Puzzled by BSOD, crashes

A

allworldpc

New Member
Hi all. I'm having problems with my stock Gateway PC (GM 5260) that's about 6 months old. It will occasionally crash when running graphics or memory intensive programs. Some examples are playing Elder Scrolls Oblivion, watching DVDs, or streaming videos. The crashes are sporadic--sometimes I'll play a game for an hour or more without a problem while other times it'll blue screen after just a few minutes. Since Gateway has been unable and unwilling to fix it after 3 trips to the service center, I'm going to at least try to narrow down the problem myself. This issue occured when I was running XP and continues to be a problem after reformatting and upgrading to Vista, so I think that I can rule out any software or driver causes.
Speedfan shows my CPU temps at 40-47C and nTunes has the video card between 60-68C which all seem to be normal. The crashing continued to occur after switching in a known good video card for testing purposes. Gateway replaced the power supply. My next step is to remove the RAM sticks one at a time to see if either of them are the problem. Beyond that, does anyone have advice/suggestions. What else could it be? Hard drive? Motherboard? CPU? Any replies are appreciated.
 
Last edited:
It sounds like it could be a power supply problem.
What was the graphics card you put in?
Also, what does it say on the side of the PSU, what are the Amps on the +12v?
 
I'm not sure what the PSU is rated for (assume 250-300w range). I'll check when I have it open later. I don't believe that the problem is overload though, because this is a stock system with no hardware upgrades and I've heard of no one else having power supply problems with this model.
 
The PSU was replaced the third time that the Gateway service center had the computer, about two weeks ago. There really wasn't any improvement from that.
 
allworldpc said:
The crashing occured after switching in a known good video card.
Click to expand...
Kornowski said:
What was the graphics card you put in?
Click to expand...
allworldpc said:
I don't believe that the problem is overload though, because this is a stock system with no hardware upgrades
Click to expand...

I dont even know what to think at this point.

But just to be extremely bland and frank, if the error came after putting in the video card, have you tried removing the card?
 
The video card that is currently installed is an nVidia GeForce 7300 LE. The other GPU that was installed was a card that Geek Squad had lying around for testing purposes. The exact same failure occured during DVD playing with that card. I haven't copied all of the info from the BSOD because I didn't see anything that looked remotely useful. It is the standard physical memory dump routine. I will copy any info down the next time it crashes. The error log for Windows gives the following info:

Product
Windows

Problem
Shut down unexpectedly

Date
6/27/2007 11:00 PM

Status
Not Reported

Problem signature
Problem Event Name: BlueScreen
OS Version: 6.0.6000.2.0.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033

Files that help describe the problem (some files may no longer be available)
Mini062707-09.dmp
sysdata.xml
Version.txt

Extra information about the problem
BCCode: 124
BCP1: 00000000
BCP2: 8545AD18
BCP3: B2000018
BCP4: 06000E0F
OS Version: 6_0_6000
Service Pack: 0_0
Product: 768_1


I will try another PSU just to be sure that Gateway didn't lie to me, and will also test the memory. Thanks everyone for the replies so far.
 
Impulse, I realize now that my first post was unclear. What I meant was the problem CONTINUED to happen after replacing the video card with another for testing purposes.
 
allworldpc said:
Impulse, I realize now that my first post was unclear. What I meant was the problem CONTINUED to happen after replacing the video card with another for testing purposes.
Click to expand...

Ah, that makes a bit more sense. I had a similar issue with BSODs when a HDD had a bad sector. With the entire drive as one partition XP always gave that error when the computer idled for a few hours. I gave up and got a new computer to replace it, and the old one went to the chopping block. After messing around with partitions and such, the system is stable and triple boots as a secondary/slave drive divided no more than 20GB/partition. Right now it is an 80GB slave to a 4GB (yes 4) on primary IDE channel. Oh, and another totally random fact about this machine, when toying around with the case open, a wire came loose and touched a part of the motherboard with the power cable still in the PSU (yes I know stupid) and there was a pop and a puff of white smoke. A capacitor popped which I later found out to be part of the onboard sound system, since that doesnt work anymore :D
 
The blue screen gives the same string of error codes as the problem report (they all seem to be the same). I don't know how to interpret these or analyze the .dmp file. Does anyone know how to do this or can point me to a good source of info?

In an effort to keep this thread from detouring, I'm not going to ask where one finds a 4Gb hard drive or why.;)
 
Last edited:
open command prompt, type
Code: 
chkdsk /r
and it should ask you to reboot. let that run and if it stalls or freezes around 67% then its the same problem as i had. if that then you can download Hiren's BootCD (PM if you want to know how) and i believe it has some tools on it to fix corrupt sectors and such. a great tool to have and it is the first thing that goes in when i start working on a computer for a client.

I actually have a couple drives on my desk right now, one quantum fireball ST (4GB), a Maxtor diamondmax (80GB), a fujitsu limited (4GB), a hitachi travelstar (120GB laptop), and a dell (40GB). also on said desk is dell desktop, a gateway laptop, tons of outdated expansion cards and cables, a scsi controller, fans and heatsinks, a floppy drive, a printer, papers, tools, crt, trays, two PSUs, one motherboard, and parts to multiple cases. (big desk lol) maybe i'll take a pic next time it looks this bad...
 
Last edited:
Checkdisk came out clean. I would expect a hard drive problem to cause completely random crashes as opposed to crashing during specific types events. But at this point I'm ready to consider anything.
 
Still crashing, and I'm still puzzled. I removed the fax modem and TV tuner cards with no improvement. Trying one memory stick at a time and switching slots was no help. Then I started removing USB devices. There are 6 USB ports on the motherboard and all were used: printer, speaker power, serial adapter, wireless keyboard/mouse combo, and Media Center remote control. I kept removing items with no improvement at all until I only had the speakers and keyboard/mouse. I unplugged the speakers and there was a huge improvement. I played Oblivion for about an hour and a half with no problems. I reattached the speakers and played for another 45 minute to an hour before it crashed. Now I'm really confused. Is it the USB ports on the mobo? Is it something with the audio? The audio drivers are up to date. ?????????????
 
ive seen this problem alot especially with retail pcs. for starters lets try a bigger power supply 300? wtf is that? maybe for a p4 single core pos. go pic up a 500 from compusa. even a cheapy will do. if problem persist try ATI. nvidia has always had driver issues with the 7300 LE's. you bought a gateway and got what you paid for. No hard nocking intended.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top