Solved BSOD Seems to be Contagious?

[aanieze]

Hey Guys! First time writer, long time reader, love the forum.

I have an exceptional problem here it seems. It started as random BSOD appearing after about 15-20 minutes running on Windows 7. As I began diagnosing the problem (updating drivers, BIOS flashing, the whole nine yards), the BSOD became closer together...then closer and closer to finally, I couldn't even get to booting without a BSOD.

Here's where things got interesting...

Trying to find the problem (seemingly it was now hardware related), I popped a different Hard Drive into my dying computer, and yes, STILL the same BSOD at startup. But just for the heck of it, I put the original hard drive out of my dying computer into a working computer... and it got the same Blue Screen of Death.

I won't lie, I starred at the ceiling for a good 10 minutes in sheer awe. Anybody have any light on this? Out of all of my computer fixing days, this one's easily the weirdest I've ever seen.

Blue Screen Error:
STOP 0x0000001e

No files or drivers are on the Error. Any help would be greatly appreciated, I'm completely dedicated to fixing this thing.

-Aaron

 

[mgorman87]

Please upload a report
http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-debugging/96879-blue-screen-death-bsod-posting-instructions.html

 

[aanieze]

I've tried to gather up a report, but the computer will not start in Safe or Regular mode, the BSOD occurs right when the initial Windows load screen appears.

 

[mgorman87]

Have you tried http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/681-startup-repair.html

 

[aanieze]

Yes, but it brings the same BSOD as soon as anything is trying to boot or be accessed.

I also did a System Restore to about 4 months ago, but to no avail either.

(thanks for posting by the way)

 

[mgorman87]

Try bootable memtest

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105647-ram-test-memtest86.html

 

[aanieze]

Will do and post back, thank you.

 

[aanieze]

Get this, before I was going to run Memtest, I tried booting up with the RAM in different orders, and I got one selection to actually boot up...

1Gb in slot 1 and 1Gb in slot 3... leaving slots 2 and 4 empty

I'm completely stumped...

Any ideas?

 

[mgorman87]

Usually on motherboards they have bank 0 and bank 1. The slots on the motherboard might be like white/blue/white/blue. White is bank 0 and blue is bank 1. If you buy a set of ram sticks, which I assume you did, you need to put them both in bank 0 or both in bank 1, not one in each bank. Also, running 2 gig of memory is very low. At idle, my computer consumes 2 gig of memory with nothing running. I would invest in getting 2x2gig of ram. They are very inexpensive

 

[aanieze]

Thank you for your reply, here's the update:

Memtest showed no errors on the RAM (had it running all day). But also started getting BSODs even with the RAM only in slots 1 and 3... I'm convinced this is a PSU issue (maybe that's why it booted better with less RAM = Less watts? Perhaps)

What do you think of this diagnosis? I've tested every other piece of hardware (except the Motherboard and PSU, I'm not exactly sure if there is a qualifying test for the Motherboard specifically) do these seem like typical dying PSU symptoms in your experience?

Thank you again.

 

[aanieze]

Found the problem...

Put a different CPU in and it worked just fine, which is crazy, it's quite an expensive processor and I've only had it for a year, and there's no physical damage whatsoever.

Either way, thanks for your help, I'll mark this as solved.