory check during POST at 1032MB or if I was lucky boot into windows and give me a "system recovered from a serious error" .

This is where I have become stumped as to what the problem is. As I mentioned I thought it might have been the PSU but after reading some other posts these kind of symtoms it seems to be a driver problem. I then set about finding out the culprit. Looking at the event log this is what I copied from each error that happens on a given boot sequence
The following boot-start or system-start driver(s) failed to load:
AFD
AsIO
Fips
intelppm
IPSec
MRxSmb
NetBIOS
NetBT
nod32drv
RasAcd
Rdbss
Tcpip
WS2IFSL


The IPSEC Services service depends on the IPSEC driver service which failed to start because of the following error:
A device attached to the system is not functioning.

The TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper service depends on the AFD service which failed to start because of the following error:
A device attached to the system is not functioning.

The DNS Client service depends on the TCP/IP Protocol Driver service which failed to start because of the following error:
A device attached to the system is not functioning.

The DHCP Client service depends on the NetBios over Tcpip service which failed to start because of the following error:
A device attached to the system is not functioning.

DCOM got error "This service cannot be started in Safe Mode " attempting to start the service EventSystem with arguments "" in order to run the server:
{1BE1F766-5536-11D1-B726-00C04FB926AF}

DCOM got error "This service cannot be started in Safe Mode " attempting to start the service netman with arguments "" in order to run the server:
{BA126AE5-2166-11D1-B1D0-00805FC1270E}

Error code 1000008e, parameter1 c0000005, parameter2 8055059a, parameter3 b62306a0, parameter4 00000000. < BSOD?
Error code 1000008e, parameter1 c0000005, parameter2 805505a1, parameter3 b6978534, parameter4 00000000. < Same again

---Also this warning appears throughout but it could be meaningless---

Your computer was not able to renew its address from the network (from the DHCP Server) for the Network Card with network address 0017319F7FA1. The following error occurred:
The semaphore timeout period has expired. . Your computer will continue to try and obtain an address on its own from the network address (DHCP) server.


This made me belive that it might be my ethernet card which is connected to my router so I disabled it completly and even tried booting into safe mode but the problem remained.

Next I tried checking my hard drives. After rebooting to check my primary 500gb windows drive it got stuck on 31% which could either mean it is the drive at fault or it is the other problem causing the computer to stop responding.

The only other thing worth noting is that sometimes the BIOS claims that " overclocked or overvolt failed , press f2 to set default" I press f2 every time but it still appears from time to time. I had a look in the bios as well and even though I set the vCore voltage to it's default 1.3125v (I think!) the monitor in BIOS reports an average of 1.42v which is obviously way too high if it is true, but the temps still seem about normal. Just a quick question as well , does the ram run off the 1.3 , the 3.3 or the 12v line?

So anyone got an idea as to what it could be. Personally if it is not a driver issue I am thinking that it must be either motherboard ram or my hard disk , then again I could be completely wrong and it could be the PSU again.

Thanks and sorry about the length of the post and also if it turns out to be in the wrong section.

[jlreich]

The first thing I would do is clear the CMOS. This will make sure all your voltage settings and such are correct. And replace the battery if you haven't already.

I would then boot up a Linux live CD such as Knoppix. If you can boot it up and run some programs for awhile without problems you know you have just ruled out all the hardware with the exception of the hard drive.

If Knoppix crashes then you know it is definitely a hardware issue.

If possible test ram and hard drives in another system.

Normally I would suggest running Memtest and HD diagnostics from the original system, and you can still do this if you want or need to, but if the mobo itself is having problems it can make everything fail diagnostics falsely. Then you start spending money without getting anywhere.

If all the hardware checks out OK, then you have to start looking at windows.

[UkGamer]

Is clearing the CMOS when you remove the battery for a while so that it 'forgets' the stored settings etc. ?

I will replace it anyway and also linux boot cd sounds like a good idea, i'll download that when I get home

Unfortunately i can't test the ram in another computer as I don't have any other DDR2 computers. I had however returned my memory as it was failing memory tests before but the company said when they tested it, it worked perfectly under load at it's full speed. The mobo is still under warranty so I will continue testing it until I am certain it is that causing the fault.

[UkGamer]

Ok tried taking out the battery and reinserting it. Seemed to fix the voltages.

Also managed to run a scan disc outside of windows on my drives, took a while (especially the 500Gb!) but they turned out fine.

Downloaded and tried Knoppix but it crashed at the bit I think after it has started KDE boot screen with the icons flashing as it does each item. It got to initialising prepheripals then the boot screen disapeared and i was left with a (working) pointer and the background picture. It did nothing else for 5 mins , then when i rebooted it got stuck again with the HDD light stuck on and not getting past the motherboard screen.

So that leaves me with either the RAM, Motherboard, or PSU. Anyone got any other suggestions or ideas?

Thanks for the help so far jlreich, sorry for the double post as well but I can't seem to edit posts anymore.

[mjc]

At the point Knoppix first crashed, it could also be the video card...but I'm leaning toward motherboard.

[jlreich]

I agree with mjc.

I do think a 430W PSU is a little on the low side for your system, but since it takes an hour of playing games for it to mess up (per you other thread) I doubt that is the problem.

I would want to test the PSU manually with a multimeter under load just to rule it out completely.

Have you tried removing the new hard drive and ram, running some games for awhile to see if it makes any difference?

But I am doubting the PSU is the problem. So that leaves the video card and or the mobo.

If you can test the video card in another system and it works fine, that would leave you with the mobo as the culprit.

The CPU is left, but CPU's usually either work fine or not at all. Since you have it at stock speeds now I doubt that is it.

[UkGamer]

Yea thanks for the help again.

I also recently ruled out the graphics card by firstly trying running windows without any display hardware acceleration. Still crashed. I then went on to uninstall it's driver and disable it. Still crash...

Managed to get into linux today as well, but after not to long the screen went black and the numlock light on my keyboard started flashing. I presume this is linux's way of telling you it's died.

I will contact the company and see what they say, i'm sure they will take some persuading to let me return it lol