Constant BSOD HP Pavilion Media Center m8000 Various Error Codes Win 7

HP Pavilion Media Center m8000
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit
Originally Vista Home Premium (Architecture Unknown - I Assume 64 Bit Also)
Full Retail Upgrade Version
Hardware I Was Told is 3-4 Years Old
OS Installed 2 Weeks Ago


I'm hoping someone can help me with this issue. This PC was given to me by my stepson's cousin to look at, after they had spent lots of time and $ trying to get it fixed. According to them it was working fine with Vista Home Premium for several years until they installed Vista SP2 (This sounds like the opposite of what I would expect). The system was running with all 4 RAM slots filled, 2x 512 and 2x 1GB for a total of 3 GB.

Apparently after (or around) installing Vista SP2 they started getting BSOD frequently. Eventually they brought it into Best Buy and there were sold Windows 7 Home Premium (Upgrade), which did not help the problem.

They gave it to me to look at a couple of weeks ago. The system had been purchased with 2 hard drives, so I removed the one Windows was installed on and attempted to do a fresh clean install of Windows 7 Home Premium on to the other hard drive, from the Windows disc they had purchased. This was unsuccessful for several attempts until I removed all peripherals and all of the RAM except one 1 GB stick.

I took all of that stuff out to minimize points of failure. At the time I got it to work I assumed that I was either dealing with a faulty memory module or slot. However since installing and updating Windows it will still give me the BSOD with various RAM configurations. It doesn't seem to matter which sticks I use or which slots they are in. The only thing that SEEMS to work OK is only having 1 GB in use; after I go over that is when the problems start. I still have not put back in any PCI cards or connected any front panel wiring (this thing has a ton of that too - USB/Firewire and A/V inputs, to name a couple..).

So to make a long story short, at this point I'm thinking bad MB or a boot sector virus (if those even exist lol - something I've never been able to determine definitively). Also it only has a 300W PSU - I assume that 1 GB of ram had been added to the system since it comes standard with 2048 according to HP's specs.

The most frequent stop error I'm seeing is "Page_Fault_In_Non_Paged_Area," but there are others. Anyway, I've taken 2 different snapshots with the software you have here, and uploaded the info. The first I took earlier tonight, and had logged about 10 unexpected shutdowns since I installed Windows 2 weeks ago (I've only had the system on every 3-4 days). The second I took after I caused a BSOD trying to run the "Windows Experience" benchmark. It also BSOD'd while I was attempting to run the snapshot, which should be reflected in the second one. I only remembered to get the "perfmon /report" with the second one. Later it BSOD'd twice while I was writing this on another PC and it was just sitting there doing nothing.

I'm generally pretty good with computers, but basically I'm trying to figure out if this thing is worth fixing (it sure seems to be hardware). I'm not great at reading all of these logs and stuff, so hopefully one of you can point me in the right direction.


Thanks in advance,
Mike

Does anyone have any suggestions? :)

CitanulEHt said:

HP Pavilion Media Center m8000
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit
Originally Vista Home Premium (Architecture Unknown - I Assume 64 Bit Also)
Full Retail Upgrade Version
Hardware I Was Told is 3-4 Years Old
OS Installed 2 Weeks Ago


I'm hoping someone can help me with this issue. This PC was given to me by my stepson's cousin to look at, after they had spent lots of time and $ trying to get it fixed. According to them it was working fine with Vista Home Premium for several years until they installed Vista SP2 (This sounds like the opposite of what I would expect). The system was running with all 4 RAM slots filled, 2x 512 and 2x 1GB for a total of 3 GB.

Apparently after (or around) installing Vista SP2 they started getting BSOD frequently. Eventually they brought it into Best Buy and there were sold Windows 7 Home Premium (Upgrade), which did not help the problem.

They gave it to me to look at a couple of weeks ago. The system had been purchased with 2 hard drives, so I removed the one Windows was installed on and attempted to do a fresh clean install of Windows 7 Home Premium on to the other hard drive, from the Windows disc they had purchased. This was unsuccessful for several attempts until I removed all peripherals and all of the RAM except one 1 GB stick.

I took all of that stuff out to minimize points of failure. At the time I got it to work I assumed that I was either dealing with a faulty memory module or slot. However since installing and updating Windows it will still give me the BSOD with various RAM configurations. It doesn't seem to matter which sticks I use or which slots they are in. The only thing that SEEMS to work OK is only having 1 GB in use; after I go over that is when the problems start. I still have not put back in any PCI cards or connected any front panel wiring (this thing has a ton of that too - USB/Firewire and A/V inputs, to name a couple..).

So to make a long story short, at this point I'm thinking bad MB or a boot sector virus (if those even exist lol - something I've never been able to determine definitively). Also it only has a 300W PSU - I assume that 1 GB of ram had been added to the system since it comes standard with 2048 according to HP's specs.

The most frequent stop error I'm seeing is "Page_Fault_In_Non_Paged_Area," but there are others. Anyway, I've taken 2 different snapshots with the software you have here, and uploaded the info. The first I took earlier tonight, and had logged about 10 unexpected shutdowns since I installed Windows 2 weeks ago (I've only had the system on every 3-4 days). The second I took after I caused a BSOD trying to run the "Windows Experience" benchmark. It also BSOD'd while I was attempting to run the snapshot, which should be reflected in the second one. I only remembered to get the "perfmon /report" with the second one. Later it BSOD'd twice while I was writing this on another PC and it was just sitting there doing nothing.

I'm generally pretty good with computers, but basically I'm trying to figure out if this thing is worth fixing (it sure seems to be hardware). I'm not great at reading all of these logs and stuff, so hopefully one of you can point me in the right direction.


Thanks in advance,
Mike

Mike hi and welcome

Nice post btw.

The apparent causes are all over the map but most point to memory management. Usually that is a driver.

Please run these two tests to verify your memory and find which driver is causing the problem.


1-Memtest.

*Download a copy of Memtest86 and burn the ISO to a CD using Iso Recorder or another ISO burning program. Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool

*Boot from the CD, and leave it running for at least 5 or 6 passes.

Just remember, any time Memtest reports errors, it can be either bad RAM or a bad motherboard slot.

Test the sticks individually, and if you find a good one, test it in all slots.

RAM - Test with Memtest86+



2-Driver verifier

I'd suggest that you first backup your data and then make sure you've got access to another computer so you can contact us if problems arise. Then make a System Restore point (so you can restore the system using the Vista/Win7 Startup Repair feature).

In Windows 7 you can make a Startup Repair disk by going to Start....All Programs...Maintenance...Create a System Repair Disc - with Windows Vista you'll have to use your installation disk or the "Repair your computer" option at the top of the Safe Mode menu .

Then, here's the procedure:
- Go to Start and type in "verifier" (without the quotes) and press Enter
- Select "Create custom settings (for code developers)" and click "Next"
- Select "Select individual settings from a full list" and click "Next"
- Select everything EXCEPT FOR "Low Resource Simulation" and click "Next"
- Select "Select driver names from a list" and click "Next"
Then select all drivers NOT provided by Microsoft and click "Next"
- Select "Finish" on the next page.

Reboot the system and wait for it to crash to the Blue Screen. Continue to use your system normally, and if you know what causes the crash, do that repeatedly. The objective here is to get the system to crash because Driver Verifier is stressing the drivers out. If it doesn't crash for you, then let it run for at least 36 hours of continuous operation (an estimate on my part).

If you can't get into Windows because it crashes too soon, try it in Safe Mode.
If you can't get into Safe Mode, try using System Restore from your installation DVD to set the system back to the previous restore point that you created.

Driver Verifier - Enable and Disable

Thanks for getting back to me - I'm about to start these tests, which I guess will basically take all day, so I had a quick question - do you think there is any chance that the 300W PSU could be contributing to the problem? I know that 300 is a very small amount nowadays, and I'm pretty sure that some hardware was added (although like I said before most of that I have disconnected at the moment).

CitanulEHt said:

Thanks for getting back to me - I'm about to start these tests, which I guess will basically take all day, so I had a quick question - do you think there is any chance that the 300W PSU could be contributing to the problem? I know that 300 is a very small amount nowadays, and I'm pretty sure that some hardware was added (although like I said before most of that I have disconnected at the moment).

Could the PSU be deficient? sure. I doubt it would give these errors but only one way to find out.

It is cheaper to run the tests than to replace the PSU.