"bad pool caller" BSOD

[invictius]

It's been happening at a minimum of every 24 hours (between 12-24) for the last several days. No RAM errors with memtestx86. Uninstalled every program installed since that date. No viruses found with antivir (apparently the freeware AV program that picks up the most). I used to get blue screens galore when I tried sp2 a few years ago, and that's why I stuck with sp1. Now, this system with sp2 has been running under 2 months and I get one again. What's going on?

 

[Automata]

Drop everything back to stock speeds and see if the problems persist.

 

[invictius]

Drop everything back to stock speeds and see if the problems persist.

Nothing overclocked - "drop back to your SP1 image and see if the problems persist" sounds good to me, but seriously, what should I try next?

 

[cack01]

Its a long shot with BSOD's, but does event viewer show any errors?

 

[Route44]

Those 0xC2 BAD_POOL_CALLER errors are due to either a faulty driver or buggy software. The problem is without more information it is impossible to tell. cack01's suggest of the event viewer is a good one. Look for either yellow enhanced exclamation marks or red Xs.

Do you know how to read a minidump? They often can give you the exact culprit. Tech Spot's forums have many people over there that can read them; I do it a lot myself.

 

[invictius]

Those 0xC2 BAD_POOL_CALLER errors are due to either a faulty driver or buggy software. The problem is without more information it is impossible to tell. cack01's suggest of the event viewer is a good one. Look for either yellow enhanced exclamation marks or red Xs.

Do you know how to read a minidump? They often can give you the exact culprit. Tech Spot's forums have many people over there that can read them; I do it a lot myself.

Ok, no drivers have been installed since I reformatted, so it could be a dormant fault. Does Tech Spot require registration? I don't know how to read one, I wouldn't mind you reading mine, next time it happens *touch wood*. Where exactly is the minidump stored?

 

[silencer51]

The minidumps are stored at C:\Windows\Minidump.

They are small .dmp files that can be analyzed with the WinDbg utility (Windows Debugging Tools).

You can download them from here:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/default.mspx

Also download the appropriate symbols package for your Windows version.

Install them both, then run WinDbg and select -> File -> Load Minidump (IIRC, I don't have WinDbg installed on this rig) and then at the command line enter !analyze -v.

That's it, the output should point out the culprit (usually a .sys file in these types of errors, aka a bad driver)