Files getting corrupted; this computer is driving me insane

seanbow · 07-09-2008, 12:15 PM

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.))

seanbow · 07-09-2008, 02:43 PM

bump...

seanbow · 07-09-2008, 10:57 PM

I just ran chkdsk /f /r, and it gave me this log:

Code:

Checking file system on C:
The type of the file system is NTFS.

A disk check has been scheduled.
Windows will now check the disk.                         
Cleaning up minor inconsistencies on the drive.
Cleaning up 306 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 306 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 306 unused security descriptors.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
Free space verification is complete.
CHKDSK discovered free space marked as allocated in the
master file table (MFT) bitmap.
Windows has made corrections to the file system.

  52291543 KB total disk space.
   4510716 KB in 14128 files.
      3840 KB in 1291 indexes.
         0 KB in bad sectors.
     88795 KB in use by the system.
     65536 KB occupied by the log file.
  47688192 KB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
  13072885 total allocation units on disk.
  11922048 allocation units available on disk.

Internal Info:
86 52 00 00 46 3c 00 00 b5 44 00 00 00 00 00 00  .R..F<...D......
3f 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 a9 01 00 00 00 00 00 00  ?...............
40 78 7d 01 00 00 00 00 ec e7 b4 03 00 00 00 00  @x}.............
6c 24 eb 01 00 00 00 00 26 28 a6 51 00 00 00 00  l$......&(.Q....
58 f0 7e 28 01 00 00 00 d4 28 c5 87 01 00 00 00  X.~(.....(......
40 18 44 9f 00 00 00 00 30 37 00 00 00 00 00 00  @.D.....07......
00 f0 4f 13 01 00 00 00 0b 05 00 00 00 00 00 00  ..O.............

Windows has finished checking your disk.
Please wait while your computer restarts.

So I guess it fixed something? But I tried installing my video card drivers and I got the same 800x600 4-bit color crap. I also tried windows update again and though service pack 2 surprisingly installed, I got an error about catalog files, being unable to finish, and how my XP installation might be damaged for service pack 3.

For reference here are links to other threads I've made about this problem...
Thread one
Thread two

I originally thought it was only downloads but later realized that other things get corrupted as well, as I said in the original post. Just to clarify.

Thanks again in advance for any help.

agnivade · 07-09-2008, 11:43 PM

You should have asked a long time ago. There is no need to be frustated. Lot of people face this problem.

The first thing I would advice you is to check the frequencies of your RAM. If you have RAMs of diffrent speeds, remove those with lower speeds and keep the others. The ones you keep must have same the same speed. Check if this helps.

If that did not help, do this- You say that you have 4 GB RAM. So right click my computer, properties,advanced, in the performance group, click settings and then goto the 'advanced' tab. In the 'virtual memory' option click change. Then in the custom size change both of them to 0 and reboot. When you reboot, windows will automatically create the page file and set its default value. It will give you an "Insufficient Virtual Memory" error on startup, but if you keep clicking OK, it should allow you to restart the unit. Afterwards you can set the min & max page file size to 2x the total amount of RAM.

Hope this helps.

seanbow · 07-10-2008, 01:54 AM

My RAM do match each other, I bought them at the same time in a package. This is the RAM that I have installed.

I set virtual memory to 0, but when I rebooted, it just stayed at zero. When I went back to check it said "Virtual memory: none". So I just set it to the most it allowed me to (which was 4096 MB) as both the minimum and maximum, but that hasn't fixed the problem.

seanbow · 07-10-2008, 12:52 PM

Bump.

agnivade · 07-11-2008, 12:32 AM

I forgot to tell you another thing-

When your PC starts to boot, start tapping F8. When the screen comes choose "Last known good configuration". Press enter.

I also found this from a site.

PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA (STOP 0x00000050)

Below are some examples of programs that may cause this error, along with a link for more information.

Roxio Easy CD Creator 5.0 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310628/en-us
Lexar USB Universal Reader - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817197/en-us
Programs that may not work properly under Windows XP Service Pack 2 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/884130/en-us
To uninstall a program that may be causing a problem, follow the instructions below.

Click Start, click Control Panel, then click Add or Remove Programs.

Click on the program to be removed, then click Remove.

Follow any prompts that may appear.

Restart the computer. If the error does not reappear, the problem is resolved. If the error reappears, repeat the process to remove another program.

If removing programs does not resolve the problem, reload the computer, using the recovery partition (preferred) or the backup disks.

seanbow · 07-11-2008, 01:27 AM

But I've reformatted dozens of times by now... there is no good configuration and there are no programs installed right now other than firefox and whatever came with windows XP.

seanbow · 07-11-2008, 12:59 PM

I'm about to RMA my hard drive, I think...

seanbow · 07-17-2008, 01:58 PM

UGH... I got my new hard drive yesterday and installed it, formatted it, installed windows XP... The problem is still here and I think it's getting even worse.

~~OMGmissinglink~~ · 07-17-2008, 02:13 PM

Try installing w/ 2gb ram installed.

**linderman** · 07-17-2008, 06:57 PM

what about bios upgrade ?

**Pharaohz** · 07-17-2008, 07:19 PM

You have a system restore or a like program installed and enabled?

raichle · 07-17-2008, 08:01 PM

This is only happening with "large" downloads? I would look towards a network problem or ISP interference. Can you plug another computer into the same network connection and still download the same file minus the corruption? The page_fault error could be completely unrelated. http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/corrupted_downloads/

If other large files are fine than the corruption would seem limited to "downloaded" files, pointing towards a network issue. I would test the line with another comp, and if that works, try a different card in your comp.

*edit*** the page fault errors could be caused by corrupted downloads of windows updates. I've seen these occur when windows updates is interrupted during the install process.

seanbow · 07-17-2008, 08:40 PM

I don't have time to try one stick of RAM at a time right now but I will tomorrow as soon as I can.

I've flashed the BIOS before and it didn't help.

I think system restore is enabled, yeah. I'm not sure.

Sorry, I should have been more clear. It's not really only large files that get corrupted, it's just that they almost always do. A download of firefox (very small) got corrupted earlier today, but normally I can download anything below 10mB or so just fine. And it's actually not only downloads: trying to install drivers from an exe on a flash drive would fail over half the time because of corrupt files.

Thanks for the help everyone.

seanbow · 07-18-2008, 10:48 PM

Someone suggested that my L2 cache might be the problem, so I ran the Mersenne prime stress test to try and determine if the CPU was bad. While running both options that it said didn't test the RAM much, the tests went perfectly. The option that tested the RAM also would fail after a few seconds with a hardware failure error message. So I swapped out a stick of RAM and tried again with just one stick in and the test works perfectly. I haven't downloaded anything large to test that though. I think I'm going to reformat with just that stick in and see how things go. Thanks!

**linderman** · 07-19-2008, 05:10 AM

S& M stress tester is even better

07-09-2008, 12:15 PM	#1 (permalink)
seanbow Registered User Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 27 OS: Windows Vista Ultimate	Files getting corrupted; this computer is driving me insane 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.)) Last edited by seanbow : 07-09-2008 at 12:27 PM.

07-09-2008, 02:43 PM	#2 (permalink)
seanbow Registered User Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 27 OS: Windows Vista Ultimate	Re: Files getting corrupted; this computer is driving me insane bump...

07-09-2008, 11:43 PM	#4 (permalink)
agnivade Registered User Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 11 OS: Win XP (SP2)	Re: Files getting corrupted; this computer is driving me insane You should have asked a long time ago. There is no need to be frustated. Lot of people face this problem. The first thing I would advice you is to check the frequencies of your RAM. If you have RAMs of diffrent speeds, remove those with lower speeds and keep the others. The ones you keep must have same the same speed. Check if this helps. If that did not help, do this- You say that you have 4 GB RAM. So right click my computer, properties,advanced, in the performance group, click settings and then goto the 'advanced' tab. In the 'virtual memory' option click change. Then in the custom size change both of them to 0 and reboot. When you reboot, windows will automatically create the page file and set its default value. It will give you an "Insufficient Virtual Memory" error on startup, but if you keep clicking OK, it should allow you to restart the unit. Afterwards you can set the min & max page file size to 2x the total amount of RAM. Hope this helps.

07-10-2008, 01:54 AM	#5 (permalink)
seanbow Registered User Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 27 OS: Windows Vista Ultimate	Re: Files getting corrupted; this computer is driving me insane My RAM do match each other, I bought them at the same time in a package. This is the RAM that I have installed. I set virtual memory to 0, but when I rebooted, it just stayed at zero. When I went back to check it said "Virtual memory: none". So I just set it to the most it allowed me to (which was 4096 MB) as both the minimum and maximum, but that hasn't fixed the problem.

07-10-2008, 12:52 PM	#6 (permalink)
seanbow Registered User Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 27 OS: Windows Vista Ultimate	Re: Files getting corrupted; this computer is driving me insane Bump.

07-11-2008, 12:32 AM	#7 (permalink)
agnivade Registered User Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 11 OS: Win XP (SP2)	Re: Files getting corrupted; this computer is driving me insane I forgot to tell you another thing- When your PC starts to boot, start tapping F8. When the screen comes choose "Last known good configuration". Press enter. I also found this from a site. PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA (STOP 0x00000050) Below are some examples of programs that may cause this error, along with a link for more information. Roxio Easy CD Creator 5.0 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310628/en-us Lexar USB Universal Reader - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817197/en-us Programs that may not work properly under Windows XP Service Pack 2 - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/884130/en-us To uninstall a program that may be causing a problem, follow the instructions below. Click Start, click Control Panel, then click Add or Remove Programs. Click on the program to be removed, then click Remove. Follow any prompts that may appear. Restart the computer. If the error does not reappear, the problem is resolved. If the error reappears, repeat the process to remove another program. If removing programs does not resolve the problem, reload the computer, using the recovery partition (preferred) or the backup disks.

07-11-2008, 01:27 AM	#8 (permalink)
seanbow Registered User Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 27 OS: Windows Vista Ultimate	Re: Files getting corrupted; this computer is driving me insane But I've reformatted dozens of times by now... there is no good configuration and there are no programs installed right now other than firefox and whatever came with windows XP.

07-11-2008, 12:59 PM	#9 (permalink)
seanbow Registered User Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 27 OS: Windows Vista Ultimate	Re: Files getting corrupted; this computer is driving me insane I'm about to RMA my hard drive, I think...

07-17-2008, 01:58 PM	#10 (permalink)
seanbow Registered User Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 27 OS: Windows Vista Ultimate	Re: Files getting corrupted; this computer is driving me insane UGH... I got my new hard drive yesterday and installed it, formatted it, installed windows XP... The problem is still here and I think it's getting even worse.

07-17-2008, 02:13 PM	#11 (permalink)
~~OMGmissinglink~~ Troubled Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 1,535 OS: XP Pro sp2 My System	Re: Files getting corrupted; this computer is driving me insane Try installing w/ 2gb ram installed.

07-17-2008, 06:57 PM	#12 (permalink)
linderman Moderator, Hardware Team Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 14,037 OS: win 2000 pro / Win XP pro My System	Re: Files getting corrupted; this computer is driving me insane what about bios upgrade ? __________________ If you cant be polite and friendly; then please be silent.

07-17-2008, 07:19 PM	#13 (permalink)
Pharaohz TSF Enthusiast Join Date: May 2008 Location: USA Posts: 606 OS: Windows XP Home My System	Re: Files getting corrupted; this computer is driving me insane You have a system restore or a like program installed and enabled? __________________ I am the way, the truth and the life.No one comes to the father, Except through me. John 14:6 Wrench: "When they make an SLI that's not buggy we'll let you know" OMG: "Noooooppeeee! we build pc's.. we don't manufacture mobo's"

07-17-2008, 08:01 PM	#14 (permalink)
raichle Registered User Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 105 OS: xp	Re: Files getting corrupted; this computer is driving me insane This is only happening with "large" downloads? I would look towards a network problem or ISP interference. Can you plug another computer into the same network connection and still download the same file minus the corruption? The page_fault error could be completely unrelated. http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/corrupted_downloads/ If other large files are fine than the corruption would seem limited to "downloaded" files, pointing towards a network issue. I would test the line with another comp, and if that works, try a different card in your comp. edit** the page fault errors could be caused by corrupted downloads of windows updates. I've seen these occur when windows updates is interrupted during the install process. Last edited by raichle : 07-17-2008 at 08:17 PM.

07-17-2008, 08:40 PM	#15 (permalink)
seanbow Registered User Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 27 OS: Windows Vista Ultimate	Re: Files getting corrupted; this computer is driving me insane I don't have time to try one stick of RAM at a time right now but I will tomorrow as soon as I can. I've flashed the BIOS before and it didn't help. I think system restore is enabled, yeah. I'm not sure. Sorry, I should have been more clear. It's not really only large files that get corrupted, it's just that they almost always do. A download of firefox (very small) got corrupted earlier today, but normally I can download anything below 10mB or so just fine. And it's actually not only downloads: trying to install drivers from an exe on a flash drive would fail over half the time because of corrupt files. Thanks for the help everyone.

07-18-2008, 10:48 PM	#16 (permalink)
seanbow Registered User Join Date: Dec 2007 Posts: 27 OS: Windows Vista Ultimate	Re: Files getting corrupted; this computer is driving me insane Someone suggested that my L2 cache might be the problem, so I ran the Mersenne prime stress test to try and determine if the CPU was bad. While running both options that it said didn't test the RAM much, the tests went perfectly. The option that tested the RAM also would fail after a few seconds with a hardware failure error message. So I swapped out a stick of RAM and tried again with just one stick in and the test works perfectly. I haven't downloaded anything large to test that though. I think I'm going to reformat with just that stick in and see how things go. Thanks!

07-19-2008, 05:10 AM	#17 (permalink)
linderman Moderator, Hardware Team Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 14,037 OS: win 2000 pro / Win XP pro My System	Re: Files getting corrupted; this computer is driving me insane S& M stress tester is even better __________________ If you cant be polite and friendly; then please be silent.