Common BSODs

M

messerschmit

Geek Trainee
Hello Everyone!

OK hello everyone - first of all I am new to these forums so if I do or say something wrong please tell me, if I miss out any information you need to help me out then just ask me. I have searched the forums for a relevant answer to my query, in fact i've searched the whole Internet for literally 4 days straight.

Firstly my specs (note: this is a self build) :

ATX-300 PSU
AMD Athlon XP, 1800 MHz (13.5 x 133) 2200+
PCCHIPS - M825G motherboard
512MB (Unbranded Memory) 1 x stick
256MB (Unbranded Memory) 1 x stick
ATI Radeon 9800 128MB Graphics Card
40GB Maxtor 7200RPM HDD (2x partitioned)
80GB Hyundai 7200RPM HDD (2x partitioned)
Standard Atapi 52x CDRW
Creative 5.1 Live! Soundcard

Running Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2

I work with the side panels off to allow properly cooling, including 2 Chassis fans and a processor fan.

My main problem is this, whenever I run games that require alot of resources such as Championship Manager 4 or Football Manager '05 - My PC crashes to a BSOD - usually because of a memory dump error. Usually the PC just reboots itself back into Windows.

I have tried god knows how many things to resolve this issue, and thankfully I don't get the problem when I am running just normal programs or just in Windows. I've removed both memory chips and attempted to run the system on each, I've reinstalled Windows XP and Windows 2000 without any luck and I've also set Windows to increase my Vitual Memory with the basic understanding it would allocate any additional resource to that.

On my dad's computer, both chips run fine including the applications - he's running Windows 2000 with practically the same spec as mine - minus one HDD. So that relatively informs me that my memory chips aren't faulty. There are no burn marks or anything on my Motherboard so I am really lost.

Sorry this is so long but figured I'd put as much information down as possible. I really hope someone can help me through this.

Thanks to all who reply in advance.
 
What is the exact make of your PSU, and its wattage?

There seems to be a lot of hardware in that machine, and if its only a 300W, which from "ATX-300 PSU" it would seem so, that isn't enough juice to have the system run stable.
 
Thanks for your quick reply - I was thinking that there isnt enough power to run what I have - but the system runs stable enough without actually running any games (as I said it runs fine in just Windows or Dreamweaver and Fireworks). Before I installed the 2nd Hard Drive (80GB), the system wouldn't run the games either.

Being honest I bought the PSU/case from a wholesaler - and yes ok so I'm a cheapskate but it's not branded or such. I only know the maximum power output is 300W.

I removed the GFX and sound cards and it still gave me the same problem.
 
hm well the PSU is definitely a possibility.

but if you keep getting memory related errors, perhaps you have a faulty DIMM slot on your motherboard, if the RAM is not faulty?
 
OK maybe i'm being a picky pest - but if the DIMM slot was faulty, would that not suggest that the RAM wouldn't register with the memory check or in Windows System screen?

I'm also using Everest to give detailed information about my system and it still registers the chip.

Although I'm not ruling out the possibility of the PSU not being powerful enough or the DIMM slot being faulty.. perhaps I will invest in a new case/PSU this week and see how I get on.

In the interim can you think of anything else at all that I could test with?

Thanks for your help.
 
I'll give memtest a try, perhaps theres a program out there that will maybe even test my hardware and give me a power rating for each.

Thanks to both of you for your help if you think of anything else please don't hesitate to reply.

I'll keep you informed.
 
Yeah, we've had a lot of PSU related problems in the past few weeks, sounds like this is probably a similar situation as it's only good to 300wts and sounds like it's sort of a generic "comes free with the case" sort of thing like mine was. If you want to search for power supplies Here's a nice one.
 
OK that's great for the link - problem is that retails in America - I live in Scotland - maybe I'll check out somewhere local and see what I can pick up.

However - I checked another website that calculates the required power output for whatever components you have (including various peripherals). This reported that I needed 244watts minimum to run my system - perhaps it's just a cheapo PSU and thats the reason why - although - would a PSU issue create a memory dump error? I mean as I said it is only with games - and I know that the games I play use alot of resources. Pardon my ignorance i'm just a little confused as to what can cause this - but I will investigate the PSU - I mean hell it can't hurt to get a better PSU/case can it?

Thanks again everyone
 
watts don't mean much. Amps is the actual amount of energy flow, while watts is just the result of a mathematical equation. I would get a thermaltake 420watt power supply, they're cheap and very beefy. High amps and very dependable power supply that has been installed into many systems Anti-Trend, a member here has gotten to know them well.
 
Just thought I'd update those who actually care about the issues i posted.

Everything seems to be working fine now - I still have both memory chips installed and my games are working fine. I tweaked my bios settings slightly to disable the Share Memory size and also disable the IRQ setting for the PCI slot - this seems to have worked wonders. I also increased the Graphical Win Size to 128 instead of leaving it at 64.

Took me a few days to figure it all out but well my problems have gone.

Thanks to everyone again who helped out.
 
No prob dude, glad you got things running smoothly, looks like you've got a very good handle on that tweaking there.:good:
 
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