Wierd Freezing Problem.

[Salty Sam]

Hey guys, its been a while.

Anyway, I was playing Doom 3 one day, I was playing for about...oh...a half an hour to an hour, and all of a sudden the game froze up and a wierd blue screen came up saying something like...

"[bunch of stuff I can't remember]...a software or hardware change has taken place...[more stuff I can't remember]...beginning dump of physical memory"

Don't know what that last part meant...but it didn't sound good...

Anyway, It told me to restart my computer, so I did...well, then I could get the Windows desktop to come up because it told me somthing like... "Boot Disk Error, press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart", so I did, and the same message came up again...and again...and again...so I finally gave up...waited about an hour, turned my computer back on...and it worked just fine...hmmmmm, interesting.

Well, I decided to go play Doom 3 again, and what do ya know...my Quicksave file was corrupt or somthing, because everytime I tried to click on it to load it...it would crash the game!

And just now today, the same thing happend to me again! And after I just Quicksaved and pressed Esc to exit the game is when it froze up on me today.

Can somebody PLEASE help me? Thanks in advance. I trust you guys the most more than anybody else to help me fix a problem like this.

[FATAL]

I'd say it's faulty memory. Consider testing your memory sticks one at a time if you have more than one of them, and if you have only one, try to find a replacement ram stick to test whether the problem lies in the memory. I can imagine your problem also lying the hard drive, but much more likely it is the ram.

[Salty Sam]

Thanks, I'll see what I can do with a little help from my friend named Google.

I also got something on that blue screen that said "KERNEL_[forgot the word]_ERROR". Wasn't sure what that meant and if it had any importance. Sorry I forgot the middle word.

[Salty Sam]

Thanks, I'll see what I can do with a little help from my friend named Google.

I also got something on that blue screen that said "KERNEL_[forgot the word]_ERROR". Wasn't sure what that meant and if it had any importance. Sorry I forgot the middle word.

EDIT: Oh man I don't know how I did that! I'm SO sorry! Can this post be deleted?

[FATAL]

You should really use pen and paper to write down the errors. It really helps us.

[Salty Sam]

I'm sorry, I've tried but it doesn't get me enough time before the computer restarts on its own.*ugh*

Here, I got it:

A problem has been detected and Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer.

A process or thread crucial to system operation has unexpectedly exited or been terminated.

If this is the first time you've seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, follow these steps: check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed. If this is a new installation, ask your hardware or software manufacturer for any windows updates you might need.

Check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed. If this is a new installation, ask your hardware or software manufacturer for any updates you might need.

If problems continue, disable or remove any newly installed hardware or software. Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use Safe Mode to remove or disable components, restart your computer, press F8 to select Advance Startup Options, then select safe mode.

Technical Information:

Stop: 0x000000F4 (0x0000003, 0x8639B960, 0x8639BAD4, 0x80567478)

Beginning dump of physical memory

[MR_ROCKET]

It's hard to say what it is sometimes when hardware might be malfunctioning, but the first thing I would do is re-seat your memory and video card, check the bios that your CPU isn't over heating, check and make sure the cpu isn't over clocked. possibly reset your configuration bios data. but then it's hard to say. seems how different video cards aren't always compliant with different motherboard chip sets.
Not only, if all else fails and you'v recently installed xp-sp2, make sure to defrag your hdd. check your system requirements and update your vid drivers as needed.

all that and nothing about checking the hard drive for error's? Heh well that goes without saying :)
Few small tips but could possibly be effective in the future :)

If it's only doing this when running doom3 or games that really seem to be taxing your video card, then maybe try reseating the card, un-install it's drivers and re-installing with the latest. However a leaky or not well seated stick of memory could cause a blue screen physical memory dump aswell.
Anyways, check and defrag your drive first, if needed.

[FATAL]

I think it's rather rare that some components would jiggle off the slot, especially ram. My guess still is faulty ram. You could run some memory testing program.

[eX_Do0mY]

The first error he posted is KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR, which from what I read, is caused by a number of things, like a few corrupt files in the XP installation, a faulty hard drive, etc.

[MR_ROCKET]

After working on computers for about the past 14 years, yes it is possible to have loose memory, cards, cpu or peripherals. I can't say that they jiggle and jump out of the slots them selves heh, but they do tend to get loose after time by simply moving the machine around. It's something that should be looked into weather in doubt or not, it just part of reconditioning Fatal. However your right, it could be a leaky stick of memory as well yes. But then again, it could be a number of things, ie. if the hdd has some bad sectors.

[FATAL]

Oh yeah, my video card had a bad habit of jumping off the slot with my old motherboard, because it didn't have the close mechanism thingy. Memory sticks and cpu are tight enough so that I don't believe that they fall out very easily. Of course, if they were put badly in the first place then it's a different matter. But still, nah.

It's either bad hd or bad memory, but having recent experiences with bad memory, I'd say that this one is caused by it. Files getting corrupted is either hard drive or memory problem, but the blue screens tell more of a ram problem.

Haha, we should set up a secret club where folks like you, looney and me would use combined forces to solve people's problems.

Also add a price

[Salty Sam]

Oh by the way, this computer is brand new, and custom made by a local computer center. I've been seeing what the guy who works there is saying about the situation...so far he hasn't done much but tweaked the video card...but he doesn't know if that fixes the problem because he can't find the problem when he tried to play my Doom 3 game, now I gotta go over there and show it to him. *ugh*

I also noticed that it freezes when there is a lot going on in the game.

Ex: Multiple enemies in room, slashin away at you, while your firing a plasma rifle, and moving your free look wildly.

[FATAL]

In my opinion that guy should change his job. Video card problems don't usually result in error messages. Mostly either the screen just freezes or turns black, but generally they don't create such error reports.

Also it's no wonder that he didn't find the error. If it only happens randomly, he has no time to play doom for more than couple of minutes to find out.

Go for the ram, damnit. :p
There are some ram testing programs that I have found to come in handy many times.

[The Undertaker]

See if Memtest86 (http://www.memtest86.com) finds any errors.

[Salty Sam]

Hm, there's one minor problem...I don't have a Floppy Disk Drive...wasn't my fault, I had no idea what was gonna come with this computer,since it was a Christmas present, even though I specified a lot of stuff...maybe while the guy computer center guy is lookin at my computer, I can tell him to install one.

I tried it out on my Dad's computer though...exactly how long is it supposed to take?

[Looney]

What is it registering for RAM under (right click)"My Computer", (left click)"Proporties", "General" tab?
Is it way lower than what is installed?

It is possable that it is a bad RAM slot, Try moving the ram to a different slot.

Could be miss matched speed.... say yourRAM is 400mhz and your MB can only handle 333mhz Or your RAM is 533 and the board can only handle 400

Could be the BIOS is set for 133-333mhz RAM when you have 400-533mhz instaled. or Visa-versa and your RAM is overheating from being overclocked.

[FATAL]

If he hasn't fiddled with BIOS, it is likely that the speed is the default "at memory speed" or something like that. However, it is possible that the slot is too slow for the ram. I don't know for sure, but I thought that too slow slots don't create problems? Or do they? I haven't tried, really.

Oh, and Sam, remember that BIOS shows only half of the memory speed, because it's DDR. For example, if you have 400MHz RAM, the BIOS should show 200MHz clock speed.

[Salty Sam]

Under My Computer, Properties, it says I have 2 GHz, 1 GB of RAM. On the paper of what came on the computer it says under Quantity "2" of RAM DDR 512 Meg. That paper is kind of hard to read because everything is run together and abbreviated.

I really need to take some computer classes at school, but I keep on getting forced to take all these classes I don't want or won't benefit me at all in my future career. Or maybe I could...anyone looking for an apprentice? Just kidding.

[FATAL]

I really need to take some computer classes at school, but I keep on getting forced to take all these classes I don't want or won't benefit me at all in my future career. Or maybe I could...anyone looking for an apprentice? Just kidding.
Haha, sure. From amateur to amateur, eh?

[Salty Sam]

Well, thanks everyone for all your help, I'm actually just gonna take my computer over to that guy and tell him to check some of this stuff (I don't wanna risk messing up my computer even more by trying something I don't even know the first thing about). Especially the RAM, that's my number one priority.

Also, I just found out this doesn't happen when I play Doom 3. Just last night I was playing Quake 2 and it happened, and just this morning I was surfing the internet and it happened! I sure hope he's open on New Year's Eve...