Windows 7 Crashed on Boot. What The Heck is This?


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Windows 7 crashed on me on boot. This is the second time it does that. Last time was about 3 months ago. Has anyone experienced this?

Problem signature:

Problem Event Name: BlueScreen

OS Version: 6.1.7601.2.1.0.768.3

Locale ID: 1033

Additional information about the problem:

BCCode: 4e

BCP1: 0000000000000099

BCP2: 00000000003E5A73

BCP3: 0000000000000000

BCP4: 0000000000003A73

OS Version: 6_1_7601

Service Pack: 1_0

Product: 768_1

Files that help describe the problem:

C:\Windows\Minidump\010213-12807-01.dmp

C:\Users\Scorbing\AppData\Local\Temp\WER-20794-0.sysdata.xml

Read our privacy statement online:

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=104288&clcid=0x0409

If the online privacy statement is not available, please read our privacy statement offline:

C:\Windows\system32\en-US\erofflps.txt

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A "4e" bugcheck equals "PFN_LIST_CORRUPT". According to Microsoft:

Cause

This error is typically caused by a driver passing a bad memory descriptor list. For example, the driver might have called MmUnlockPages twice with the same list.

If a kernel debugger is available, examine the stack trace.

In my experience, this is usually the case - a driver has caused some sort of memory list issue in the way it's freeing memory pages, and causes the crash. Without at least a kernel memory dump file of the issue, however, you now know everything that can be gleaned from the crash.

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A "4e" bugcheck equals "PFN_LIST_CORRUPT". According to Microsoft:

In my experience, this is usually the case - a driver has caused some sort of memory list issue in the way it's freeing memory pages, and causes the crash. Without at least a kernel memory dump file of the issue, however, you now know everything that can be gleaned from the crash.

Video driver perhaps?

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Who knows? Usually something loaded in nonpaged pool, but honestly it could be any driver that is accessing memory. The video driver isn't necessarily the only kind of driver that can do that ;). I usually suspect storage drivers, but I've seen video drivers do it, ramdisk drivers, etc.

http://msdn.microsof...2(v=VS.85).aspx

Mmmmmm...I wonder if its Skydrive?

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It might be the motherboards northbridge or southridge chips that might be acting up. Have you tried updating MB drivers? Maybe the BIOS needs an update. These two things I would try first.

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OK I left Memtest86+ running all night and although its still not done yet, it found 5 errors. Now my question:

How do I know which memory chip is bad? Does Memtest86+ tell you which one is bad? Anyone knows?

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Well the tests are done. Here's the results. I guess I'm screwed. My question is though, which module is bad? How can I tell from this result which one is faulty?

I have two 8GB modules installed for a total of 16GB.

acsD4TSQ.jpg

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OK I left Memtest86+ running all night and although its still not done yet, it found 5 errors. Now my question:

How do I know which memory chip is bad? Does Memtest86+ tell you which one is bad? Anyone knows?

Just remove the sticks one by one and retest until you figure out which one is is. Can be a bit tedious, but it's the best way to know for sure which one is faulty.

Edit: Just saw your recent post with the screenshot. Well, at least you have a 50/50 chance of pulling the right one first! Based on your image, I would try the 2nd populated RAM slot first. The slots will be numbered on the mobo.

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I feel you, scorbing! I woke up on Christmas day to a desktop that just won't power on. If it wasn't the one with all of my movies/mp3's on it, I wouldn't really care too much, but now I have to save up for a new power supply. Sorry that had to happen though, bro!

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Well the tests are done. Here's the results. I guess I'm screwed. My question is though, which module is bad? How can I tell from this result which one is faulty?

I have two 8GB modules installed for a total of 16GB.

You're not screwed. 8gb should easily get you by until you replace it. Take one module out at a time (place it in DIMM 1), run the test, if it passes, that's a good stick. To make sure the other really is bad, take out the good one and put in the bad. Your computer should go "beeeeeeeppp". Shut it down, put the good one in. Windows should start up fine now. :)

I feel you, scorbing! I woke up on Christmas day to a desktop that just won't power on. If it wasn't the one with all of my movies/mp3's on it, I wouldn't really care too much, but now I have to save up for a new power supply. Sorry that had to happen though, bro!

Are you sure the pins are on correctly? :)

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A co-worker of mine saw the test results and he tells me that my memory timings are way off. Can you guys concur with that?

I have high speed Kingston gaming memory on that PC DD3 1333.

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you might be screwed, with those memory addresses it looks like you have errors on the 1st card and errors on the 2nd card...

but do the single card test to be sure, just pull one, make sure the other remaining one is in the correct slow, reseat it just to be sure its in right... run the test again... if it fails swap them and repeat

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you might be screwed, with those memory addresses it looks like you have errors on the 1st card and errors on the 2nd card...

Which is highly unlikely.

A co-worker of mine saw the test results and he tells me that my memory timings are way off. Can you guys concur with that?

I have high speed Kingston gaming memory on that PC DD3 1333.

If this is gaming memory the proper timing and speed should be written on the sticks.

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Are you sure the pins are on correctly? :)

Yeah, I've taken it out and tested out a lower rated wattage power supply in place of it, and everything worked. In fact, it's been acting strange since July. See, in my area, we are prone to power outages....a few months back, one happened, and when I tried to power up the old beast, the power light would blink, then shut right off. To remedy, I'd unplug it for about 15 minutes, then plug it back in, which worked for quite a while...up until christmas morning, anyway...so I knew it was coming. This laptop blows that old thing out of the water spec wise anyway, so I'm in no major rush to get it fixed. It's an old P4 machine. If I could afford an upgrade, trust me, I would do that instead of pumping more money into such an ancient system, but it's all I've got desktop wise, and it does what I need it to do, runs 7 like a champ, streams video to my ps3, SOME...and I mean some gaming (It's got an ATI HD3650 512MB AGPx4 video card, lol), but mostly, I leave it on as sort of a NAS. Oh well.

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It's kinda an odd pattern that the failures are showing. Have you tried blowing out the DIMM slots?

Good point, GreyWolf....could be some dust build up, perhaps? (I'd rather it be something simple like that than to see you have to fork over some hard earned cash to invest in new memory modules!)

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A co-worker of mine saw the test results and he tells me that my memory timings are way off. Can you guys concur with that?

I have high speed Kingston gaming memory on that PC DD3 1333.

Maybe reset your bios to fail safe defaults and see if that fixes your timing issues?

Yeah, I've taken it out and tested out a lower rated wattage power supply in place of it, and everything worked. In fact, it's been acting strange since July. See, in my area, we are prone to power outages....a few months back, one happened, and when I tried to power up the old beast, the power light would blink, then shut right off. To remedy, I'd unplug it for about 15 minutes, then plug it back in, which worked for quite a while...up until christmas morning, anyway...so I knew it was coming. This laptop blows that old thing out of the water spec wise anyway, so I'm in no major rush to get it fixed. It's an old P4 machine. If I could afford an upgrade, trust me, I would do that instead of pumping more money into such an ancient system, but it's all I've got desktop wise, and it does what I need it to do, runs 7 like a champ, streams video to my ps3, SOME...and I mean some gaming (It's got an ATI HD3650 512MB AGPx4 video card, lol), but mostly, I leave it on as sort of a NAS. Oh well.

Oh, well that's too bad. You need to get a surge protector and a UPS for yourself. :p

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Well I fixed the latency settings on the BIOS. I also deleted the partitions and re-installed Windows, but this time I installed Windows 8 Pro. So far, so good. Played BF3 for 2 hours and no blue screen of death. It is very weird.

I downloaded a utility that reads the blue screen errors and translates then into an understandable format and apparently the Windows 7 kernel was failing plus a bunch of other stuff. Maybe I caught a virus? I don't know.

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Well I fixed the latency settings on the BIOS. I also deleted the partitions and re-installed Windows, but this time I installed Windows 8 Pro. So far, so good. Played BF3 for 2 hours and no blue screen of death. It is very weird.

I downloaded a utility that reads the blue screen errors and translates then into an understandable format and apparently the Windows 7 kernel was failing plus a bunch of other stuff. Maybe I caught a virus? I don't know.

You had memory that was faulting, you proved this, why would you think you had a virus? Have you ran memtest since you fixed the timings?

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