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Now the wife is having random BSOD's, she plays a Facebook game - BSOD, Play WoW - BSOD. I've removed memory and tried one stick at a time so the RAM is good. I game her my 500 watt PSU so not enough power isn't a problem. As far as specs: 6GB DDR3, 4 HDD's, NVIDIA 9600GTS video card AMD Phenom II Quad Core CPU (125 watt version), Windows 7 Ultimate x32 and of course an 800 watt PSU Any ideas anyone?

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  • It might help if you could tell us what the BSOD error is - if you can reliably reproduce the BSOD, but it disappears quickly, then try to video the screen so you can see the BSOD error message.
    – misterjaytee
    Jun 13, 2011 at 10:52
  • ... Just remove windblows and install a decent OS, like Ubuntu for example. :)
    – RobinJ
    Aug 10, 2011 at 18:03

3 Answers 3

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x32 versions of Windows 7 can only address up to 4GB of RAM (with the exception of Starter which only uses up to 2GB). You have 2GB of RAM in your system that you can't use right now. That should not cause problems, but you may have an outdated driver that accesses the RAM in a weird way, and if it tries to go past the 32-bit memory boundary, it would roll over and end up trying to access RAM that it shouldn't have access to. In this case, Windows will BSOD to prevent that from causing more serious problems (like data corruption or security issues). Addidionally, bad drivers can trigger this behavior regardless of how much RAM is in the system. I suggest trying the following (in this order):

  • Update all your device drivers (Don't forget the drivers for your nVidia card, those are updated very frequently)
  • Check for malware (although I haven't seen malware cause BSODs since Windows 98, poorly written rootkits can)
  • Try running with 4GB RAM or less
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  • I'd personally switch steps 1 & 2, but +1 otherwise.
    – Iszi
    Jun 13, 2011 at 6:36
  • I ran Windows 7 x32 with 6GB DDR3 and never had random BSOD's like she's having (in fact I never had a single one that I can think of) I knew x32 couldn't handle it but knew in the near future I'd be making the switch of Windows Ultimate x64 –
    – PsychoCoder
    Jun 13, 2011 at 7:07
  • Took her down to 4GB RAM and it's still doing it. I also updated her video card drivers and other drivers to no avail
    – PsychoCoder
    Jun 13, 2011 at 7:08
  • Run WinDbg on the memory.dmp file. what process is causing the BSODs?
    – Stacey Hanson
    Jun 13, 2011 at 7:16
  • Well I ran memtest 86 and it showed the memory to be good, updates her video card drivers. Haven't had the change to run NirSoft BlueScreenView as she works on the thing and barely is off of it. I also put a small hours far (and I mean small) to blog directly inside the box plus added an 80mm fan as well. I'm running out of ideas here.
    – PsychoCoder
    Jun 17, 2011 at 7:29
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Could be lots of things. Thermal or RAM or PSU is where I'd start.

  • Did you check your motherboard temps in your BIOS?
  • If you pull the side of the case off and blow a smallish house fan into the case can your wife play the games longer?
  • Just because you pulled RAM doesn't mean your RAM is good. MemTest86 is your friend. Use it to thoroughly test your RAM and be certain it's good. Memtest86
  • BlueScreenView is your friend. Use it to find out what the stop code and (hopefully) what process caused the BSOD. NirSoft BlueScreenView
  • Once you have the stop code, Google is your friend.
  • Did you swap the PSU before or after the issue started? Tough to tell from your description since you mention both an 800 watt PSU and 500 watt PSU.
  • If it was before the issue started, have you checked the PSU with a good PSU tester?
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  • I mistyped, I took her 500 watt PSU and gave her my 800 watt PSU (just acquired a new PSU for myself because 500 watts for what I have isn't nearly big enough).I gave her the 800 watt PSU after thinking she was having a power issue. I did take the side off and have a small fan blowing into the box, and CoreTemp shows she's only running at around 54°. I downloaded NirSoft BlueScreenView after reading your suggestion, and will use it tomorrow when I have more free time.
    – PsychoCoder
    Jun 15, 2011 at 5:45
  • Make sure you give Memtest86 a whirl. I realize you're disinclined since you went through the hassle of pulling RAM sticks, but it's best to be certain you don't have any RAM issues. Also, the link I posted implies that it costs $10 but that's only if you order their CD. Just click the "Free Download" link to download the ISO (feel free to kick them some cash after you see how useful the software is).
    – user27265
    Jun 15, 2011 at 15:04
  • Sometimes BSODs just start popping up for no good reason. I worked on a system that had never had any problems and then started dying with 0x0000003b stop codes. BlueScreenView showed that the problem was in vsdatant.sys which is a ZoneAlarm driver. Why? Nothing had changed. No Windows updates (though that's been a good source of "out of the blue BSODs"), nothing. I updated ZoneAlarm to the latest version and everything was fine.
    – user27265
    Jun 15, 2011 at 15:11
  • Find out the stop code and process that is dying with BlueScreenView. It only takes a couple seconds to run and see the information.
    – user27265
    Jun 30, 2011 at 16:38
  • I haven't got BlueScreenReader installed on her system 'yet' but I don have the stop code from the latest BSOD: Stop 0x00000101 (0x00000061, 0x000000000, 0x807c2120, 0x00000001) I've done some searching on that stop code and haven't found much thus far.
    – PsychoCoder
    Jul 3, 2011 at 16:12
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It turned out to be the CPU. I changed her CPU and she hasn't had a crash since, so now she has an AMD Phenom II X4 3.2GhZ

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