Blue Screen Of Death

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PieceMaker

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I'll be using my computer, and it will just randomly freeze and then give me a Blue Screen of Death memory dump.

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EXACT ERROR MESSAGES: This isn't exact, but it says that it's doing a memory dump.

WHAT HARDWARE OR SOFTWARE IS AFFECTED: I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's my hard drive. I've gone through eight Western Digital hard drives in two years, and I partially suspect that that may be the problem again, however, it's not acting like it usually does. My computer is still running.

WHEN / HOW OFTEN DOES THE PROBLEM OCCUR: It varies from once every two weeks to three times in five minutes.

RECENT CHANGES (SOFTWARE / HARDWARE / ETC): None.

LAST TIME COMPUTER WORKED FINE: About four weeks ago.

RECENT EVENTS: None.

THINGS YOU HAVE ALREADY TRIED TO FIX PROBLEM: Upgrading every computer part in my computer over the past year.

COMPUTER SPECS:

Operating System: Windows XP Professional

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3200+

Motherboard: Foxconn 6100K8MA

RAM: 2 Gigs (2 x 1Gig) ADATA PC 3200

Video Card: NVidia EVGA 7900 GTX PCI-E

Sound Card: Integrated

Hard drive: Western Digital 250 Gig 7200 RPM
 
Things that can cause blue screens: Over heating, bad ram, corrupt windows files, bad hard drive - not too much else.

You said youve gone through 8 WD hard drives in 2 years. Thats rediculous. I buy WD because they break elss than other brands - if your computer is goin through that many hard drives then you can be pretty cirtian its not the hard drives, but somehting else (power supply) breaking them.

Can you please tell us exactly what was wrong or how you knew it was the hard drive that was broken the last 8 times?

Do you hear any noice just before the blue screen of death? Does it go directly to the blue screen or does it freeze for 10-45 seconds before it goes to the blue screen?

have you ever replaces the power supply? How many watts is your power supply? Which parts constitute "replaced every part in your copmuter" because i'm sure "every" is an exageration.

Also, next time it happens can you write down the message it gives.
 
Alright, as for knowing it was my hard drives that were bad, sometimes I knew and sometimes I didn't completely. The first two were easy, I was getting the Click of Death. Some of the next ones weren't as easy, but I'm almost entirely sure that they were the problem. I had bad sectors and would have to start repairing Windows once every other day, and then once every thirty minutes. I'd then send in the hard drive and get another one that would work for about six months and then start the same stuff again.

As for the freezing, it freezes only long enough for it to give me the Blue Screen of Death. Usually about 2 - 5 seconds. Oh, and this hard drive has been completely quiet.

About the power supply, I just put a new one in in May. It's a Cooler Master 600 Watt ATX 12V.

Finally, as for replacing every part, that wasn't an exageration:

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ from AMD Athlon 64 3200+. (I know it's the same model, but it is a different processor.)

Motherboard: Foxconn 6100K8MA from an ASUS A8V Deluxe.

RAM: 2 Gigs (2 x 1Gig) ADATA PC 3200 from CompUSA 1 Gig (1 x 512 MB) PC 2700.

Video Card: NVidia EVGA 7900 GTX PCI-E from ATI Radeon 9800 Pro.

Hard drive: Western Digital 250 Gig 7200 RPM from a bunch starting with a Western Digital 80 Gig 7200 RPM.

Also, another thing I should mention is I built my parents a computer about seven months ago and I used all parts from my old computer except my power supply and hard drive. Their power supply came with their case and I gave them a Seagate hard drive. So far they haven't had any problems and that's past the crash mark when compared to mine.

Also I forgot to mention, I was wondering about the hard drive temperature. I have a sensor on it right now and it's reading at 28 degrees Celsius, but I've been wanting to get a reading from the actual computer. Can you recommend a good temperature monitor that's free? I've been trying to use RivaTuner, but can only seem to find the graphics card monitor on it. Doesn't it come with a hard drive monitor?
 
i dont think hard drifes have built on temperature sensors on them so no software can do what you want i dont think unless the software was familiar with every modle individually, because really all you need is to measure the voltage accros a reistior i guess.

But anyways, i cant see what would be happening here - are you like, not using a surge protector or somehting?

and before you answer, a POWER STRIP IS NOT A SURGE PROTECTOR they are different. surge protectors have an actual circuit breaker on them, or a fuse - not a flipping power switch.

If you are using a surge protector and not a power strip then i just dont know what would cause that many drives to go bad. Although you did say that you only heard clicking from the first - do you have active antivirus, there is a msall chance that you just ket getting infected by a virus which neevr got erased since you did windows repairs which keeps files (and viruses).

Although the chances of that heppening are extremely low, the chances of getting 8 bad hard drives over the course of 2 years of varying sizes and models from WD is crazydiculous higher than that. Its unfathomable for that to ever happen so i'm still wondering what is causing it.

Did you keep the same ide / sata cords and wires? Its possible that they were bad. I mean, i hope this doesnt turn out to be somehting liek - your case is jello and you constantly shot it with 22 for target practice or somehting - you have no idea how many people i talk to on the phone and try to diagnose problems and they sound crazy so i drive to their house and its somehting simple like - they had their cd in upside down, or like their speakers plugged intot he mic jack. I have worse stories but they are so un logical that they are impossible to remember.
 
As for the surge protector, I'm using one, but it's not grounded, and therefore, does no good. However, I haven't had a storm in several months so that's been ruled out. Plus I unplug my computer whenever I see lightning.

As for the viruses, that is possible, but I reformat every time I get a new hard drive. Unless they somehow stay in the BIOS of my motherboard, I highly doubt that's what's happening.

Finally, I have changed the SATA cords twice.

And as for the last part of your last paragraph, don't worry. I'm not an idiot when it comes to computers. I've been messing with them for six years now and am always having to solve problems on mine, my parent's, and/or my neighbor's computers. Oh well, thanks for your help and I guess I'll keep searching.
 
do you honestly htink that the only time power surges or brown outs occure is durring storms?

Side fact - the computers I sell void their warrenty when ot plugged into a surge protector... i dont think that is un common. Having a computer not pluged into a surge protector is worse than having a computer connected to cable with no anti virus.

Also, if you haveone hard drive and it gets replaced then yes you are not 'saving' viruses, but if you back up files to a cd you mgiht be - if you do windows repairs you might be, or if you have multiple partitions / hard drives and only format the windows one you might be. I notice you didnt say what anti virus you subscribe to- which one do you use?
 
Well, if we were getting power surges, why would my computer be the only electronic device affected in the house? Is that really possible?

Oh, by the way, I'm not being sarcastic with this post.
 
ever notice your house/apt lights get really dim/bright for a second or two before returning to normal? that's a power surge (if you already knew that i apologize)...so it's possible you're getting surges w/out even realizing it
 
You dont need to see it for it to happen. Lets assume the human eye will notice a dim bulb at 75 hz, thats crazy slow and a very long time for electricity to be missing before you even have a chance at seeing it.
 
Hmm, I never thought of that. I hope it isn't my problem, but if it is I'm glad I finally figured it out. Thanks for the help guys.
 
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