One Month of BSOD

[David]

Guys...I need opinions again please. For over a month
now, my computer has experienced dozens of stoppages,
i.e. the Blue Screen Of Death. Luckily I have a spare,
refurbed XP box, that has been bullet proof for months.
It's slow, but like the tortoise, it gets the job done
very well.

With almost every BSOD, either hardware or the video
drivers were indicated as the problem. I've confirmed
the hard drives are good as is RAM. I've swapped the
video card for a known good card but the faults
continued. Finally I uninstalled the video drivers
(nVidia), deleted all the files, and disabled the card.
Now I have a stable system. Up until this point I'd been
very successful in being able to cause faults, so far in
the "new" configuration I haven't been able to do that.
Here's my ultimate question.

Assuming my RAM and drives are not the problem, and
knowing an uninstalled (drivers) and disabled video card
has ended the BSOD episodes, what could be the bottom
line cause? I tend to favor the video "circuit" in the
motherboard being bad as the cause which means a new
board is in order.

Thanks...any comments would be appreciated.

David

 

[davexnet02]

Guys...I need opinions again please. For over a month
now, my computer has experienced dozens of stoppages,
i.e. the Blue Screen Of Death. Luckily I have a spare,
refurbed XP box, that has been bullet proof for months.
It's slow, but like the tortoise, it gets the job done
very well.

With almost every BSOD, either hardware or the video
drivers were indicated as the problem. I've confirmed
the hard drives are good as is RAM. I've swapped the
video card for a known good card but the faults
continued. Finally I uninstalled the video drivers
(nVidia), deleted all the files, and disabled the card.
Now I have a stable system. Up until this point I'd been
very successful in being able to cause faults, so far in
the "new" configuration I haven't been able to do that.
Here's my ultimate question.

Assuming my RAM and drives are not the problem, and
knowing an uninstalled (drivers) and disabled video card
has ended the BSOD episodes, what could be the bottom
line cause? I tend to favor the video "circuit" in the
motherboard being bad as the cause which means a new
board is in order.

Thanks...any comments would be appreciated.

David

AGP card? Try setting agp 2x and disabling
some of the other AGP tweaks such as "fast writes"

Dave

 

[David]

Thanks for the comments. The card, and motherboard, are
limited to 2x. This is the second board (GA-7DX+ 7a
BIOS) I've had in the box, the first was replaced under
warranty by Gigabyte when it died.

I'm a REAL noobie when it comes to video, what is a "fast
write"?

 

[davexnet02]

Thanks for the comments. The card, and motherboard, are
limited to 2x. This is the second board (GA-7DX+ 7a
BIOS) I've had in the box, the first was replaced under
warranty by Gigabyte when it died.

I'm a REAL noobie when it comes to video, what is a "fast
write"?

See this:
http://www.evga.com/support/engnotes/Note_02.asp

I have it on my board, but I don't know the applicability
else where. Mine's a VIA kt133a based board with award Bios.
Good luck.

Dave

 

[Guest]

Good site, but apparently my old board doesm't have Fast
Write capability

 

[Alex Nichol]

With almost every BSOD, either hardware or the video
drivers were indicated as the problem. I've confirmed
the hard drives are good as is RAM. I've swapped the
video card for a known good card but the faults
continued. Finally I uninstalled the video drivers
(nVidia), deleted all the files, and disabled the card.
Now I have a stable system. Up until this point I'd been
very successful in being able to cause faults, so far in
the "new" configuration I haven't been able to do that.
Here's my ultimate question.

Assuming my RAM and drives are not the problem, and
knowing an uninstalled (drivers) and disabled video card
has ended the BSOD episodes, what could be the bottom
line cause? I tend to favor the video "circuit" in the
motherboard being bad as the cause which means a new
board is in order.

One to check on is whether something (like Windows Update) had installed
bad video drivers - unfortunately ones that get through there are not
always good. SO get a download of the latest ones for XP *from nvidia*
and see.