Frequent Random BSOD

[arobinson1984]

Hi,

I'm Andy, I'm new to the forum and hoping somebody would be able to help me diagnose my problem before I finish pulling all my hair out lol.

I have a Dell dimension 9200 pc which I've had 2-3 years with no probs.

About 2 weeks ago I decided to upgrade to windows 7 ultimate 32bit, my pc is capable of 64 bit but decided to stick with 32bit. Anyway, this is when all the problems started although I dont think windows 7 is to blame, I think it was just coincedence that the problems started at this point as I have tried reverting back to windows vista and still have the same problems.

I installed windows 7 ultimate 32bit from a clean install and ever since I have had lots of random bsod crashes, sometimes when booting windows 7, other times whilst using windows 7. I've had periods where it has taken 9-10 attempts to get windows 7 to boot without a bsod appearing.

Everytime I get a bsod its different from the time before, I've had a wide range of crashes caused by several different drivers.

Anyway, I installed all dell drivers from the disk supplied with the pc, I then purchased a program called drivermax which determined that I had 17 out of date drivers, all of which have now been updated.

I have run seagate seatools hard drive diagnostics and found no errors and I've also run memtest86+ for 20 hours and found 3 errors which can be seen in the attached jpeg image.

I've also attached the last 13 minidump files, there were many more but I deleted the ones before.

Windows 7 is also freezing up, some times for a few second and then becomes active again, other times it freezes and won't respond to anything meaning a manual reboot is required.

Desktop manager also keeps stopping.

I'm presuming all these are linked to one cause, this windows has only been installed a couple of days as I tried a clean install again to try correct the problem to no avail.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, and any more info thats needed, please ask

Many thanks in advance

Andy

 

[cluberti]

Those memtest errors specifically indicate that one value was written to memory, and another value entirely was retrieved (meaning the data written was corrupted either during write or during retrieval). Your minidumps are frankly all over the place, so honestly this does look like a case of bad memory finally rearing it's ugly head. If you have warranty support on that desktop still, I'd get Dell to replace the memory before doing anything else.

 

[arobinson1984]

Thankyou,

I honestly suspected the memory after finding them 3 errors.

This is the 1st time I've used memtest86+ so is there any way from them results to tell which of the 4 sticks of ram is the offender? or is it a case of trial and error removing each one until problem solved?

Andy

 

[arobinson1984]

Anyone?

 

[arobinson1984]

I've checked, and found that the dell warranty has expired so does anybody else agree that this looks like a case of bad memory before I go out and buy 4gb worth of new ram?

Andy

 

[fimble]

This is the 1st time I've used memtest86+ so is there any way from them results to tell which of the 4 sticks of ram is the offender? or is it a case of trial and error removing each one until problem solved?

I've checked, and found that the dell warranty has expired so does anybody else agree that this looks like a case of bad memory before I go out and buy 4gb worth of new ram?

From a canned speech:
Run Memtest86+ overnight, after your computer has been off for about an hour . Let it run for at least 7 passes / 6-8 hours. If errors appear you can stop that particular test.
Note!! Any time Memtest86+ reports errors, it can be either bad RAM or a bad Mobo slot. Test RAM sticks individually. When you find a good one then test it in all slots.

Bugger about Dells warranty!

 

[arobinson1984]

Right then.

I removed 3 of the ram sticks to test them 1 at a time. I've tested each stick of ram and all the slots and it seems that I have 2 faulty slots on my motherboard, the 2 faulty slots are directly next to each other.

Anyway, the pc is a dell dimension 9200 and the motherboard can handle a maximum of 4gb, but is there a limit per slot?

In other words, does it have to be 4 x 1gb sticks of ram or will it work if I use 2 x 2gb sticks? I'm hoping this will work since I only have 2 fully working slots.

Andy

 

[cluberti]

That depends on the (usually dell-specific) Intel motherboard's limitations. Max 4gb with 3 slots usually means 2gb sticks.