BSOD; "MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION"

[Samuz]

Hi guys,

 

I've started getting a blue screen on my "new" rig ("new" as in a switching from MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum motherboard, to the DFI motherboard - the MSI card stoppet working). Only the motherboard has changed from my old rig the rest of the hardware is the same (the old MSI card was also a nForce3 card with AGP).

 

The message simply reads;

 

"MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION"

 

I've never gotten this BSOD before, and it's seems fairly randomized when it occurs. However, it seems I can make the BSOD come more frequent when I use spesific programs. Windows Explorer sometimes causes it, and also when I use Azureus (bittorrent download program).

The machine seems to run all games fine, and I can also have it turned on hours on end when I play music for instance.

 

The reason for me posting this on the DFI forum, is because I have never ever seen this BSOD when running my MSI rig.

I've checked te BSOD message on Google, but didn't get alot smarter. Seems it might come due to detection of a hardware conflict in XP. But I can't understand why or what causes this.

 

It might be due to programs writing to one of the harddrives, maybe one of the discs are slowly dying (can anyone recommend a good harddrive checking tool?).

Or maybe it's my RAM modules (curently running at 2.7V, up from 2.6V to try and fix the BSOD) that aren't 100% compatible with this DFI card ?

 

At first I thought it was caused by overheat in the nForce3 chip (due to the DFI chipsetfan not working at all). I replaced the fan yesterday with a new PAPST fan which is running smoothly. The BSOD still occurs, so I doubt that this was the problem.

 

Has anyone here seen this message before and might know how to fix the machine or what program(s) I should run to try and determine the fault ?

[blinker0]

Check in event viewer And select applications.. and see what errors Windows logged.. Also check the System errors while you are there.

 

Run/enentvwr.msc

Then applications

Then system

[Deanorth]

I had this message too, for me it seems it was related to ethernet drivers, the moment my computer detected the dhcp router, pof, bsod. Tried 5 different ethernet drivers, and couldn't find so far a fix. You should try drivers 5.10 and SP2 maybe, seems on some forums user reported 5.11 to be instable (at least more instable than 5.10 that is).

[Samuz]

I ran som tests on the Seagate harddrive I suspected was failing.

And sure enough "Seatools" (DOS modus) reported several bad sectors and general errors on my 120 GB seagate IDE disk.

Yesterday I replaced the disc with a new 250GB from Seagate, and I've had no BSOD at all for almost 24 hours now.

 

Seems that the BSOD was indeed related to the failing harddrive. Atleast that's what I'll belive unless it starts crashing again!