Worker_thread_returned_at_bad_Irql BSOD

[hokiethug]

I'm working on a Dell system for a customer, Pentium D with on-board ATI Radeon 1100 graphics. Randomly, the system crashes with a worker_thread_returned_at_bad_Irql BSOD. stop: 0x000000E1 (0x80599566, 0x00000001, 0x85E6A808, 0x85E6A808) I look in the event view for system, and see dozens of entries referring to ati2mag.sys

invalid crt
ATi2mtag - CRT invalid display type.

I've tried completely uninstalling all traces of ATI drivers, and reinstalling (either from the Dell website for this particular system, or from the ATI website, and putting in the 8.3 catalyst). It still happens. I've run a memtest w/ no errors and scanned the hard drive for bad sectors (none), done the obvious virus & spyware scans,..nothing. The frustrating thing is I can't make this happen..it will happen after 5 minutes or 5 hours. I have googled this issue to death but haven't found a resolution.

Anyone out there have any ideas? Thanks in advance.

 

[badge]

Try some different memory. Set memory voltage and timings to Mfg. specs in BIOS in both the memory you have and any new memory you try. With the memory you have you might try using 1 DIMM in slot 1 and bump up the voltage a notch or two. Memtest does not run under the stress of a windows environment. Your DIMMS may be good as Memtest indicates, but under the stress of the OS, undervolted memory may fail and cause the system crash.

 

[hokiethug]

I ran Prime95 stress test on the system this morning, and it failed after 20 seconds (using both his original memory and new ram put it all by itself.) At this point I took out his Pent D processor and put in a Pentium 3ghz 641 processor and it's been running the same test in Prime95 for 2 hours without fail. I'm about to run a 3dmarks on it in a loop to see if I can make it crash.

 

[badge]

I built a micro office computer with Pentium D 805 and an ATI Radeon Express chipset. I had a lot of problems getting RAM to work correctly. Corsair XMS would not work without system crashes. I finally installed a PCIE 6600GT and used some Kingston value RAM and have the system stable for months. I had a single core 3.0 socket 775 in there and swapped out to the Pentium D dual core without issue (other than the RAM incompatibilities like before). Nice going getting it to run!