Blue Screen of Death

[rkohli]

Hi,

Lately I've been getting a lot of blue screens...the main error it says is 'page fault in non_paged area'...do you guys need more info such as the 000x0xx57 whatever those numbers are?

Is this a common problem, and if so...any known cures? I've tried going through drivers and uninstalling unneccessary stuff

thanks so much!

rohan

[egibbs]

BSODs are not normal, and should always be investigated and fixed. They can lead to more serious problems if left uncorrected. Unfortunately they are pretty common, but they are always caused by something that can be fixed. I saw yesterday that MS apparently has a plan to upgrade BSODs in Longhorn - they are adding a Red Screen of Death (RSOD) - http://software.silicon.com/os/0,390246 ... 264,00.htm

With Page Faults the first thing to do is reseat your memory. If that doesn't work remove any added memory and run it for a few days to see if it is fixed - if so the stick is bad. You should also run the mem test from the IBM diagnostics.

This page is very helpful for troubleshooting BSODs - http://aumha.org/win5/kbestop.htm

You should also hit the MS Knowledge Base with the hex number of the error (you can abbreviate it to 0x50 or whatever).

You should try to work it out on your own if you can - it will be a learning experience. If you get stuck though post the exact error message, the parameters (the numbers in () after the error number) and any other text, especially any names of drivers listed.

Good luck,

Ed Gibbs

[rkohli]

thanks so much! i will certainly do all that you have suggested

[scrannel]

Hi,

Have an X-30 and suddenly was getting stop error/blue screen with "page fault in nonpaged..." message. I undocked to remove all peripherals, (I was getting the message undocked too) ran Microsoft memory test from USB floppy, went into msconfig and unchecked everything I could. No luck. I was still getting the crash between 1 - 3 times a day. So, I (I'm in Xp pro) right clicked on "My Computer" clicked on properties, clicked the "advanced" tab, then "performance settings", "advanced", and under virtual memory I clicked "change". Then I selected "no paging file". I clicked "set" and restarted my computer. After restart I went back into the same virtual memory screen, checked "custom size". Then I chose "2000" for my maximum memory and then "1500" for initial size (I have an 80gb HD about 50% full). I then clicked "set" (then restarted, though not sure you need to). Have not had the error since. Remember in the old Win 98 days when you could delete and then recreate your virtual memory file? I believe this is essentially the same thing.

[kaplanfx]

Scrannel, while you may have been able to fix your BSOD errors for the time being, a pagefault in the page-file can be indicative of bad sectors on your harddrive. I recommend disabling the page file completely, doing a fresh restart, and running a full scan on the hard drive (the one where you click on detect and fix bad blocks) What will happen is the hard drive will scan itself and replace bad blocks with spare blocks on another part of the platter. These bad blocks can be indicative of a failing harddrive, but can also be caused by a head hitting the platter while the machine was being moved in which case the drive me be ok after the scan (IBM Active protection should offer some protection over the latter case happening). In any case you may be correct, it could just be a corrupt page-file in which case, your fix is probably the best one.

-kaplanfx

[scrannel]

Highly unlikely HD is the problem as I have a pair of cloned hard drives and was getting the page fault error on both, occurring at precisely the same time. I checked this by installing the 2nd HD after my 'fix' on the first (which I had not done the current 'fix' on) and got the same error. Besides, I had already run the theoretical bad block repair on the second drive and it did nothing. I am convinced the virtual file was at fault. This is a page fault in the nonpaged area, not the paged.