Windows 7 64 bit random blue screens (Recent)

[ppe1700]

Hi all, hoping for some logical advice as to my problem and I thank you in advance!

I have a PC that I build myself for my mother a good few years ago. It is an AMD Phenom 1, quad core 2.4 GHz with 2Gb of RAM. This is purley a desktop PC so I left the standard HSF which came with the new CPU inside.
System has been running fine for years, I would clean it out every so often as I reused the old chassis / case and it could get dusty inside.

Relatively recently I installed an IP camera and used this PC for recording the camera. CPU usage remains about a 5 to 10% usage on average and the machine is left on 24x7 for recording purposes. A few days before I was due to leave the country I noticed the fan acting noisily. I didn't put two and two together until we got a couple of blue screens and I attributed the fan noise to over heating. I cleared the dust out and the small amount of dust which seemed to be restricting airflow around the HSF. Immediately after power up the fan noise was back to normal. However we kept getting blue screens and reboots.

I decided the OS must have become corrupt so rebuilt from scratch. The same day I had to catch a flight, unluckily for me the blue screens continue.

I have remote access to this machine via VNC via a Cisco VPN. I have checked the event logs both times and they do not say much by way of reporting the issue. They say something along the lines of "system returned" but do not describe why the system went down.

Is there anything else I can run or check on the machine to find out what is causing this?

Or,
Have I killed the machine due to the over heating? The machine is in England and we've just had winter. Ambient temps are around the 20c mark due to central heating.

Also, whilst I vacuumed the dust, I also reseated the RAM and made sure there was also no dust inside there.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

 

[ppe1700]

I've looked over the machine and event viewer states:

The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x0000001a (0x0000000000005003, 0xfffff70001080000, 0x0000000000005677, 0x0000000009732009). A dump was saved in: C:\Windows\MEMORY.DMP. Report Id: 031212-13322-01.

I'll also attach the file from the minidump.

 

[ppe1700]

I've found a tool to read the mini dumps and from constant googling it may appear that this is a memory issue?
Could anyone confirm this from those dumps?

 

[gangaskan]

can you run memtest on those sticks?

 

[WeThePpl]

Download bluescreenview: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html

And see what is going on in there, as well. You are correct, though; it does sound like memory.

 

[ppe1700]

Hi Gangaskan long time no speak. I'm actually in Australia with no set date to return home.

As it's looking like memory I'll just buy two new sticks and hope for the best. I wanted to upgrade from 2GB to 4GB on that machine anyway as it sits about 70% used. If I was there it would take nothing to run memtest. However to get my mum to do this would be a little tricky I think!
Replacing 2 sticks will still be tricky but I'm confident she can do it without too much trouble.

Thanks for taking a look and confirming.

 

[ppe1700]

Download bluescreenview: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html

And see what is going on in there, as well. You are correct, though; it does sound like memory.

Thank you. I found this tool and it's pretty good. Wish I had found this years ago.

 

[gangaskan]

Hi Gangaskan long time no speak. I'm actually in Australia with no set date to return home.

As it's looking like memory I'll just buy two new sticks and hope for the best. I wanted to upgrade from 2GB to 4GB on that machine anyway as it sits about 70% used. If I was there it would take nothing to run memtest. However to get my mum to do this would be a little tricky I think!
Replacing 2 sticks will still be tricky but I'm confident she can do it without too much trouble.

Thanks for taking a look and confirming.

always good to check those sticks when you can though

 

[ppe1700]

I do agree with you. It's tempting to get someone over there with a laptop so I can Skype and see the memtest screen.

 

[ppe1700]

So,
Got new RAM ordered and delivered. Had my mum put them in. Only 2GB showed up out of 4GB. I talked her through troubleshooting and we found that one of the slots on the motherboard is not working any more. I have the confidence that she had them in the correct way etc...

I explained to just leave the single stick of 2GB in there now as there are only 2 slots and see how it goes. She then said the slot looks a little burnt.

May be the old stick was faulty and shorted or something? Hopefully we nailed the problem.

I managed to complete this using a free VOIP call using my Cisco phone system and a soft phone on my laptop - Handy