PC gone crazy

This is going to be quite long, so I've underlined the important parts.

I was getting BSODs while booting, working or even shutting down. Each one said something different.

A couple mentioned these:
PFN_LIST_CORRUPT
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

Another one was telling me to disable AV, backup software and defrag utilities.
During boot, I got a couple BSODs mentioning NTFS.sys and USBPORT.sys

I bet I've missed another two.

Of course this was driving me crazy - especially that there was no particular pattern and I was bombarded with BSODs. I had no newly installed hardware of software, so I attempted to format and re-install Windows. I even kept on getting different BSODs telling me all sorts of BS like

make sure I have enough space
boot into safe mode and check disk
your BIOS doesn't support bla bla bla, so go and update it

I did go through the process before and I'm sure I never got such instrucions.

Thanks to this, I couldn't update my site, I got stuck at 30% in NFSU2 and my Mom went mad at me 'cause she has to do some research for university.

Then the problem got worse. When I turned it on, my PC would keep rebooting like there was no end to it (I mean Windows was not loading, the PC kept rebooting continuously on its own).

I was extremely pissed off and waited for pro assistance to arrive. After all this, for some weird reason I decided to try again. Miraculously, I was able to successfully format and install XP. Naturally, I was very happy and it worked for a whole day without any problems. I almost thought the problems were gone for good, but last night, while surfing the net, my modem's driver interface crashed, so I had to reboot. But Windows won't start! More BSODs. I was so angry now I didn't even try to fix it.

Later when I calmed down, I came back to see what I could do about it. Surprise surprise! It worked fine. I was speechless. Since then I haven't seen any more BSODs, but there's another problem. Occasionally, my PC would restart on its own as if I hit the restart button on the case.

If you've made it up to here, I really commend you my friend. My question: what do you think was causing the BSODs and why does it now keep rebooting from time to time?

might be corrupting hard drive or cpu temps rising or even possible misconfigured cpu or overclocked.

next time it happens pull out all ram but leave one stick in a see what happens. make sure fan is spinning and feel your power supply to see if that thing is hot.

Thanks, egghead! Fans are spinning and temperatures are alright. I have never tried to overclock or recofigure my CPU. So I guess that leaves us with the RAM and hard-drive. I'll run some tests on them.

Try Memtest 86 and what egghead said.

what moidel is your motherboard and have you installed any new cards prior to this? month before it happened?

xp install failure is very annoying and i have heard people having problems after sp2 using prescott cpu's.

so i guess more info on your system might gert googling with answers

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Originally Posted by FastGame

Try Memtest 86 and what egghead said.

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K, as you say, dude! :D

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Originally Posted by egghead

so i guess more info on your system might gert googling with answers

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I have an Intel Pentuim 4 2.4 GHz processor and a P4 Titan series motherboard. The last piece of hardware I installed was FastGame's 9600XT :D and I did try to switch it with my GeForce 2 while troubleshooting. My HD is a 40GB 7200RPM Seagate. My whole system (apart from the 9600XT) is less than 2 years old.

Puters are great when all is well, but a pain in the a** when something goes amiss. One of mine took a dump a couple months back while I changed HD...the damn screen filled with nothing but 07 07 etc etc. Drove me nuts...it is now in the scrap heap..I wish I had two just like it...one to take a dump on and the other to cover it up. It turned out to be the cpu...intel...nothing but AMD from now on.

If you are still having trouble I would start by pulling the modem out and seeing how it wil run for a day or so...

I've performed a couple of tests today; one on my memory and the other on my hard drive. None of the two tests went smoothly.

For memory I used the MS Memory Diagnostic because I already had it on a bootable CD. A test called "WINVC" failed more than once (see the screenshot)

For the hard-drive, I used SeaTools Desktop. During the "Full Diagnostic" 9 bad sectors were found and fixed, but "File Structure Test" was a disaster; 1 partition failed and the other two passed with inconsistencies (see the screenshot). I took a look at the detailed report and found this:

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File Structure Test Result:

Partition 1 (NTFS (15 GB) ) Result: Failed with critical Errors
Partition 2 (NTFS (15 GB) ) Result: Passed with inconsistencies
Partition 3 (NTFS (10 GB) ) Result: Passed with inconsistencies

NOTE: Any report of possible errors in the file system tests are for
informational purposes only. We suggest you should consider testing with
the official file system diagnostic utilities for your operating system.
Seagate is not able to assist with troubleshooting or reviewing
file system test results.

******************************************
Recommendation:
If you are not experiencing data loss and SeaTools reports File
System Structure errors, they may be caused by a lock-up or
failure to shutdown Windows correctly. Many times, these errors
may be repaired through normal system maintenance which
includes using the Windows provided "Defrag" and
"Scandisk / Chkdsk / Error Checking" utilities.

If you are experiencing a hardware error, you should isolate
the cause and replace the failing component. If you are unsure how
to proceed with repairs, contact a computer professional. After
completing any maintenance tasks, run SeaTools again to
verify that all errors have been repaired. If errors continue to
occur, the system may not be stable. Again, contact a computer
professional.

========================================================

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I also think it might be worth mentioning that during the hard-drive test, my PC shutdown and wouldn't turn back on. So I unplugged it for a while an then it worked again :confused:

What are your thoughts about my test results?

results are void and should be tested using another motherboard.

I have a feeling your motherboard is at fault here.

you should look on the motherboard for any leaking capacitors or something.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by egghead

results are void and should be tested using another motherboard.

I have a feeling your motherboard is at fault here.

you should look on the motherboard for any leaking capacitors or something.

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Thanks, I'll try to see how I can check them on another motherboard.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by rik

If you are still having trouble I would start by pulling the modem out and seeing how it wil run for a day or so...

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Thanks for the suggestion, rik. The computer admin at school suggested the same thing. However, over 80% of the time I spend on my PC is online so I'll have to borrow another modem first.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PIPER

Puters are great when all is well, but a pain in the a** when something goes amiss.

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Believe me I exactly know what you mean :(

It's getting more weird. Every now and then my PC would restart. But I've noticed it needs some sort of trigger; i.e. launching a certain program. For example, I click the MS Word shortcut in my start menu and it reboots. After the reboot, I find the shortcut to Word doesn't work anymore! :confused:

BTW, can you tell please tell me if I can rule out any suspects (hardware)? I have a 5-day Christmas holiday coming up, so I'd like to take this opportunity to find the trouble maker :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by hotmale

I have a 5-day Christmas holiday coming up, so I'd like to take this opportunity to find the trouble maker :D

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On the 5th day of Christmas hotmale came to meee...Pc a crashing...hard drive a thrashing....memory a failing...and a reboot no one can foresee.....

Oh:o sorry, I got caught up in Holiday spirit.

Ok...hotmale did you check the caps and make sure they weren't bulging or leaking ?

Is your PC getting hot ?

And what about that memory ? it's not suppose to have errors ;) don't be lazy...use Memtest 86 and let it run over night and post a SS if it shows errors.

Every time your PC crashes it messes the HD a bit.

Get a piece of paper and a pencil, pretend the paper is a HD platter and the pencil is the read/write heads..ok now start to draw a nice picture and have someone hit you in the elbow while you draw the picture. The picture get messed up with scribbles doesn't it ? Well when your PC crashes it kinda gets little scribbles also :)

I say before you find out why the HD is corrupting you need the fix the memory errors first. After that you can start to think the HD is bad if it continues to corrupt.

Go to Device Manager> Advanced> Startup and Recovery> Settings and un-check the box "Automatically Restart" when there's a system failure. Next time you crash it won't restart and it'll give a blue screen and list the error code.

Say Hi to the wives for me :cool:

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Say Hi to the wives for me

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what the...?? :confused:

Sorry to hear Hotmale, you should try your HD in another computer, to ensure you can still access the data to make a quick backup copy !

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Originally Posted by cash_site

what the...?? :confused:

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http://www.techzonez.com/forums/show...9&postcount=46

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Originally Posted by FastGame

http://www.techzonez.com/forums/show...9&postcount=46

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Oh... hehe... Hmmm ;) but only 2 ?!

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Originally Posted by cash_site

Oh... hehe... Hmmm ;) but only 2 ?!

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There are plenty more but I couldn't post them all :p

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FastGame

On the 5th day of Christmas hotmale came to meee...Pc a crashing...hard drive a thrashing....memory a failing...and a reboot no one can foresee.....

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Dude, this is absolutely hilarious :rofl2: I'm literally laughing out loud.

Thanks for the advice guys, but it's solved and I can now enjoy the X-mas holiday instead of troubleshooting :D

BTW, it was the RAM causing all this. I tried what egghead had suggested

Quote:

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Originally Posted by egghead

next time it happens pull out all ram but leave one stick in a see what happens

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