At my wit's end with these Blue Screens!

[Sovereign]

...The system encountered an uncorrectable hardware error...
STOP: 0x00000124 (0x0000000000000000, 0xFFFFFA8008A82030, 0x00000000B2000000, 0x0000000000070F0F)

Been getting this on a frighteningly regular basis. About once every two to four days.

CPU passes 8 hour prime.
Memory passes overnight memest86.
All HDDs pass "Long" WD diagnostic.
OS is Vista Ultimate x64 SP1
No Bluetooth devices are installed (these have been known to cause problems)
All drivers are up to date, including NVIDIA and Creative.

The crashes do not seem to correlate to any particular activity (HDD reading, audio playing, games etc), in fact most of the time they occur when the computer is sitting idle (NOT Folding, because that accelerates the time between crashes).

The machine is not overclocked and all settings are stock. The Event Log is maddeningly unhelpful because the only thing I see with regard to these crashes is "The shutdown at XX:XX was unexpected." No Stop codes written or anything; Windows crashes so fast/hard that it has no time to write to the Event Log first.

I'm thinking it's my motherboard...

[ibleet]

I know nothing about Vista, but this sounds like a video or audio driver issue to me. Have you tried uninstalling the drivers, use driver cleaner, enter safe mode, use driver cleaner again, reinstall drivers?
Even up-to-date drivers can be corrupt and cause intermittent errors.

[skier]

what were you doing when you recieved your FIRST BSOD, sometimes the stupidest thing can trigger them, and you have to change whatever it was back

[DMB2000uk]

Disable C1E in the BIOS and see if it errors still.

The best thing you can do is load a linux live cd and see if it crashes while in that. Should see if it is a hardware error or just windows being very tetchy.

Dan

[dicecca112]

What's the PSU on the machine?

[Methious]

I run from cd and test from there, it'll usually tell you if the OS is trash, or it's a hardware problem. Usually use UBCD.

[stev]

...The system encountered an uncorrectable hardware error...
STOP: 0x00000124 (0x0000000000000000, 0xFFFFFA8008A82030, 0x00000000B2000000, 0x0000000000070F0F)

The crashes do not seem to correlate to any particular activity (HDD reading, audio playing, games etc), in fact most of the time they occur when the computer is sitting idle (NOT Folding, because that accelerates the time between crashes).

Heat sometimes can cause things to go to the blue screen. Heat can also take time to build up too even at idle. Are the CPU, memory and such well seated with heat-sinks and coolers?

[Sovereign]

I got a new BSoD just downloading and crankin' the tunes today:

STOP: 0x00000F4 (0x0000000000000003A...snip) process or thread crucial to system operation has unexpectedly exited or been terminated.

From what I understand, there are two options for this second variable: 3(A) and 6. One means process, the other means thread (what got canned that shouldn't have).

I had Firefox, FlashGet, iTunes, Trillian Pro 3.1, Sidebar, FileZilla, AVG, IM-History and SetPoint running at the time of the crash. I had selected a bunch of links to FlashGet when the whole system just started to hang up. Firefox essentially took over and I couldn't alt tab out of it, then I tried to CTRL-ALT-DEL to get to the task manager (couldn't right click on taskbar), then it completely froze (the music had still been playing in the background up till this point) and finally it blue screened.

I'll look at the thermal paste situation later today.

[tekgek]

From the little that I know about Vista 64 bit, there are still major problems with the os. You might try one or both of the following:
1. find a copy Windows XP 32 bit and install it
2. Get a copy of Vista 32 bit and install it.

I highly suggest NOT using Vista 64 bit, unless you have your heart set on it or you absolutely have to use 64 bit.

Good Luck,
Tekgek

[Sovereign]

From the little that I know about Vista 64 bit, there are still major problems with the os. You might try one or both of the following:
1. find a copy Windows XP 32 bit and install it
2. Get a copy of Vista 32 bit and install it.

I highly suggest NOT using Vista 64 bit, unless you have your heart set on it or you absolutely have to use 64 bit.

Good Luck,
Tekgek

I appreciate your concern, but I believe that you are misinformed. These statements were very true about the Vista x64 a few months ago, but now these problems (lack of drivers, instability) have mostly been mitigated. The solution to this problem, unfortunately is not to nuke my OS, this is unacceptable as I need x64 for the 4GB of RAM I have.

[DMB2000uk]

Did you try the C1E suggestion?

Dan

[Sovereign]

Did you try the C1E suggestion?

Dan

AMD CPUs don't have that, or at least my BIOS doesn't (A8N32-SLI Deluxe). If the feature exists under another name, please tell me.

[DMB2000uk]

Oh, in that case, see if disabling cool and quiet does the trick.

Quite a few users with your original error code found C1E to be the problem, so maybe the equivilent AMD is the problem on yours.

Else do you have an oboard sound card? Others found that disabling any sound cards on the system stopped the (original) error, i know its a workaround, and a damn crappy one at that, but it can't hurt to try.

Dan

[Sovereign]

CnQ has been off since I bought the system. Onboard sound is also disabled.

On another note, does Arctic Silver 5 have a "use by" date? I found that my paste dried up/disappeared when I took the HSF off and I believe that was what was causing my blue screen problems (overheating). This AS5 is at least two and a half years old if not older, and peeling the sticker off the tube revealed a not-so-continuous color; i.e. parts of it were less "silver" and more "yellowish-grey."

Should I buy a new tube?

[ibleet]

You were monitoring your temps, right? What were they?

[DMB2000uk]

Yeah AS5 can go off. Sounds like it might have.

You should get some Tuniq TX2 as a replacement, its the best (widely available) paste I've seen out there.

Dan

[stev]

Typically, thermal paste has a shelf life of 1 year if kept in the fridge (usually in a coffee mug) with the tip side down. For some of Shin-Etsu Micro-Si thermal pastes, like the X23 series, it has a shelf life of only 6 months.

The best time to purchase thermal paste (grease) is in the winter to avoid warm temps during shipping and retail supply shelf storage. Always call ahead to verify the shelf date prior to ordering. FrozenCPU has been good to me about that.