My story dates back all the way to when I bought this computer, November of last year. I bought the parts from NewEgg: Core 2 Duo E6750, 4gb g.skill RAM, GeForce 8800GT, Abit IP35 Pro, Windows XP Pro. I put it all together, it worked fine, everyone was happy. As time went on I noticed that often a large-ish (usually 20mB+ or so) file I downloaded would become corrupted and unusable, and I would have to go back and download it again. The download corruption problem rendered Windows Update completely useless as I guess it wasn't able to deal with corrupted files and just refused to budge.
I was having other intermittent problems as well: BioShock refused to run for more than 30 minutes at a time, crashing with a blue screen of death saying "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA." I wasn't sure if it was because my installation was corrupted or because of some memory error in my computer. I ran several diagnostic tests, memtest86+, the western digital hard drive diagnostics, chkdsk, whatever I could think of, and everything always came back as a 100% pass. (One thing about memtest86 (not +) though, is that when it got to one of the tests it would just completely crash and the computer would restart. I didn't think that this was enough evidence of bad memory to justify blaming the problem on it though. Especially since a couple months later memtest86 completed perfectly fine.) I had no idea what could be causing the problem. Eventually, I just reformatted the entire thing and reinstalled XP Pro. Same problems... no go. So I reformat again and install Vista. Same problems: download corruption, etc. Now Windows Update again wouldn't run, just giving me some error code every time I looked at it.
I was so fed up with this problem, and having no solution or even cause in sight, that I just decided to let it sit for a while, running with a crippled Windows Vista. I needed this computer for school, and even with its problems, it would do what I needed for that. For 7 months or so I just tried to avoid downloading anything too large or vital, and I got along relatively fine. When summer came around, I didn't need the computer for schoolwork and could be without it for a time so I decided to finally take some action about this irritating problem. Windows memory diagnostics, memtest86, and memtest86+ all came back with 0 errors, so I figured the memory was good. Western digital diagnostics and chkdsk came back good, so I guessed it couldn't be the hard drive. What else might cause this problem? I decided to RMA the motherboard. I waited over a month for it to get back (it just came yesterday) and hooked everything back up as soon as it came. I reformatted my windows partition and installed XP Pro.
At first I thought things were working well, but then, just like before, problems started showing up. I lost my motherboard CD so I downloaded the drivers on another computer onto a flash drive, which I then put into this computer. Boot it up, install motherboard drivers, everything's good... until I try to run Windows Update. The first series of updates seemed to go well; four updates installed, rebooted, things are still working. The next update it had me download was service pack 2. It downloads and begins installing, but soon after it starts it halts and tells me that it's corrupted, is unable to finish, and probably ruined my XP installation. Great. I go to add/remove programs, remove service pack 2, and restart the computer. True to its word, it ruined my XP installation. After a little while on the loading screen, I'd get that same BSOD: "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA." AAAUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHH! I do a repair installation of windows, this time not bothering with updates. When I attempt to install my video card drivers off the flash drive, it seems to go fine until I reboot. When Windows comes back up, I'm left with this 800x600 mess that looks like it's trying to work with 16 colors. I go into the display settings, and it won't let me move it up beyond 800x600 or 4 bit color. Sigh. I go to device manager and uninstall the 8800GT and things are at least tolerable again.
What the hell could be causing this? Bad memory? Hard drive? Other? I don't want to sit through another month long RMA with no result... does anyone have any ideas?
Oh, by the way, this doesn't only happen with downloads I've found. I copied a 4GB or so file to my computer from a friend's external hard drive and it became corrupted. I've had things from a CD get corrupted too though not nearly as often as downloads. I ran a ping test for over 2000 tests with 1024K packets and it had 0% loss so I guess it's not the network? I'm baffled and extremely frustrated. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
((I think I've covered everything, but I've had so many problems with this that I'm sure I've forgotten a few things that have gone wrong... sorry.))
I was having other intermittent problems as well: BioShock refused to run for more than 30 minutes at a time, crashing with a blue screen of death saying "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA." I wasn't sure if it was because my installation was corrupted or because of some memory error in my computer. I ran several diagnostic tests, memtest86+, the western digital hard drive diagnostics, chkdsk, whatever I could think of, and everything always came back as a 100% pass. (One thing about memtest86 (not +) though, is that when it got to one of the tests it would just completely crash and the computer would restart. I didn't think that this was enough evidence of bad memory to justify blaming the problem on it though. Especially since a couple months later memtest86 completed perfectly fine.) I had no idea what could be causing the problem. Eventually, I just reformatted the entire thing and reinstalled XP Pro. Same problems... no go. So I reformat again and install Vista. Same problems: download corruption, etc. Now Windows Update again wouldn't run, just giving me some error code every time I looked at it.
I was so fed up with this problem, and having no solution or even cause in sight, that I just decided to let it sit for a while, running with a crippled Windows Vista. I needed this computer for school, and even with its problems, it would do what I needed for that. For 7 months or so I just tried to avoid downloading anything too large or vital, and I got along relatively fine. When summer came around, I didn't need the computer for schoolwork and could be without it for a time so I decided to finally take some action about this irritating problem. Windows memory diagnostics, memtest86, and memtest86+ all came back with 0 errors, so I figured the memory was good. Western digital diagnostics and chkdsk came back good, so I guessed it couldn't be the hard drive. What else might cause this problem? I decided to RMA the motherboard. I waited over a month for it to get back (it just came yesterday) and hooked everything back up as soon as it came. I reformatted my windows partition and installed XP Pro.
At first I thought things were working well, but then, just like before, problems started showing up. I lost my motherboard CD so I downloaded the drivers on another computer onto a flash drive, which I then put into this computer. Boot it up, install motherboard drivers, everything's good... until I try to run Windows Update. The first series of updates seemed to go well; four updates installed, rebooted, things are still working. The next update it had me download was service pack 2. It downloads and begins installing, but soon after it starts it halts and tells me that it's corrupted, is unable to finish, and probably ruined my XP installation. Great. I go to add/remove programs, remove service pack 2, and restart the computer. True to its word, it ruined my XP installation. After a little while on the loading screen, I'd get that same BSOD: "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA." AAAUUUUUGGGGGHHHHHHH! I do a repair installation of windows, this time not bothering with updates. When I attempt to install my video card drivers off the flash drive, it seems to go fine until I reboot. When Windows comes back up, I'm left with this 800x600 mess that looks like it's trying to work with 16 colors. I go into the display settings, and it won't let me move it up beyond 800x600 or 4 bit color. Sigh. I go to device manager and uninstall the 8800GT and things are at least tolerable again.
What the hell could be causing this? Bad memory? Hard drive? Other? I don't want to sit through another month long RMA with no result... does anyone have any ideas?
Oh, by the way, this doesn't only happen with downloads I've found. I copied a 4GB or so file to my computer from a friend's external hard drive and it became corrupted. I've had things from a CD get corrupted too though not nearly as often as downloads. I ran a ping test for over 2000 tests with 1024K packets and it had 0% loss so I guess it's not the network? I'm baffled and extremely frustrated. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
((I think I've covered everything, but I've had so many problems with this that I'm sure I've forgotten a few things that have gone wrong... sorry.))