help! BSOD: memory dump

[mb26]

i have a laptop which every so often crashes out of the blue (more accurately into the blue)...

it gives a blue screen, with something on it about a memory dump or something..

when using office it loses all information saved since it was turned on; even things which have been 'saved' (during that period of being on) aren't there any more. (if you log off and back on again then it will remember the things saved before the log off, however).

This is of course Windows XP (*sigh*) and this problem occured before and after a clean install.

please help!

[Cricket]

What are the laptop specs?

What kind of background programs are running on the system?

Need the complete error message of the BSOD to get an idea of what's going on.

Cricket

[mb26]

its a 1.3ghz celeron, 256mb ram.. do you need to know anything else?

i'll try and see if i can get a picture of the screen with a digital camera.. but it only lasts half a second before restarting so i have never been able to read it all.. it will be pretty hard to get a pic thou. is there any record of it anyway i can bring up? or put the PC into a mode where it logs things for troubleshooting?

um i think it happens even when there is nothing running in the background.. it seems to happen more often when gaming i think, but maybe its just my imagination.
but the possible things which would be running in the background are.. quickkeys (it controls what a button on it does) um a d-link app -'airplus.exe' probably.. norton 2002 and Zonealarm also.. (but these 2 have been installed recently, way after the problem started so can't be the cause) (i will check 'officially' later as its not available right now)

Do you have a list (or link to a list) of all the processes which run under windows XP normally? i get lost as there are so many! having said that i have done full scans with adaware, spybot and norton AV so there shouldn't be a virus or adware problem

[mb26]

ok the prgrams running are;

QKeys.exe - User
Update.exe - User
OSA.EXE - User
AIRPLUS.EXE - User
NAVAPW32.EXE - User
opware32.exe - User
khooker.exe - User
svchost.exe - SYS
slserv.exe - SYS
NAVAPSVC.EXE - SYS
explorer.exe - User
taskmgr.exe - User
spoolsv.exe - SYS
svchost.exe - Local Service
svchost.exe - Network Service
svchost.exe - SYS
svchost.exe - SYS
lsass.exe - SYS
services.exe - SYS
winlogon.exe - SYS
csrss.exe - SYS
smss.exe - SYS
wuauclt.exe - SYS
IEXPLORE.EXE - User
System - SYS
System Idle Process - SYS

obviously IEXPLORE.EXE and taskmgr.exe aren't normally running on start up.

i thought it may have been faulty memory, so i ran Memtest v3.1 and it passed a full test with no errors [however it only tested 192MB - the 256MB of ram without the 64MB for the onboard graphics.. or does it just say 192MB and test the lot? could there be errors in the ram used for graphics causing BSOD?]

i'll keep trying for the full BSOD message but its pretty hard since its up so short and so randomly.. so i'll ask again;
is there any record of the errors i can bring up? or put the PC into a mode where it logs things for troubleshooting?

is it normal to have that many instances of svchost.exe running? and what does it do?

[RKC]

I don't have any idea why your system crashes, but it seems with all of those programs running simultaneously at once, there is probably at least one errant program causing the problems.

Have you tried shutting each of them down one by one to see if you get the same error message?

[mb26]

i imagine you are running win9x RKC?

all the ones which are -SYS are windows XP processes (with exception to NAVAPSVC.EXE which i believe is norton). not the good days of just Systray and Explorer

also all the User ones, are system tray things, other than iexplore.exe and taskmgr.exe, which aren't running normally at start up. they all take up very little power, (perhaps with the exceptions of norton and zonealarm) and when not doing anything the system idle process takes up about 99% of cpu power, so they are not over-running it really. so its only running about 7 things over the top of XP itself, which isn't really uncommon.

[glc]

1. Control panel, system, advanced, startup and recovery, UNcheck "restart on error".

http://www.windowsstartup.com/wso/detail.php?id=1990 (update.exe) - also related to MSI (M$ Installer) - no need for this to be running.

http://www.newbie.org/help/messages/8343.html (khooker.exe) - no need for this to be running.

Might want to post a HijackThis log.

[mb26]

thanks GLC i will do as you have said..

when the screensaver (3d flower box) is on the screen goes like.. [see attachment] the horizontal lines along the bottom are continously moving (well same area, different colours) not sure about the smaller vertical ones.. when you move on the touchpad/mouse/keyboard and the screensaver goes away, so do the 'lines'.

not sure if this problem is related or not, but fixing it would be pretty important also..

[glc]

That looks like a video driver issue, possibly a DirectX problem.

[mb26]

how would you suggest i fix it, and is it possible that its the same issue causing the BSOD?

[glc]

Need the wording on the BSOD to analyze it - but it's very possible. I'd start by looking for an updated video driver, then install/reinstall DirectX.

[mb26]

ok here is the BSOD (attached) i *presume* it is normally this one.. airplus.sys is to do with the wireless card.. there is plenty of HDD space.. it mentions 'video apadters' so it may be linked with the same video driver issue?
how exactly do i change the video driver (its onboard video (obviously?) and i think the motherboard is an Sis chipset but i dont know 'which'?) and reinstall DX?

[glc]

The first thing I'd do is look for a different Airplus driver.

[mb26]

replaced the airplus driver.. and haven't had the airplus BSOD for a while.. so hopefully thats fixed.. the screensaver problem is still there (so what should i do about that?)..
and theres another BSOD that came up.. i've attached the important part of it.. the text before it is the same as the previous one... not sure what these files are linked to this time..
thanks for your continued help.. what should i do now?

[glc]

mtlstrm.sys is your dialup modem driver.

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;330187

http://support.microsoft.com/default...&Product=WinXP