Need a couple of pointers (Blue screen of death)

I had my boss come up to me today with his laptop HP Pavilion ze2358ea.

A while ago it had started to give the famous "blue screen of death".

The problem is that the screen only show up for about 1 sec tops before the computer reboots.

Problem:
Booting into XP with any account will prompt the "blue screen of death" in anywhere from 10 secs to 2 mins after the GUI has loaded.

The brief moment I've gotten to watch the BSOD it has said it was an ATAPI, ATI, RAM, BIOS error forcing a memory **** and the comp shuts down and reboots.

The computer runs fine in regular safe mode, safe with network, but nothing else.

This is what I have tried so far:

Searched device manager for hardware trouble (found none)
I first suspected a bad driver since the first BSOD showed trouble with the ATI graph card. I updated the driver, but with no luck.

I removed quite a bit of stupid software containing spyware (seems my boss had a thing for downloading tons of addware poker games), ran Registry medic, spyware search and destroy and Avast antivirus just in case it might have been a virus, but I just found a couple of spyware progs, nothing to warrant the BSOD

I used msconfig to stop all but the needed startup progs to run the comp, just in case there was something else making a conflict, tho that didn't help either. (I thought I would give it a shot).

The laptop doesn't have a floppy port (So I couldn't make an ERD), so I ran the recovery console from an XP disc I had laying about (The comp came pre-installed with no XP disc), but as I entered which part I would like to access the recovery disc in, it prompted me for the admin password which I did not have and nor did my boss due to the fact that XP came pre-installed and it asks for the password to the main admin account (First one you get when you install xp), while his account although also an admin account is a secondary one.
So I didn't get anywhere that way either.

Lastly I decided to call HP support to ask them for potential tips for troubleshooting the comp, to which they replied that I should just reformat the entire comp and be done with it.

I am of course considering that option as well, but it's really **** me off that nothing bad happens in safe mode, so there should be a way to save it (Hopefully), otherwise I'll have to back up his 300 Gigabytes worth of games, music, **** and so forth >_<

Any tips to help troubleshoot or even solve this problem would be greatly appreciated.
(well any tips which doesn't have the solution "format c drive and re-install in it :P"

Regards
Mikael

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Comments

royal

Could be a bad video card, memory, cpu, driver, etc... Was any software/hardware/configuration/etc. changed when this bsod started to occur? Memtest86 is a good utility for troubleshooting memory. Also, you could prevent your computer from automatically restarting when a blue screen occurs. If you go to Control Panel > System > Advanced Tab > Startup and Recovery Settings > Uncheck Automatically Restart.

Sie

Try switching off the automatic reboot on error.

And then google the 0x00.... whatever code. OR post here.

1. Boot into safe mode
2. Right-click My Computer, and then click Properties.
3. Click the Advanced tab.
4. Under Startup and Recovery, click Settings to open the Startup and Recovery dialog box.
5. Clear the Automatically restart check box, and click OK.
6. Restart your computer for the settings to take effect.

Ethemos

Thx a lot, I'll do that right now

Ethemos

First BSOD

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

Technical information:

STOP: 0x000000D1 (0x80A76688, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0xF7573542)
cdrom.sys - Address F7573542 base at F7570000, Datestamp 41107b58

Second BSOD
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

Technical information:

STOP: 0x0063030D, 0x000000FF, 0x00000000x 0x805311DC)

The BSOD is randomly giving out IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL, with random hardware spesifications, so at the moment I'm thinking.

the BIOS has never been flashed (doesn't have a floppy drive, He doesn't have the knowledge how to in any case. And I don't know another way to flash a BIOS except for booting to a floppy)

So I'm thinking either a virus or a faulty motherboard.

Any ideas, help or other is most welcome

PS: Thank you for the previous replies

EDIT: The system doesn't crash at all in Safe mode tho (Been running it for a couple of hours there with no ill fated events), if it was to be an intermittent problem with the motherboard, shouldn't problems have arised even during safemode ?

Regards
Mikael

blackmage439

As far as I can see, that IRQ is a gigantic hint that there is a conflict between two devices over IRQ assignments. Using msconfig was a great idea, but to further test it, try enabling one device at a time and restarting the PC until the problem occurs again.

I also just noticed the "cdrom.sys" entry there... you could try reinstalling the CDROM driver.

While it may be a pointless attempt, check out the error logs in Event Viewer. Compare the timestamps to about when Windows crashes... maybe that will shed some light?

And as far as flashing the BIOS goes... the manufacturer should have steps to flashing the BIOS without a floppy drive, at least I would hope so!

Good luck!

Ethemos

Ty for your help, I'll continue working on the problem tomorrow as it is nearing midnight over here

Regards
Mikael

elover_jm

hey.....

did you try the Checkdisk from command prompt?

u might wanna do this to ensure your system files are ok.

do this in safe mode

royal

Try moving pci cards into different slots. Some slots share irq #s and often cause issues.

sprkymrk

icroyal wrote:

Try moving pci cards into different slots. Some slots share irq #s and often cause issues.

It's a laptop.

I think the big clue is that it works in safe mode, so it's probably a software issue; driver, spyware, service, etc. and not hardware.

Start up in safe mode again, set all non-essential services to "manual" rather than automatic. Then try to reboot in normal mode again. Then go into your services and manually start them one at a time, waiting a few minutes in between each. It's probably your AV or a network service causing the problem, most likely corrupted by spyware or something.

If you suspect spyware was on the machine it may have corrupted the TCP/IP stack, as a lot of that stuff inserts itself into the network software like a shim. Reset your TCP/IP back to it's default state (basically reinstall it) by running the command:

netsh interface ip reset c:\tcplog.txt

royal

Oops, completely forgot about the system being a laptop. Perhaps re-reading the original post before replying would have helped, eh? Anyways, I would agree with Mark after reading his post that since it doesn't happen in Safe Mode that it would definitely be a software issue then. *stupid me!*

sprkymrk

icroyal wrote:

Oops, completely forgot about the system being a laptop. Perhaps re-reading the original post before replying would have helped, eh? Anyways, I would agree with Mark after reading his post that since it doesn't happen in Safe Mode that it would definitely be a software issue then. *stupid me!*

I figured you just forgot. I had to pick on you after your avatar change trick you played on me last week.

Ethemos

Thank you for all your replies, so far I've:

Entered cmd and used netsh interface ip reset c:\tcplog.txt

Ran memtest86 from a bootable cd and tested all the ram, and no error was located

Ran the bios hardisk scan (It's the HP notepad laptops Checkdisk), which had no errors

Set all none essential services to manual (Tho the second I re-entered windows XP to try starting them one by one, the machine gave up a BSOD screen).

Checked the device manager for IRQ, IO and Memory, but found no conflicts.

EDIT: Also just for the sake of argument, I disabled all none essential devices from device manager to see if that would help (Was thinking about enabling them one at a time), but the BSOD screen came up just as I entered Win XP as it usually does.

Lastly I decided to call HP support Norway (Which ever so gently told me to format the harddrive, which I ************** can't because it prompts me for an admin password, which (Se earlier in the post), which I don't have)

So for the hell of it I called HP support US, which referred me to their site with some help information upon which I found some matching error codes and guide files.

PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA *** STOP: 0X00000050 (None frequent BSOD msg)

Method 1: Uninstall HP Notebook Utilities Software for Windows XP (currently trying
that)

Method 2: Reseating the RAM (RAM has been reseated and no error was found with memtest86)

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL STOP (Frequent BSOD msg)

Norton Anti-Virus version 11.2.1.2 may cause Microsoft Windows XP to stop responding and the following error message may appear on a blue screen

- The laptop had Avast anti-virus, so just in case I removed that program.

If the last tip about removing all hp utilities doesn't work, I might be out of options on how to remedy the problem.

As always any help, tips or input is highly appreciated.

Regards
Mikael

sprkymrk

You said the account you are currently using (your boss) is an admin account? If so, can you use that account to reset the password of the local admin so you can run the recovery console?

There are some tricks for resetting the admin password, such as a commercial program like ERD Commander, or even better use a special linux boot disk (floppy or CD):

http://www.petri.co.il/forgot_administrator_password.htm#1

In all it sounds like it is pretty messed up. Good luck!

Ethemos

I decided just backup all the important files, scan them ensuring they didn't contain any viruses, malware, etc, and just re-install the bloody laptop.

In the end I ran through all hardware which came out alright (no errors or intermittent problems as far as me and any of my diag tools could tell).

As for the software part, I ended up stripping it down to just the basics of what a pure windows install would be. Removing all none-essential drivers (Keeping the old ones backed up of course) but just the same, the BSOD danced every so happily over the screen 5 seconds after the XP GUI had loaded.

Going from saying the IRQ is bad, to the page file, to the cdrom.sys, to the (insert name here).sys and for each problem I thought I solved it just gave me a new error message.

It must be said tho that I am a novice computer tech, and someone with more experience would possibly have managed to put this machine back into fully functioning order, tho after spending 18 hours on trying to fix it, I reached my limit and yielded to the might of the BSOD.

Wish me luck on my next assignment hehe

PS: I'd like to give my sincere thanks to everyone which gave me a lot of good tips to try. Thank you for investing a little time into my first tech "job" project

Regards
Mikael

kevozz

If your BSOD occurs again:

Try going to the windows folder and check for a folder called Minidump. See if there are any current **** files.

Use this to read the dumpfile:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315263
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/default.mspx

If i remember correctly, if the BSOD is software based, it will create a dumpfile (IN XP), if hardware, it won't.

Ethemos

It did, just after installing the dos part of xp, right before the GUI install was about to start the BSOD returned. Sadly I don't have any so-dimms laying about to check if it was the RAM, but what I don't get at all is:

I used the HP support hardware checker came back clean,

memtest86 came back clean

The computer worked fine for hours in safemode

I just feel like bashing my head against a wall

Regards
Mikael