bluescreen after 15 mins

[stardock2]

My specs:
e6600
8800 gts 320mb
gigabyte motherboard that was bought new with the e6600
2.5 year old 120GB harddrive, the type that isn't SATA.

Basically, I get a bluescreen after playing games / watching movies for over 15 minutes. I reckon I hit 30 minutes once. The bluescreen disappears quickly, but what I managed to see was that windows had shut down to prevent damage because it identified some sort of error.

It then hangs in the bootup faze unless I turn it off for 5 mins and leave it alone.

When I get it running, before windows boots up it "strongly recommends" that I run CHKDSK before starting windows. When I do this, it deletes many files, and recovers many other files. This happens in both stage 1/3 and 2/3, and it might be happening in stage 3/3 of the CHKDSK.

I have also noticed that after this happened, some of my DVD's are no longer recognised by my DVD player. The lights of the DVD player flash on and off for a while, but yeah, it doesn't recognise that theres a DVD in there. Could be coincidence.

Finally, I have repaired my windows twice since this started, and I have not seen any improvements.



Do you think formatting will help? If yes, considering my harddrive is partitioned, will I be able to format the OS harddrive without affecting the partitioned other harddrive?

Also if you know the solution please go ahead and tell me

[shwinG]

I really think formatting will help. There may be something wrong with your windows partition or something.

Good luck in solving it!

[sb^]

reformat etc

bsods are normally caused by corrupt software of faulty ram

[fr0zen]

This is what exactly happened to me with my old computer.. It was my RAM my uncle found out.. but i don't know about you.. Could be virus (not really sure.. not very smart when it comes to this) But, yeah maybe you might have to re format your computer... might be the only option. Hopefully it's only a minor issue.

[stardock2]

Is formatting a bad idea without an internet connection? I have all the cd's and **** for my hardware and windows, but will I be screwed if I can't get the windows updates?

[Fry]

Sounds like a RAM problem, or a corrupt HDD.
Run memtest and your HDD's brand recovery software and find out.

[xr6_turbo]

I wouldn't format without having the latest drivers on hand or a Internet Connection, Do you have the actual error code eg x000000 or whatnot and any files that were causing it at the time, seeing as you have mentioned dvd it could either be a chip set driver issue or a controller problem.

Seeing as its deleting files during a check disk (chkdsk) a format will probably fix it up, repairing Windows is usually a useless procedure as soon as your back into the computer any issues stuff the files which were replaced :P

Personally format the computer, after getting your audio, chipset, video drivers onto a cd or something

As others have said it sounds like hard drive or ram corruption occuring, so be a best bet to look at testing both of those out with tools

MemTest

MemTest Memory Testing Utility

Hard Drive Testing

Testing Hard Drive

Are you over clocking at all? as over clocks further down the track can cause all kinds of havoc.


-Shawn

[rozzo]

most probably ur RAM

[stardock2]

it happened again this morning, didn't provide an error code that i could see. It basically just blue screened, said that windows was shutting down to prevent damage, said "if this is the first time this has happened restart bla bla bla". At the bottom of the screen it said it was dumping physical memory (and had a progress bar), once the progress bar was complete it then restarted.

My ram is about 3 months old. I haven't overclocked anything.

The bluescreen has occurred while watching videos, while opening random folders, while starting a demo in css, and while playing oblivion. I also had my computer on all night last night running videos without any problems occurring, however I restarted this morning and then about 30 minutes in it died again.

I have all my drivers on cd's, but I won't have the internet for another 2 - 8 weeks according to TPG.

I'm gonna try your mem check stuff and hdd check stuff, and if it identifies any problems with that i'll either return my ram or buy a new hdd (have been planning on getting a sata for a while).

Also, can anyone tell me how I format my c:? I typed it in the run menu and obviously that didn't work because windows is running off the c: I don't know how to open the dos prompt before windows starts (I pushed f8 to get the options but I didn't see dos prompt there).

[xr6_turbo]

Best bet with formatting is doing it via windows setup


1.Go into your bios and set "cdrom" as the first boot device
2.Insert XP cd
3.Wait for it to say "hit any key to run setup"
4.If its sata, then hit f6 when it says and have your sata controller drivers on a floppy disk.
5.Pick your controller and continue setup.
6.Format it using the Windows XP format utility as setup runs.

I'd be saying its a ram or hard drive issue most likely, the old way of formatting a drive need not be done these days as Windows XP / Vista has a built in system for doing it, saving the time and most hard drives are "pre formatted" saving the need for the dos trip.

-Shawn

[chX]

Make sure your video drivers are fully updated. A lot of people I know (including myself) who have 8800's get occasional blue screen if they play CS:S and then watch something on WMP... I think it's a driver problem.

[jamiec]

imo bl thar stardock

[Adam_]

So it displayed no error message in capital letters?

[Westy]

So it displayed no error message in capital letters?

tad weird id say.

[stardock2]

So it displayed no error message in capital letters?

If it did it was hidden in all the other writing on the screen (it was more or less top to bottom full of writing). Nothing jumped out at me before it restarted.

Can't guarantee it though.

I've now formatted (I was going to do the memory check that studiosound suggested, but apparently none of my cd's could be detected by my burner so I couldn't burn it to a cd to boot from it, and then I tried to check the hard drive, and when I didn't click any boxes it just sipped through some checks and said nothing, and when I did click the boxes it said it would do it when I next restarted, but never did.

I don't know if the format has fixed it, I'll test it out when I get the time.

[stardock2]

Well, I formatted and i don't get bluescreens anymore and my dvd player works.

[l_w_88]

clapclap.

well done.

congratulations.

and all that jazz.

[xr6_turbo]

not noting sarcasm there :P

-Shawn

[ethnic]

now im getting blue screens, and got ran over today, and my net keeps disconnecting, ;(