firewound

Yes...safe mode never fails to start up. However, downloading a torrent in safe mode also freezes up the system; just like it does in normal windows mode. Sometimes, a few seconds after loading safe mode successfully, the computer will freeze with no readily apparent cause.

To guard against that, I tried doing a fresh install of windows onto a newly formatted hard drive. Then, literally on the first boot, I try to run windows update and it froze as always.

I tried taking out everything except RAM, video, CPU and HDD. I tried alternating RAM sticks and alternating DIMMs. Same problem. edit: If I try to boot into normal mode, it doesn't work (even after several attempts). But, if I enter safe mode (which never fails to boot) and then restart, normal windows comes up without a problem.

Hey Cluberti, I've installed a fresh copy of windows xp on an older hard drive and it exhibits the exact same problem. I have not applied any overclock settings. I ran memtest for a good 20-30 minutes and found 0 errors. Event Logger has the following notable entry: WMI ADAP was unable to process the performance libraries: 0x80041001 I doubt something like this could cause such a low level error, but I thought I'd mention it.

Hey Cluberti, So I followed the instructions for making a memory dump. When the system is running stable, I can initiate a dump succesfully. However, when the system hangs, doing the CTRL+Scroll has no effect. Right now I'm using a wireless usb keyboard but it's plugged into the PS2 port with a converter. Update: I explored the issue of the torrent program crashing a bit more. The program itself doesn't crash the computer until a torrent is being downloaded. I thought it might be a hard drive issue so I plugged in a USB HDD enclosure and set the torrent program to download to the external hard drive. This worked for about 4-5 minutes before crashing.

Yes. Clearly the BSOD errors were caused by something I installed later on. So everything in my original post applies except there are no more BSODs. Right now, each time I start up my computer it gets to the windows loading screen, then the monitor shuts off and I have to restart. If I try to boot normally after the restart, the same things happens. But, if I boot into safe mode, and then restart, I can boot into normal windows just fine. I'm not sure if the boot failure is connected to the semi-random freezes, but I would think that it is.

Another thing I noticed. After a fresh windows install, two devices in Device Manager have the yellow question mark next to them. "RAID controller" and "System Interrupt Controller". Last time this happened as well, but I was able to find the drivers for both of these devices off the CD that came with the motherboard. I guess they wouldn't be causing the problem, but who knows. I don't have RAID, so it's strange that these devices would be installed.

Come to think of it the blue screen problem probably appeared right around the time I installed Alcohol 120% which also uses the sptd driver. I was able to remove the sptd.sys file from system32/drivers but I was unable to delete the registry key in services/sptd for some reason. In any case, I figured I was attacking a secondary problem so I went ahead and reinstalled a clean copy of windows onto another hard drive. So I now have all my original problems except no BSOD and therefore no dump file. I did notice one thing though; when I was reinstalling windows, during the "Installing Devices" phase, my monitor went dark very much like it does every 3rd or 4th time I start the computer. At that point I restarted the computer and the windows setup completed normally.

Hey Folks, I've been browsing around the board and it looks like there are some very bright people around so I thought I'd see if anyone could help me. I've been having computer issues for a week now and I'm utterly stumped. Here is what's happening. Symptoms -Running windows update freezes my computer every time. I am able to click on Express/Custom and as its checking for updates, the computer hangs and I have to restart. -On startup, the computer gets to the Loading Windows screen (with the little blue scroller). Then, one of two things happens, I either get a blue screen (more info below) or there is no screen output at all and the monitor subsequently goes dark. -Downloading torrents freezes the computer after about five minutes (in safe mode too) -Safe mode never fails to load, but I will sometimes have the computer freeze a few seconds after loading safe mode succesfully. Configuration: Core 2 Duo E6300 Asrock 775Dual-VSTA mobo ATI Radeon 9700 Pro 2x512 Mb DDR 400 2xSeagate 7200.10 320Gb hard drives Here's what I've tried so far: -Updated mobo BIOS -Tried putting in a different video card (Nvidia) -Tried putting in differnet RAM, declocking it, lowering its voltage -Updating mobo drivers manually -Removing all unnecessary PCI cards -Formating the hard drive and doing a clean install -Reinstalling the CPU to check for bad contacts (reapplied thermal grease) The blue screen errors only started recently whereas the freezing issues have been there since day 1. I've included the memory dump information below. I only ran the !analyze -v command because I wasn't sure which other commands might be useful. If someone is willing to look at my actual dump file, I would be more than happy to upload zipped copy of it somewhere. Since the problem seemed to be related to SPTD.sys file, I removed it from c:\windows\system32\drivers but was unable to delete its registry key. That didn't make a difference. This computer issue has been a constant thorn in my side because I depend on my computer for a ton of stuff. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Keep up the good work guys! Nick ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Microsoft ® Windows Debugger Version 6.6.0007.5 Copyright © Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Loading Dump File [D:\Debugging Tools for Windows\MEMORY.DMP] Kernel Complete Dump File: Full address space is available Symbol search path is: SRV*downstream_store*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols Executable search path is: Windows XP Kernel Version 2600 (Service Pack 2) MP (2 procs) Free x86 compatible Product: WinNt, suite: TerminalServer SingleUserTS Built by: 2600.xpsp.060411-1541 Kernel base = 0x804d7000 PsLoadedModuleList = 0x805624a0 Debug session time: Fri Jan 19 18:00:34.468 2007 (GMT-5) System Uptime: 0 days 0:00:13.156 WARNING: Process directory table base 19496000 doesn't match CR3 00039000 WARNING: Process directory table base 19496000 doesn't match CR3 00039000 Loading Kernel Symbols .................................................................................................... .......... Loading User Symbols ........ Loading unloaded module list ... ******************************************************************************* * * * Bugcheck Analysis * * * ******************************************************************************* Use !analyze -v to get detailed debugging information. BugCheck 7F, {8, f7ac7d70, 0, 0} *** ERROR: Module load completed but symbols could not be loaded for sptd.sys Probably caused by : sptd.sys ( sptd+260a ) Followup: MachineOwner --------- 1: kd> !analyze -v ******************************************************************************* * * * Bugcheck Analysis * * * ******************************************************************************* UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP (7f) This means a trap occurred in kernel mode, and it's a trap of a kind that the kernel isn't allowed to have/catch (bound trap) or that is always instant death (double fault). The first number in the bugcheck params is the number of the trap (8 = double fault, etc) Consult an Intel x86 family manual to learn more about what these traps are. Here is a *portion* of those codes: If kv shows a taskGate use .tss on the part before the colon, then kv. Else if kv shows a trapframe use .trap on that value Else .trap on the appropriate frame will show where the trap was taken (on x86, this will be the ebp that goes with the procedure KiTrap) Endif kb will then show the corrected stack. Arguments: Arg1: 00000008, EXCEPTION_DOUBLE_FAULT Arg2: f7ac7d70 Arg3: 00000000 Arg4: 00000000 Debugging Details: ------------------ BUGCHECK_STR: 0x7f_8 TSS: 00000028 -- (.tss 28) eax=000000a0 ebx=85cf839c ecx=00230e01 edx=00000001 esi=86549370 edi=f7739604 eip=f773960a esp=f6b63ff0 ebp=f6b64004 iopl=0 nv up ei ng nz na pe nc cs=0008 ss=0010 ds=0023 es=0023 fs=0030 gs=0000 efl=00010286 sptd+0x260a: f773960a 0000 add byte ptr [eax],al ds:0023:000000a0=f3 Resetting default scope DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID: DRIVER_FAULT PROCESS_NAME: csrss.exe LAST_CONTROL_TRANSFER: from 00000000 to f773960a STACK_TEXT: f6b64004 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 sptd+0x260a STACK_COMMAND: .tss 0x28 ; kb FOLLOWUP_IP: sptd+260a f773960a 0000 add byte ptr [eax],al SYMBOL_STACK_INDEX: 0 FOLLOWUP_NAME: MachineOwner MODULE_NAME: sptd IMAGE_NAME: sptd.sys DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP: 45608c07 SYMBOL_NAME: sptd+260a FAILURE_BUCKET_ID: 0x7f_8_sptd+260a BUCKET_ID: 0x7f_8_sptd+260a Followup: MachineOwner