Stop errors

[Jeff]

An XP home system (clean install) diplays the following
blue screen:
System has recovered from a serious error
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
STOP:0x0000000A (0xF96F977E, 0x00000002,0x00000001,
0x804FDD60)

In addition, it asks to report the following error to
Microsoft:
BCCODE:a
BCP1:F96F977E
BCP2:00000002
BCP3:00000001
BCP4:804FDD60

Any ideas what they mean other than it's really screwed up?
It's clean of viruses, etc. Knowledge base covers the
STOP;0x0000000A but the numbers afterwards are different
than what they list. I've done the usual, defrag, chkdisk,
etc. There does not seem to be any obvious conflicts with
hardware or software. Massive bloatware from Dell has been
removed; their diagnostic disk found no errors (of
course); tried to run memtest-86 but it locks up during
test #2.
Also, what's the scoop on the service packs? There seems
to be more horror stories with those things than the OS
itself, with promisies of an SP2 sometime in 04 to fix
what sp1 broke, so should I install sp1a or just stick
with the "critical" updates?
Thanks for any input.
Jeff

 

[Mark]

Jeff,

Not sure if this will help you or not, but I got exactly the same error
messages when doing a clean install of
XP Home on a new build PC.

I ended up solving the problem by changing the RAM
(can't remember what the original sticks were),
but when I changed to Samsung, it all loaded and ran perfectly.

Try buying a stick on sale or return and seeing if that helps.

Gigabyte GA7 VAXP
AMD XP2800
1GB Pc2700 Samsung DDR Ram
Hercules 9700 Pro 128Mb
2 x WD 80GB Caviar

Good luck

Mark

 

[Jeff]

-----Original Message-----
Jeff,

Not sure if this will help you or not, but I got exactly the same error
messages when doing a clean install of
XP Home on a new build PC.

I ended up solving the problem by changing the RAM
(can't remember what the original sticks were),
but when I changed to Samsung, it all loaded and ran perfectly.

Try buying a stick on sale or return and seeing if that helps.

Gigabyte GA7 VAXP
AMD XP2800
1GB Pc2700 Samsung DDR Ram
Hercules 9700 Pro 128Mb
2 x WD 80GB Caviar

Good luck

Mark

Thanks. It's a Dell and I was hoping to avoid fighting
them on it. Heck, they probably don't even know what RAM
they installed. I'll try to convince the client to let me
change RAM and the heck with whatever Dell says.
Jeff

 

[Malke]

Thanks. It's a Dell and I was hoping to avoid fighting
them on it. Heck, they probably don't even know what RAM
they installed. I'll try to convince the client to let me
change RAM and the heck with whatever Dell says.
Jeff

If Memtest86 froze, then you've definitely got bad RAM. I've had a quite
a few clients with new Dell boxen with bad RAM lately. Dell will
replace it although you'll have to talk to the Indian tech support. Be
insistent.

Malke