Windows won't boot BSOD

[FireZombie]

Hello.

I'm having problems with my brothers PC, a few months ago everything was fine, the we added 2 Gb RAM and suddenly it was frozen, ok restarted and once in a while he got that kind of problems, sudden freezes or reboots, then one day it won't boot showing a BSOD regarding win32k.sys and another with MEMORY_MANAGEMENT and finally evolved to BAD_CONFIG_SYSTEM_INFO. it just won't start, did the chkdsk as suggested by a live ubuntu CD and it was a 4 day chkdsk, at least after that I was able to see my files in ubuntu. Tried everything with the recovery options and none worked.

Well that's the background, I reisntalled Win7 in a new HDD and after a few days this time tested the system for a week with the original 2 RAM sticks, after that a one of the new stick was installed and everything went fine for another 2 week till it had boot problems, after trying to do things with the repair options again I was able to get in the disk so I could backup with Ubuntu, saved info but win still wont start, and then it appeared as if it wasn't formatted, so I installed XP in another disk and tried to open the disk, it wasnt formatted so I run chkdsk and the disk was fine again, restart and this time there was no Bootmgr (dont know what happened, I installed XP with the other disk unplugged) so I copied it from the installation disk and it loaded windows (with the vista animation... repaired with a line code from a win blog) and again everything was running again nicely.

A few days ago it happended again, this time while windows has loading (orbs) the tablet started blinking and nothing happended, reboot, safe mode, reboot and everything ok.

Today, it stopped right after the orbs animation, just right before the login, 1 minute and nothing happened, so reboot and asked for chkdsk, once it was complete, it tool about 30 min to load the desktop and it was unusable I let it load for an hour it loaded gadgets but still unusable tried to click something and it gave me a terminate process window, so again reboot and now every partition needed chkdsk, if cancelled the BAD_CONFIG_SYSTEM_INFO prompted, I wasn't able to even start from XP it displayed disk error at bios, then again tried with win 7 and this time the and let it finish chkdsk in the installation unit, it finally started but I cant access 3 of 4 partitions in the other disk, only the one with XP installed.

Right now I'm trying to recover the other partitions with the chkdsk in the cmd, but I don't have a clue of what is happening.

What I know is:

- The two RAM sticks installed right now are fine, worked fine before the new ones.
- The slow windows loading could be caused due some driver, in this case I've read quicktime uses the same path as the wacom tablet and add a semicolon everytime it updates but don't know exactly what that means.
- My brother installed quicktime through a download manager from softonic the day before the problem happened again (the repaired installation).
- Deactivated QT update and worked for a few days till now.

Right now I was able to recover 3 of 4 partitions, the one I couldn't recover was the one with the previous installation (before the new HDD), it says the MFT is damaged and chkdsk can't continue, how can I fix that?

I don't know what might cause the problem, might be the old HDD? Some driver? What can be the cause for those chkdsks?

I tried a lot of things, right now even powering off the PSU with the back switch (after shutting down win of course) looks suspicious.

The PC specs are:

AMD Phenom II 965BE
MoBo Gigabyte GA-MA78G-DS3H
2 1Gb Kingston RAM
Gigabyte ATI Radeon 5770
1 WD SATA 2 500 Gb (old installation broken MFT in one partition)
2 WD SATA 3 500 Gb (new one with current installation)
CM Silent Pro 600W PSU

Any idea of what could be the problem?

Thanks in advance.

Hope you can help me.

Have a nice day!

P.S: Sorry about my english, not my native language.

 

[pjmelect]

Blue screens are normally caused by memory or driver problems. In your case it is obviously memory problems. The two new memory sticks are the cause of your problems. You may need to increase the memory voltage in the BIOS to make your system stable with the extra memory. To check your computer is stable download and run memtest86.

 

[FireZombie]

Hello, thanks for your reply.

Yes, those problems indicates memory problems according to microsoft, thats why I reinstalled with the 2 original sticks, so one of the 2 new sticks is deffective, don't know which one tho, I've tried with one new and the 2 original and worked without freezes or so, just this error.

One thing I forgot to mention is that the BAD_CONFIG_SYSTEM_INFO I got today didn't include any code, and happened after canceling chkdsks (and it was with the 2 original sticks), the other BAD_CONFIG_SYSTEM_INFO from the previous installation (included the 2 new sticks) did include that code. I'm guessing that this time the message was because there was no way to start.

At any case I ran memtest86+ on the new sticks (before the current installation, about a month) and there were no errors detected in 3 passes.

What can cause that every time I shut down the PC the partitions gets corrupted? (happened today with almost every partition, and only couple of times before with one partition).

At the moment I'm still unable to recover the MFT from the one partition I couldn't fix with chkdsk, I'll try with testdisk and photorec later, once my brother make his backup.

I don't understand a lot of RAM things, when the 2 new ones were installed it was at 800 mhz, then with the 2 original and 1 new it was at 667 mhz, maybe that helped. Don't know how to increase voltage or how should that help cause I'm not familiar with the subject can you explain me some of it?

Thanks in advance.

Have a nice day!

 

[pjmelect]

It is quite normal to have to increase the memory voltage if you fit four sticks of memory in your computer when the sticks will work in pairs on their own. This is due to the increase of capacitance on the address and data buses when you fit four sticks. To increase the memory voltage enter the BIOS by hitting either F2 or the delete key (check manual) then go to the memory voltage section (check manual) and increase the memory voltage a step at a time until the system is stable and passes all memory tests and then increase the voltage one more step for luck.

 

[FireZombie]

Hello.

That's what I don't understand, I'm not using 4 sticks, only 2 since the new sticks (4Gb) were bought to keep dual channel in 2 sticks instead the actual ones (2x1Gb) also I can't really tell if it's stable because memtest86+ don't show any errors, but the problem is still there.

That PC worked fine with those sticks for more than a year, the problems appeared with the new sticks, thats why I removed them.

Does the RAM corrupt the HDDs?

Is there anything I should look for at the event log? A quick look shows a lot of ntfs errors, could it be that the older HDD is not working properly and it's affecting the other one installation?

Thanks in advance.

Have a nice day!

 

[pjmelect]

Yes memory errors can corrupt the contents of the hard drive. Any problem with the hard drive should be shown by SMART if it is enabled in the BIOS.
Reinstall Windows again with the two good sticks of memory and start again.

 

[FireZombie]

Hello.

Yes, SMART is enabled but I have never seen that SMART say something about a hard drive in other PC's I had, even when the disc was making noises and so on, at any case SMART report each disk as capable, I'll use the WD utilities to check the disks later.

I'd rather like to find a solution, but I understand that sometimes that's not possible, that's why I was wondering if the old drive could be the cause of the error.

Instead of a clean reinstall, can I use a system image? I've made 2 system images, one with win7 and most of the programs we use right after installing win7 (before activation) and one 2 weeks after, I thing this one was made after the first boot problem in this installation (this one after activation).

What happens with the activation at both cases? I've read somewhere that you can only activate on internet once every couple months or something like that.

Sorry if I ask to many questions.

Thanks in advance.

Have a nice day!