Ogalik

Hey, long post incoming, please bare with me.

So it's the second time I post here. Meanwhile my PC went through repairs, which turned out to be free since they found no problems with the PC. All the advice they could give me was to format and install a new OS.

The problem is that my PC reboots randomly, it's a hard reboot, PC turns intself off and back on a few secs later, and it also seems to happen faster and faster, since a few weeks ago I could play WoW for 10 mins to 2h before a crash, now I'm lucky if I get into windows. Sometimes it reboots while starting up Windows, sometimes while browsing the web randomly, always when I start up any game and always when I end any stability test. It doesn't crash in the test, but always exactly when I close the test. This has happened with for example with the AtiTool test and Prime95 test.

I run a NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT, 2x1gb RAM, 550W PSU, 320g HDD, Intel Core2 Duo 2,33GHz, Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3L mobo. Temps are fine, not a cooling issue, power supply is fine.

What I've done so far:
-Updated all drivers
-Tested RAM with Memtest, no issues
-Tested CPU with Prime95, no issue during test but crashed on the second I ended the test
-Made sure it's not a cooling issue
-Made sure my GPU has enough power
-Tested my HDD, no issues
-Tried Fail-Safe options from BIOS
-Flashed by BIOS to the newest version
-Borrowed a friends vid card, got greeted by a lovely BSOD 2 mins into gaming, switched my card back
-Used my old HDD, crash while loading windows, switched back to my new HDD
-Sent it to repairs where they did the exact same tests I had already done and basicly told me to **** off, your PC is fine, without going into much detail (though they didn't charge me so I assume they were just clueless)
-Got it back from repairs, it refused to start up, giving me UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME BSOD every time I tried, this happened somewhere in the middle of loading windows
-Formatted, installed a really old and legit Windows XP Home SP1, which still has the same issues (on it now, seems to be a bit more cooperative but still crashed on AtiTools test on the second I closed it, also takes a few tries to get it started up sometimes, just restarts during loading)

Right now I'm clueless to what the issue could be, with my only two guesses being that it's either my GPU, because with my friends GPU I got a BSOD, never happened with my GPU, or it has something to do with the fact that things crash when I close them.

Any help would be appriciated, even wild guesses, since right now the only option seems to be to start buying new parts one by one or just buying a new PC, something that I won't be able to do for a while.

dai

what brand and model is the psu

if there are no bsod error messages on the reboot it usually is an indication of power or heat

what does the bios list the voltages and temps as

Ogalik

Made a mistake there, remembered wrong, the PSU is a Fortron Blue Storm II 500W, not 550W.

What really makes me doubt that it's the PSU is that the system ran without these issues for more than a year and that a friend of mine runs nearly the same hardware with the same PSU.

Still, checked BIOS, here are the results, just typed everything that was listed there.
Vcore 1.316V
DDR18V 1.904V
+3.3V 3.344V
+12V 12.175V
Current Sys Temp 34C
Current CPU Temp 27C
Also for some reason it lists the case as opened, if that matters for anything.

Temps are fine, though one thing to mention is that for some reason my GPU sometimes crashed when I reached around 65degrees, but that's not important right now, I'd rather avoid 65 degrees while playing than be unable to play at all.

dai

turn off the auto reboot and see if you can get an error message

turn off the auto reboot
control panel /system/advanced/startup and recovery settings
then untick the auto reboot box
post any bsod error messages the computer freezes on in full

try a video driver reinstall

in the device manager uninstall the video card
reboot tapping f8 and choose vga mode
when windows finishes rebooting
disable a/virus
install your drivers
reboot the computer

check the voltage range for your ram and see if you have room to lift it

check the event viewer and see if there is anything listed at the time of the reboot

Ogalik

No BSOD on crash, simply the usual reboot

I've installed about 4 different sets of drivers so far, the ones that came with it, the newest ones with WHQL, the ones without, nothing works. And without an antivirus up at the time of the installing.

Not sure how to do this I'm afraid

There are 12 Information logs under Event Viewer - System that are all exactly at the time of the crash. They seem unimportant, but I'll post the messages still, just in case. Probably no good though.
The IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service service entered the stopped state.
The IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service service entered the running state.
The IMAPI CD-Burning COM Service service was successfully sent a start control.
The Network Location Awareness (NLA) service entered the running state.
The Network Location Awareness (NLA) service was successfully sent a start control.
The SSDP Discovery Service service entered the running state.
The SSDP Discovery Service service was successfully sent a start control.
The Network Connections service entered the running state.
The Network Connections service was successfully sent a start control.
The Terminal Services servie entered the running state.
Event IDs of these are 7035 or 7036.

Pretty damn useless :|. There are a few warnings too, all but one of them say unable to connect to the internet, basically, but one says "The attempt to reboot *my PC name* failed", but this was when my drivers installer wanted to reboot the system but failed. So yeah, nothing under logs at all.

Edit: Also found the log for the very first crash I had after formatting
Source: System error
Type: Error
Category: (102)
Event ID: 1003
Description: Error code 0000007f, parameter1 00000000, parameter2 00000000, parameter3 00000000, parameter4 00000000.
Data (in words): 0000: 74737953 45206d65 726f7272 72452020
0010: 20726f72 65646f63 30303020 37303030
0020: 50202066 6d617261 72657465 30302073
0030: 30303030 202c3030 30303030 30303030
0040: 3030202c 30303030 202c3030 30303030
0050: 30303030

dai

d/load and run the h/drive makers diagnostic utility on the hard drive

http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287

go into the video card in the device manager

see if it can roll back the driver

it should come up as

no driver to roll back to

Ogalik

Driver rollback gave me an error - "Error in C:\WINDOWS\System32\NVCPL.DLL Missing entry:ExportOEMDefaults", but it rolled back. This was since I first installed the driver that came with it, then updated to the newest version after it crashed (and all of this was after a format, before the format I was running some version in between the one that came with it and the newest one).

Started the PC up with the rolled back drivers, wierdly enough now it didn't crash like it always does, just turned my monitor off but the PC itself kept running. Restarted and it managed to get to windows without failing.

Once I got back into windows it told me that the system had recovered from a serious error
Error Signature BCCode : 7f BCP1 : 00000000 BCP2 : 00000000 BCP3 : 00000000 BCP4: 00000000
Error Report Contents
The following files will be included in this error report:
C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini050809-01.dmp
C:\DOCUME~1\user\LOCALS~1\Temp\WER1.tmp.dir00\sysdata.xml
Really don't know if this is important, just making sure I mention everything

I've done HDD diagnostics before and so have the repair guys, but I suppose I'll do it again then.

Ogalik

Ran HDD diagnostics, no issues were found, just as before.

dai

post your mini dumps and i will ask someone to check them

C:\Windows\Minidump\Minidump.dmp

Ogalik

Here's my minidump:
http://www.speedyshare.com/455699149.html

There were 3 of them so packed them into one, hope that's okay.

jcgriff2

Hi -

The bugchecks on the 3 mini dumps -

(2) 0x7f(0x0, 0x0, 0x0, 0x0), probable cause listed as nv4_mini.sys - NVIDIA, timestamp = Tue Nov 06 18:12:38 2007 (47311F16).
(1) 0x50 (0xf9be00e8, 0x0, 0x8051d724, 0x0), p/c = NVIDIA

0x7f = kernel mode trap; 1st parm (0x0) = illegal instruction - a division by zero.
0x50 = invalid memory referenced - the address is just bad or a driver is attempting to access an address that is off limits

The 3 BSODs show system up-time = 14 secs, 16 secs, 27.9 secs. All 4 parms on the two 0x7f bugcheck are 0x0 and name NVIDIA, so it may be failing while trying to load the NVIDIA drivers. 3rd party drivers loaded into RAM at the time of the BSODs -

I found this XP SP2 driver in the loaded driver listing -
Also in the list was this 2005 MS HD driver -
`

The problem that I see now is an XP SP1 with NT Kernel and DirectX Graphics drivers all dated 2002 and updated 3rd party drivers written for SP2 XP systems. They don't mix too well. A stable OS is needed for further diagnosis from the software end.

Does the system BSOD in safemode?
What happened after the re-install w/ SP1?
When did you install the video, audio & NIC drivers?


Regards. . .

jcgriff2


`
Summary

Ogalik

After I reinstalled SP1 I started off with installing the VGA drivers. Once those were finished and the system had to restart after the install, the first crash occured during the windows loading screen after the needed restart. In case the issue was simply in my drivers, I just now unistalled my VGA drivers and installed the newest WHQL ones. It seemed to be working, but it was unfortunately just as before, ATITool didn't make the system crash until I closed the tool, which resulted in a crash. Don't think it was temp wise, although my GPU was at 70C at the time of the crash, though the card should be able to handle that.

All other drivers I installed after the VGA drivers and after the first crash.

As for safemode, ATITools tells me that the Kernel Mode Driver does not seem to be running in safe mode, so I have nothing to test whether it crashes or not with.

jcgriff2

What it the ATITool for?

So, the system crashes after the introduction of the video drivers?
Are they the same 2007 drivers? If so, they may not be compatible with SP1.

Do you have Internet access?

`

Ogalik

ATITool is just some software that tests my GPU, picked it up from some other topic here, since I formatted I needed something to test with, since I wasn't going to spend hours installing some game just for testing purposes.

Yes, first crash was after installing vid card drivers.

The drivers are both fairly new, the ones that I have on right now, the newest, are 185.85 winxp 32bit WHQL, the ones that came with it are either 163.71 or 169.06, not sure, there are both on the disk, don't know which one it installed earlier. I don't know if these drivers are compatible with SP1 or not though, I assume they should be, at least the ones on the disk. If this would be purely driver based, why didn't my old SP3 XP have the same issues?

Yes I have internet access on that PC as well, just posting on my laptop since I can't bare the IE6 the other one has.

Reformatting to try again with a more stable and newer OS. Also wanted to put some emphasis on a fact I've mentioned earlier I think, when I'm running any test the system only crashes as I end the test, be it for CPU or GPU (not for HDD though). It never crashes during the test or shows any errors during it, only when I end it.

dai

have you o/c with the ati tool

Ogalik

Nope, haven't done any overclocking at all.

Also installed a newer OS, SP3, still crashes.