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General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: Toad on August 30, 2002, 11:32:07 PM

Title: Blue Screen VXD error
Post by: Toad on August 30, 2002, 11:32:07 PM: Here's the setup.

I take off in an F6F from a CV but (duh, SA!) that destroyer off the bow is an ENEMY Destroyer. Just as I clear the deck, the ack kills me.

WHAMMO! Crash to desktop for the first time in weeks. Start game again.. WHAMMO! screen freeze. Reboot, log in.. BSOD with VXD error. Rinse and repeat.

Delete AH and reinstall, reenter. BSOD.

Run a few diagnostics with system tools. Finds one bad file in Explorer. Run AH, BSOD.

Reinstall Win98SE. No help.

Run virus scan. No help.

Only thing I've changed lately was an update of the Nvidia drivers to 30.~ for WIN98. But game ran fine for two or three days afterwards.

Ideas? (I'm about to re-install the old drivers and see it that helps.

It's usually 0028:C004F320 VXD VCACHE(01) 00000B20
Title: Blue Screen VXD error
Post by: Toad on August 30, 2002, 11:52:16 PM: Appears it may be caused by/related to Explorer. I can't get explorer to run now and it is generating VXD messages.
Title: Blue Screen VXD error
Post by: 214thCavalier on August 31, 2002, 05:39:18 AM: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=/support/windows/topics/errormsg/kbwpe.asp

Try that site it explains what VXD's are and how to troubleshoot them.
Title: Blue Screen VXD error
Post by: Toad on August 31, 2002, 08:58:49 AM: It appears that the destroyer ack made a direct hit on one of my DDR memory sticks.

Took out one stick, everything runs fine. Played the game for an hour, no problems.

I'm now going to swap out sticks and see if it recurs, then I'll know for sure.

Weird that the RAM would die just at the instant my Hellcat did.

Check the simple stuff first, I guess.

Will post confirmation if it is what I suspect.
Title: Blue Screen VXD error
Post by: Toad on August 31, 2002, 12:01:17 PM: Yep, the destroyer killed a stick of my RAM.

Now to find out if the Kingston lifetime warranty is worth a flip.
Title: Blue Screen VXD error
Post by: Animal on August 31, 2002, 12:04:37 PM: Yes that definetly sounds like a memory problem.
Title: Blue Screen VXD error
Post by: Toad on September 01, 2002, 10:14:55 PM: Oh, it's definitely the RAM. The OTHER 10 month old stick quit too!

Bought a new stick on sale at Best Buy today (not bad at $44 for 256 btw.. if you need one) and everything runs fine.

Just wondering why two sticks quit at once... or is Kingston only good for 10 months?
Title: Blue Screen VXD error
Post by: Pfunk on September 02, 2002, 12:09:25 PM: Kingston that you buy at Best Buy=Crapola. Worked at BB in computer depart. couldnt tell ya how many sticks came back DOA or shortly after they were bought. Go and spend a few extra bucks and buy either Crucial or Mushkin.
Title: Blue Screen VXD error
Post by: Toad on September 02, 2002, 04:21:02 PM: Got this Kingston at Googlegear online. The new Best Buy is PNY stuff.
Title: Blue Screen VXD error
Post by: Animal on September 02, 2002, 04:57:34 PM: All the ram I buy http://www.crucial.com
Title: Blue Screen VXD error
Post by: Gunthr on September 02, 2002, 05:12:11 PM: I recommend Crucial too. Solid company. Solid ram. You can pay a lot more for ram, and I have. But Crucial ram has always exceeded my expectations for a good price.
Title: Blue Screen VXD error
Post by: Dowding (Work) on September 03, 2002, 08:39:56 AM: I get the blue VXD error fairly regularly and I have 512 MB of Crucial RAM. I upgraded a year ago for WW2OL (heh!) and have the RAM arranged 2x128 MB + 1x256 MB modules. The VXD crashes increased in regularity since then, although not enough to persuade me to do anything about it.

How often is 'normal'?
Title: Blue Screen VXD error
Post by: Animal on September 03, 2002, 07:20:24 PM: Quote
Originally posted by Dowding (Work)
I get the blue VXD error fairly regularly and I have 512 MB of Crucial RAM. I upgraded a year ago for WW2OL (heh!) and have the RAM arranged 2x128 MB + 1x256 MB modules. The VXD crashes increased in regularity since then, although not enough to persuade me to do anything about it.

How often is 'normal'?

It should never happen.
Are you overclocking? are your running at a lower CAS setting than advertized? (I.E: CAS 2 instead of CAS 2.5)
In strange circumstances it can also be a motherboard issue.
Title: Blue Screen VXD error
Post by: Dowding on September 05, 2002, 11:05:13 AM: I've got it set at CAS2 which is what the RAM is.

It just seems completely random, with no discernible pattern.
Title: Blue Screen VXD error
Post by: ZXMAW on September 06, 2002, 11:19:11 AM: My old computer began to have many of those VDX errors and were related it seemed to MSIE which screwed my whole computer up so I bought a new one. The new computer came with this utility that checks for problems and notifies you right away and offers a fix. the 2nd day after I had it it came up with 3 things that needed to be done. The # 1 problem it had was with MSIE and the message stated that MSIE was creating theses vdx errors. They also mentioned that affected computers would be fixed with this patch which leads me to believe that MS screwed a lot of puters up before this patch came out. My problems started 3 weeks ago and ran through my puter like a virus.
Go to the MS web site and find the patch. Chances are it will be up near the top heh
Title: Blue Screen VXD error
Post by: Toad on September 07, 2002, 08:54:04 PM: How embarassing!

This whole episode turned out to be a "dustbunny" in some of the exposed pins on a GeForce2GTS card.

I let an expert friend of mine listen to the beeps on boot over the phone and he said "swap in another video card and see what happens".

It booted right away.

I looked at my trusty old GeF2 card to see if it had toasted itself and I saw a bunch of dust between a double row of exposed pins on the card. So I did a good clean up on the card and the computer.

Just for fun I swapped the old card back in and added all the RAM, including the one I thought was bad.

It booted just fine.

However, in all the thrashing, some Windoze files got trashed and I had an FAT error that Scandisk could not fix.

Fortunately I have nothing important on that HD but Games.

Dustbunnies. I'll be more careful in the future.