Machine_check_exception error!

I keep getting this BSOD that says machine_check_exception. It happens even when I run completely stock speeds on my CPU, RAM, video...

Cooling is not the problem, I never go above 41c or so. I just did a fresh XP reinstall, didn't help. I think I might have some bad hardware... I just completed 12+ hours of memtest with zero errors. Anything else I should try?

See specs in sig, I know this is very old by most people's standards, but I have a son just turning 2 and honestly I've never had time to do anything that made me want to upgrade... I just need it to work properly.

Looking at this and ignoring the parts about Pentiums (I saw you have an A64), you can see there are four causes under 'More information' -

- Overclocking
- Power issues
- Heat
- Bad memory

Make sure your overclock is off, then as you've taken out heat and memory as a possible fault, it could be your PSU (not totally, could just be voltages/amps). It could also be power management rather than a broken PSU.

They actually list these possible causes:

• System bus errors
• Memory errors that may include parity or Error Correction Code (ECC) problems
• Cache errors in the processor or hardware
• Translation Lookaside Buffers (TLB) errors in the processor
• Other CPU-vendor specific detected hardware problems
• Vendor-specific detected hardware problems

I can eliminate bad RAM, too much heat, and too much OC. That leaves a bad system bus (AKA bad mobo) or bad cache (AKA bad CPU). Where did you see anything about the PSU?

STOP: 0x0000009C (0x00000004, 0x00000000, 0xb2000000, 0x00020151)
"MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION"
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=329284&sd=RMVP

Understanding and troubleshooting the "Stop 0x0000009C" screen
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=162363&sd=RMVP

Yeah I've read those now.... the only thing they say that might be a possibility is a bad power supply. Other than that, they mention overclocking, heat, and RAM, all of which I've verified are not problems.

I guess I'll swap out my PSU and see if that helps.

Did you try again with the Vcore increased? It may be an undervolting motherboard. Otherwise, I'm gonna have to say a bad processor, bad motherboard, bad PSU or bad caps.

yes I did. I guess it's time for an upgrade... maybe a new CPU and mobo since a comparable or slightly better set would still be cheap.

Project86 said:

yes I did. I guess it's time for an upgrade... maybe a new CPU and mobo since a comparable or slightly better set would still be cheap.

Click to expand...

Better yet you could ease to stock (assuming you're OC'd - I'm sig-attention-deficit) and see if it persists.