4gb RAM BSOD

[aniruddha]

I take that back. It's probably my mobo drivers/forceware. And a little bit of vista thrown in. I know, Vista IS rock solid at 2 gigs. It's just the extra 2 gigs.

Anyway here are some updates:

I went into msconfig, and in advanced boot options, limited the maximum amount of ram. Surprisingly, with only 2.5 gb available physical memory, Vista still shows 4GB in system properties. The Performance is flawless at this point. But it's not using 4GB.

Then I run dxDiag. It reports the correct amount of physial memory, and tells me it's sharing some with the 8800GT. Okay.

Now I Go back to msconfig, switch to my original boot config, reboot. Then run dxdiag again. It shows me 4094 mb ram, okay. Task manager shows me 4093, thats okay too.

Then I uninstall all forceware and nforce drivers. It looks crappy but runs well.
I installed forceware display drivers, no luck, still runs well.
Then I install nforce drivers, and finally the random appcrashes begin again. yay!
as I type, I narrowed down the nforce driver installation to just the ethernet driver, and I'm using windows defaults for all the rest. No drop in performance. No appcrash yet in 20 mins, no BSOD (yet).

Hope this helps.

 

[aniruddha]

Update: No Random appcrashes yet. 1 BSOD, but it was unrelated to the ram. Running Windows update drivers instead of nForce.

 

[ltwally]

...I narrowed down the nforce driver installation to just the ethernet driver, and I'm using windows defaults for all the rest. No drop in performance. No appcrash yet in 20 mins, no BSOD (yet). ...

Best of luck! Let us know in a few days how things are rolling.

Also, have you tried other versions of the suspect driver?

-ltwally

ps. If you're really feeling considerate, drop your mobo manufacturer a line about it, once you've figured out the exact problem. Give them the steps to reproduce, and the steps to avoid. Maybe you can help others avoid the troubles you went through!

 

[aniruddha]

No great luck so far. 3-4 random bluescreens in 12 hours. Drivers were ntfs.sys, win32k.sys etc. Stop messages 0x0000003E and 0x00000024 etc. The good thing is the random appcrashes have significantly reduced.

Also, I have NOT had any stop from the following list since switching back to windows update drivers:
MEMORY_MANAGEMENT
SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION
DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

These were the most common STOP messages. The driver they identified is random.

Interestingly, In the win32k.sys BSOD, it said that the driver marked a part of its image pagable instead of non-pagable. It doesn't say anything at all usually.

Needless to say, All this jus goes away with just one 2gb stick or when I limit the maximum amount of ram.

I did try alternate versions for the nforce drivers. Same thing happens. and there are only 3 versions of WHQL drivers for my mobo.

Can't help feeling that the support for 4gb ram in vista is somewhat superficial.

 

[dmex]

Bug Check 0x3E:The MULTIPROCESSOR_CONFIGURATION_NOT_SUPPORTED bug check has a value of 0x0000003E. This indicates that the system has multiple processors, but they are asymmetric in relation to one another.
All processors must be of the same type and level. This system contains processors of different types (for example, a Pentium processor and an 486 processor).



Bug Check 0x24: NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM

The NTFS_FILE_SYSTEM bug check has a value of 0x00000024. This indicates a problem occurred in ntfs.sys, the driver file that allows the system to read and write to NTFS drives.
Cause of this bug check is disk corruption. Corruption in the NTFS file system or bad blocks (sectors) on the hard disk can induce this error. Corrupted SCSI and IDE drivers and non-paged memory

No great luck so far. 3-4 random bluescreens in 12 hours. Drivers were ntfs.sys, win32k.sys etc. Stop messages 0x0000003E and 0x00000024 etc. The good thing is the random appcrashes have significantly reduced.

Also, I have NOT had any stop from the following list since switching back to windows update drivers:
MEMORY_MANAGEMENT
SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION
DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

These were the most common STOP messages. The driver they identified is random.

Interestingly, In the win32k.sys BSOD, it said that the driver marked a part of its image pagable instead of non-pagable. It doesn't say anything at all usually.

Needless to say, All this jus goes away with just one 2gb stick or when I limit the maximum amount of ram.

I did try alternate versions for the nforce drivers. Same thing happens. and there are only 3 versions of WHQL drivers for my mobo.

Can't help feeling that the support for 4gb ram in vista is somewhat superficial.

 

[aniruddha]

I think I mistyped the first adress. It could have been 0x0000003A or something. not sure. >.<'" forgot that one...

I'm betting on Corrupted SCSI and IDE drivers and non-paged memory...

 

[aniruddha]

All right, after a few more MEMORY_MANAGEMENT BSODs, I removed the Storage Drivers for nForce which were installed through windows update. Right now the system is using the default drivers for storage. After this the system has had it's longest stable run (no bsod, no appcrash for a few hours, till now). I think it is safe to rule out forceware video drivers from this issue. I'll try installing the other mobo drivers/software (ntune etc) EXCEPT the storage drivers. If that works, I'm sure a lot of people would be relieved around the world.

 

[ltwally]

Can't help feeling that the support for 4gb ram in vista is somewhat superficial.

I would like to take the time to, again, stress that your symptoms appear to be driver or hardware related. Since you have no problem with Windows XP, we can rule out the hardware.

It is possible that there is some memory mapping / paging option in your system BIOS that is not important to Windows XP but is to Vista... other than that, I strongly feel from what little technical information that you have posted here, that you have some serious driver issues.

I'm not a Microsoft pundit, but I do get tired of seeing 2nd or 3rd party driver issues blamed on them. A more appropriate place to rant about Microsoft would be a Linux forum. They'll welcome you with open arms.

 

[aniruddha]

UPDATE: It doesn't matter what drivers are used for storage. Still BSOD. 0x7E and 0x3B and a wi32k.sys, along with system service exception.

I am almost certain that this is probably a motherboard driver issue, but it's not just from nVidia's side. Even Vista can NOT run stable on 4gb RAM with it's own default drivers.

Who's blaming MS or vista? If I had to blame'em I wouldn't be still trying to get vista to work with 4GB! btw, I HATE linux. Vista FTW.

It's annoying when people think you're pro-linux even if you point out a serious bug in vista/MS :'(

Anyway the most efficient solution I am using right now is limiting maximum RAM in msconfig. That way it detects around 2.8 GB, and runs rock solid. I wonder if that 2.8GB cap can go somwhere near 3.5-3.8... When I specify maximum RAM to 4095 MB (Instead of 4096) It detects 2.8 GB. Anyone getting any ideas from this?

 

[ltwally]

Vista FTW.

Was is?

Also, I don't recall seeing an answer: have you contacted your mobo manufacturer?

 

[aniruddha]

For The Win. (can also mean F**ks The World), Something gamers say...

I dropped a line at XFX, haven't gotten any replies yet.

 

[aniruddha]

UPDATE:
Using 2.8 GB ram, Running All latest drivers. NO bsod, no appacrash. Rock solid.
(weird thing is, Even though it physically detects 2.8 GB, it still shows 4.00 GB in system properties)

 

[dmex]

aniruddha

Can vista use the extra RAM while its limited with the boot switch?

 

[aniruddha]

No, Both Task manager, And Dxdiag show me only 2.8GB RAM. Even the page file is adusted automatically. It's around 10-11 GB with full 4GB RAM, and around 8GB with the limitation.

 

[aniruddha]

I think I might have gotten it right this time...

1) I formatted (again) and Installed Vista SP1 x64 With only one 2GB stick installed.
2) Right after the installation is finished, I shut down the system and install the other 2GB stick. Note that I haven't installed ANY drivers yet.
3) The system starts up fine, detects full 4GB, and I start installing the necessary drivers, EXCEPT Forceware and nForce drivers.
4) I restart once more. Now I install the Forceware drivers for display.

So far, The system is running perfect, for about an hour. Normally, It would have given me at least one BSOD. Now, I am hesitant to install the drivers for my motherboard, be they from windows update or XFX. I have made a restore point, and I'm going to leave the system running for a few hours. If it runs that long without any BSOD, I'll install the mobo drivers.

Since KB929777 is integrated into SP1, this method somewhat makes sense. To install KB929777, you have to have less than 4GB RAM installed, and then add the rest. Since it's integrated, you have to install the whole of windows with less than 4GB. I would love it if someone else with the same problem can confirm this method for us!

 

[aniruddha]

Lol, it's getting funny now. I had a bsod about an hour after my last post. And then I decided to install themobo drivers anyway, and there's no BSOD since (yet).

I am not sure it'll work 100%, but this is, by far, my most stable Vista on 4GB.

 

[HexManiac]

Maybe it's just a bad mobo. I have seen a number of issues with the 680i chipset and 4GB of RAM but the 777 hotfix usually takes care of it. I'd RMA it.

I have a XFX 780i and installed 4GB (2x2GB) before I even installed Vista Ultimate x64. I never had a problem. Installed another 4GB and it's stable running at SLI detected stock timings (5-4-4-15-2T)@800. Also running 2 XFX 8800GTX with it. No problems whatsoever with it. All drivers are latest nvidia drivers (video and chipset).

XFX 780i / Q6600-G0
2 XFX8800GTX 768MB
8GB OCZ SLI DDR2-6400
HT Omega Claro 7.1
150GB Raptor / 750GB / 500GB / 250GB No RAID
Antec TPQ 1000 / Antec Nine Hundred

 

[aniruddha]

It's definitely not a bad mobo. It runs solid on 2GB ram, and also runs perfect on XP64 with all 4GB, without any BSOD in both cases.

UPDATE: Only 2 BSOD in 24 hours, that were related to the RAM issue. Both were the same, 0x0000003b, SYSTEM_SERVICE_EXCEPTION

PS: Another thing I've noticed is, the drivers available through windows update are labled nforce 5 series (and I'm using a 6 series), at least for the storage drivers. Nvidia hasn't released any significant driver updates after version 169.xx for forceware for 8800GT and version 15.0x for nforce on the 680i. Maybe, just maybe, if the problem is with the nVidia drivers, they are aware of it and still testing a new driver...

 

[HexManiac]

What are you using for audio? Realtek and Creative drivers will cause blue screens in some situations.

 

[aniruddha]

Realtek HD audio driver...

Will try uninstalling that...