blue screens, reboots and crashes

[Doug]

(apologies if this has already been posted - my server is deleting it,
either when sending or receiving, because it had some attachments...)

Hi All,

I posted a few weeks ago about some blue screen (0xa stop), spontaneous
reboot and lockup problems with a new Asus A7N8XED system running Win2K.
"Most"
of that problem seemed to correct itself after I removed references to old
Via drivers in the registry, but I continue to have sporadic blue screens,
reboots and lockups. I am suspecting something involving memory, since the
problems seem to disappear when I configure memory to not run in "dual
channel mode" (I'm using Infineon 3200 memory). The problem also seems to go
away if I reduce the speed of the memory.

Joseph Conway had suggested that driver problems usually cause 0xa blue
screens, however, and so I don't want to make assumptions that this is a
hardware problem. If the memory sticks were bad, I would think
that they would also fail when not in dual channel mode. But perhaps dual
channel mode puts some additional strain on them. Or maybe it's the
motherboard, or CPU, or ?

The blue screens I'm getting are:
"KMODE exception not handled" -- ntoskrnl.exe 0x0000001e , and "Page fault
in nonpaged area" 0x00000050 win32k.sys . This morning, after seeing that
page fault blue screen, the machine would not successfully reboot by
pressing the restart button -- it would get to the Win2K. logo, and would
not lockup, but could not go any further (which would seem to suggest
software rather than hardware). But again, I know nothing ;-)

I tried attaching a few of the recent memory dumps, as Joseph requested, but
apparently the newsserver deletes posts with attachments. If I open the file
to paste it into this post, it is a mass of unprintable characters. Can
anyone tell me how to post a memory dump?

Thanks in advance for any clues...

Doug

 

[Jerold Schulman]

(apologies if this has already been posted - my server is deleting it,
either when sending or receiving, because it had some attachments...)

Hi All,

I posted a few weeks ago about some blue screen (0xa stop), spontaneous
reboot and lockup problems with a new Asus A7N8XED system running Win2K.
"Most"
of that problem seemed to correct itself after I removed references to old
Via drivers in the registry, but I continue to have sporadic blue screens,
reboots and lockups. I am suspecting something involving memory, since the
problems seem to disappear when I configure memory to not run in "dual
channel mode" (I'm using Infineon 3200 memory). The problem also seems to go
away if I reduce the speed of the memory.

Joseph Conway had suggested that driver problems usually cause 0xa blue
screens, however, and so I don't want to make assumptions that this is a
hardware problem. If the memory sticks were bad, I would think
that they would also fail when not in dual channel mode. But perhaps dual
channel mode puts some additional strain on them. Or maybe it's the
motherboard, or CPU, or ?

The blue screens I'm getting are:
"KMODE exception not handled" -- ntoskrnl.exe 0x0000001e , and "Page fault
in nonpaged area" 0x00000050 win32k.sys . This morning, after seeing that
page fault blue screen, the machine would not successfully reboot by
pressing the restart button -- it would get to the Win2K. logo, and would
not lockup, but could not go any further (which would seem to suggest
software rather than hardware). But again, I know nothing ;-)

I tried attaching a few of the recent memory dumps, as Joseph requested, but
apparently the newsserver deletes posts with attachments. If I open the file
to paste it into this post, it is a mass of unprintable characters. Can
anyone tell me how to post a memory dump?

Thanks in advance for any clues...

Doug

Here are the documented reasons for STOP 0x00000050 in Win32k.sys:

http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=237424 "Error Message on a Blue Screen When
Using Bookman Old Style Font"
http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=250975 "STOP Errors When Running MITAC 6133
Laptop on Battery Power"
http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=281132 "'Stop 0x50 in Win32k.sys' Error
Message"
http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=288602 "Windows Setup Stops Responding with
the VIA Apollo KX133 Chip Set"
http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=299549 "Windows 2000 Post-SP2 Hotfixes Have
Been Repackaged to Verify the Inclusion of Previous Fixes"
http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=318867 "STOP 0x50 Error May Occur in
Win32k.sys on a Terminal Server If You Try to Print a File"
http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=319965 "Damaged Font Causes STOP 0x00000050
Error Message in the Win32k.sys File in Windows 2000"
http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=810159 "'PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA' Error
Message When You Try to Switch Tasks by Using ALT+TAB"
http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=811769 "STOP 0x00000050 in Error Message in
Atmfd.dll When You Use Type 1 Fonts"
http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=827953 "Computer Crashes and a Stop 0x50 Error
Occurs When You Try to Print a Document"
http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=828346 "'Stop 0x50' Error Message When You Try
to Map the Win32k.sys File"
http://support.microsoft.com?kbid=835481 "Stop error '0x00000050' after you
enter your Pointsec userID and password in Windows 2000"


Jerold Schulman
Windows: General MVP
JSI, Inc.
http://www.jsiinc.com