Fairly random BSODs :(

Hi guys, please enlightne me if you know of a solution to my problem, I have Vista x64 on this...

AthlonX2 4800 (12 x 250MHz, Multiplier is set to 4x so FSB is still 1000MHz)
2GB 800MHz Corsair XLS (2.1V and memtests fine) (at DDR 667 ratio) = 750MHz
GeForce 7950GX2 (latest drivers)
590SLi chipset (latest drivers)

Heres the thing....

If I watch WMV files with any other software such as zoomplayer, media player classic or VLC I will get a random BSOD but they are mostly to do with "MEMORY_MANAGEMENT" I have had a couple of them doing other things but I can guarantee you that if i play a few WMV files with any of those programs except WMP I'll get a BSOD. Wierd!?

It gets better.

Thinking it was my non-native setup of the components I put everuything back to stock, and guess what? Vista doesnt even want to boot! So i put the settings back to the way they were (listed) and here we are, working again.

I have to say....

WTF!!?

any help or insight would be appreciated.

I would look at your ram. Vistas ram footprint is huge and it may now be using memory that really never got used in the past. This hapened to a set of crucial sticks I had when I installed Vista. Had to rma them. But these same modules ran flawlessly under XP for over a year.

Chris

I'll check them out again, but there were no errors the last time I checked :/

ripkord said:

I'll check them out again, but there were no errors the last time I checked :/

Click to expand...

Can you run with just one stick at a time and still have enought memory (at least 512). That way you may be able to ID the memory.

you think i should use memtest or the windows vista tool

ripkord said:

you think i should use memtest or the windows vista tool

Click to expand...

Use memtest. How much memory do you have? Can you "trade" with someone for testing purposes?

4 x 512MB corsair XLS

memtest just completed 4 runs without any errors, I'll try with each stick individually but I think its more to do with some software issue to be honest, it only happens when I play wmv files with any other player except WMP... that seems to be a bit too specific, other memory intensive tasks come off without a hitch......

ripkord said:

memtest just completed 4 runs without any errors, I'll try with each stick individually but I think its more to do with some software issue to be honest, it only happens when I play wmv files with any other player except WMP... that seems to be a bit too specific, other memory intensive tasks come off without a hitch......

Click to expand...

I have to agree. But that means the BSOD are NOT random, but definitely related to a particular activity.

Are you using wma files on a media player (like zune)? I wonder what would happen if you re-encoded some of our wma files from the original source?

Crap like this really pisses me off. Last night my wife asked me to setup an application on her smartphone. I could not do it because the application wanted Activesync. But Activesync was replaced be Windows Mobile Device Center in Vista and apparently it does not get recognised by teh application as Activesync. YOu would have thought MS would have seen this issue.

Chris

Hmm tested all 4 sticks individually for a couple of hours each, nothing came up.

Apparently a lot of people are getting these errors and its because of the nvidia graphics drivers (wouldnt surprise me)

I have heard some fairly evil issues with nvidia. I blame them for some sleep issues I have right now.

I guess if I were you I would just workaround the problem and come back to it when nvidia updates their driver base again.

Chris

ripkord said:

Hmm tested all 4 sticks individually for a couple of hours each, nothing came up.

Apparently a lot of people are getting these errors and its because of the nvidia graphics drivers (wouldnt surprise me)

Click to expand...

Thats what I thought. To me BSOD=Nvidia driver problem.

I got the same thing using VLC Media player on WMV's. In fact I guaranteed a BSOD if I opened a second WMV without giving the previous one time to close up and calm down properly ( 5 seconds or so), but they would happen intermittently even if I did this. I associated WMV's with Windows Media Player and no more BSOD.

Yes! forgot to mention that when I associate with WMP they are fine, or did I? hmm

I can replicate the 2 WMVs thing..... thats f**ked up!!

Must be some sort of bug :/

Least I know its not my memory after fairly intensive memory testing

Update:

Think I may have fixed it.

Heres the thing though, not sure what I did exactly!

I installed the new Nvidia drivers (7.15.11.6222) And installed ntune as well, (forgot all about this great app - lets me change my mobo settings on the fly!) anyway - once I had installed the new drivers I was looking at my motherboard settings and noticed ntune was reporting my memory was running at 833MHz or something, which would be overclocking it, hmm.
I go back into bios and although my FSB is set to 250MHz the DDR ratio is set to 667 so wait a minute! the Bios is telling me the memory is running at 750MHz how did they figure that one out!!!

Maths time....

FSB x 4 (the multiplier in this case) x (DDR ratio/800) = actual clock speed

so

(250 x 4) x (667/800) = 833MHz Why was it reporting 700 odd?

(250 x 4) x (533/800) = 666MHz and I'll need to check what the bios is reporting.... might just be a bug...

Anyone think im working this out wrong? I know I have probably called some things by the wrong name but you get the jist...

Anyway the point is I was OCing my memory without knowing because A) I never checked the calcualtion and B) trusted the bios!