Driver problems on new system.

[Bryan Fox]

I posted to the New Users forum, but I'm posting here as
well in case people check this group more often than that
one...

I recently purchased components to build myself a
computer. I got an ASUS K8NE Deluxe MB, an Athlon 64
3000+ processor, 1 MB Kingston DDR400 RAM, a Seagate
Barracuda 160 GB SATA hard drive, and an ATI 9600 All-In-
Wonder video card. I installed XP Pro, however rather
frequently the "blue screen of death" appears and shuts
everything down. I keep
getting "page_fault_in_nonpage_area" and "bad_pool_caller"
faults. Most often the faults appear while I am trying to
install software, whether it be SP1 or something else.
Certain software programs won't install at all, as I get
fatal errors. I tried to do a reinstall (I chose the
upgrade option, so I wouldn't lose any of the programs I
had gotten to install), which took about 5 tries before it
completed successfully. And the problems still exist.
I'm cool with doing a total new install, but how can I
avoid the same problems all over again? I believe that
the problem area may be the video card, since there is a
note from ATI that non-Intel chips need a GART installed
first. But I'm just guessing, because when I look at the
device manager all of the drivers appear to be fine. Is
there any way to clean up the cabinet files without doing
a total new install?

Any help is much appreciated.

 

[Rich Barry]

Bryan, check here. Scroll down the left column to # 50 and # C2. If
you are using 1G Ram try
removing a stick and use 512MB. You could go here www.Rage3d.com
and download a
different Ati driver.

 

[Guest]

I've heard of people having problems with Serial ATA
drives, but I haven't looked too deeply into it myself (I
don't own one).

Have you checked for an updated BIOS at Asus's website?
The Athlon 64 is a somewhat new beast, so they might be
still working out the kinks in it (which means posting new
BIOS and drivers on their websites). Asus would post GART
drivers on their site too (if needed).

If you're feeling especially brave, read what chipset the
motherboard has and go to the manufacturer's website.
Probably Nvidia, VIA, or SiS. Then look for any driver on
their website that has a newer release date or version
number than the one released at Asus.

I'd also suggest testing the RAM. I've had odd crashes
like that happen with bad RAM. I used the free program
available at "http://www.memtest86.com/". You make a boot
floppy and start the machine with it inserted (assuming
your BIOS is set to boot from Floppy A: before it's hard
drive). It'll take a while with 1GB of RAM...so maybe let
it run over night (it'll just loop and retest the RAM when
it gets done).

And in case you're interested "page fault" means something
isn't in memory that was needed, "in non-page area" means
the area of memory that is not supposed to be stored out
to disk ever (often if something isn't used for a while
then it'll be temporarily moved to your hard disk to free
up RAM for other stuff). Not sure about "bad pool caller"
but pool is often used to indicate a block of memory (like
non-page pool) and caller refers to the person that asked
for something (the caller versus callee).

 

[Rich Barry]

Forgot to post this
http://aumha.org/win5/kbestop.htm