For the last few months, I have had random BSOD problems most of which indicate a driver issue. I've done a number of driver tests and everything seems to be ok.

I have attached several debuglogs generated by the debugwiz.exe utility, which I don't know how to decode/interpret. Can someone here take a look at them and offer advice? Thanks

Hi,

These are the general troubleshooting steps you should take in these situations:

1. Examine the “System” and “Application” logs in "Event Viewer" for other recent errors that might give further clues.
2. To do this, launch EventVwr.msc from a Run box; or open “Administrative Tools” in the Control Panel then launch Event Viewer.
3. If you’ve recently added new hardware, remove it and retest.
4. Run a hardware diagnostics tool supplied by the manufacturer.
5. Make sure device drivers and system BIOS are up-to-date.
6. However, if you’ve installed new drivers just before the problem appeared, try rolling them back to the older ones.
7. Make sure all hardware is correctly installed, well seated, and solidly connected.
8. Confirm that all of your hardware is on the Hardware Compatibility List. If some of it isn’t, then pay particular attention to the non-HCL hardware in your troubleshooting.
9. Check for viruses/spyware.
10. Investigate recently added software.

1. Looking at the first log, you have ZoneAlarm installed, and one of its drivers is causing a conflict and making you experience the blue screen stop errors. The PFN_LIST_CORRUPT (4e) is usually caused by drivers referencing bad memory descriptors.

2. The second log points to AVG Resident Anti-Virus Shield part of AVG Anti-Virus being the problem and causing your crashes. I suspect that two or more security applications are at conflict here or faulty RAM as AVG should not cause this, I have checked on their forums.

3. Your third log I can't be exact about but it reads "hardware" -fault. Now that maybe you adding something and it is an 0x8E which I'm suspecting is RAM, and it means "a kernel mode program generated an exception which the error handler didn’t catch." Now these are usually always hardware compatibility issues, faulty RAM or sometimes a driver issue.

4. Your fourth log points "Ntfs.sys", which is again a Windows driver. If the file is corrupt this can occur. See: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822800
Or if the RAM is corrupt it could generate this error.

5. This last log points to "win32k.sys" being the problem. This seems to be a RAM corruption, I'm pretty sure of.

First step:

All of the above logs can be assessed further with the stack trace, if your run the command v. However, four of your logs indicate bad RAM. Your errors are so random and because they are indicating basically any driver each time, and those with no known issues, it usually is RAM. You need to test your RAM.

*Look into my sig and follow the link to download MemTest86. Burn that ISO image onto a CD with nothing else on it.
*Leave the CD inside, restart your system and get into the Bootup options menu by repeatedly pressing F8 on your first screen.
*There you should see a list of options to boot from i.e. HDD0, HDD1, Floppy, CD-ROM etc. You need to scroll down to CD-ROM with the arrow keys and hit enter. If its "burned" on NOT copied over, correctly using something like Nero, then after you choose this option, Memetest86 should run testing your RAM.
*Leave it to run till completion or for 5-6hours, whichever is longest.
Look to the error section which should be pointed out in red. If it picks up errors, make a note of how many in total.

Post back with the results and any more BSoD logs.

Also, AVG isn't installed correctly, you'll need to uninstall and reinstall it. The modules are at different dates.

f79d3000 f79d4080 avg7rsw avg7rsw.sys Tue Jul 26 05:10:51 2005 (42E6284B)
a1a79000 a1b40620 avg7core avg7core.sys Mon Oct 23 11:52:56 2006 (453D0F88)

Thanks for the input and taking a look at my logs. Let me answer some of the questions:

I have examined logs in Event Viewer and haven't been able to discern a pattern. But I am not an expert at analyzing events, so I could be missing something. I've looked at new hardware, drivers and bios updates being an issue and haven't found anything. I've tried uninstalling/rolling back/reinstalling/updating/etc several drivers. Mainly I have done this with graphics-related drivers.

Since a lot of my error messages implicte my RAM, I have tested and rotated my memory. I have 2GB of quality Kingston memory in four matching sticks that is only 1 1/2 years old, as is my computer, which I built using the most reliable components (as opposed to the fastest) I could afford (Seagate HD, Antec NeoPower, ASUS Mobo, Plextor DVD,etc) . I have concluded that the errors are not memory related and must instead be "caused by drivers referencing bad memory descriptors" (the other explanation for the type of BSOD messages I am getting). Although I have no idea what that means.

I will try uninstalling and reinstalling AVG and uninstalling Zone Alarm (since, you're right, I have several anti-spyware programs and it is probably overkill).

Meanwhile, I have attached several more debuglogs which were generated before the other five I posted. Can you see if there is a pattern when compared to the others? Thanks.

I uninstalled Zone Alarm and uninstalled then reinstalled AVG. Everything seemed fine and then I got a BSOD with the PFN List Corrupt reading. The debuglog is attached. At the time of the BSOD I had several programs open, including IE 6. I was online at YouTube and watching a video on the Adobe Flash Player.

I've tried to see if there is a pattern or a way to recreate this BSOD but it seems to be random so don't read too much into Flash Player being on, since the same BSOD event has happened without Flash Player running. Maybe this debuglog with have something relevant in it. Thanks

I know this doesn't occur with AVG nor ZoneAlarm. They don't have driver issues unless your OS is corrupt.
The first answer they will say for a driver of theirs giving a BSoD is driver conflict. If anything else appears in the logs like yours, they will also say and I've seen have said plenty of times: Memory Corruption.

Your Logs are indicative of memory corruption, pretty clearly. That is whats making pretty much any software crash and give a BSoD. Furthermore three of the logs explicitly state memory corruption and the image names are of those fully related to faulty RAM. Its too similar to previous problems I've seen where the RAM is at fault clearly and and/or the mobo. There is nothing else known as a cause for these patterns of crashes that I can recall.

Did you test your RAM yesterday, like I asked? What results did you get?

I didn't test the RAM yet because, as I said, I went thru this before and the RAM tested clean: it is new, name brand RAM, etc. But I just had another BSOD (IRQL_NOT etc) incident and the debuglog mentions memory corruption (see attached), and you sound like you know what you are talking about, so I will do the memory test(s). Standby for results. thanks

The error didn't appear before so obviously there were no apparent problems with the RAM. Now there are errors so now is the time for checkup. t doesn't matter what you pay or which RAM you get - any of them can corrupt, whenever depending on how much stress you place on it. Gamers are the ones who experience most of the corruption.

Kazna3: Let me start by eating a steaming plate of crow for breakfast. I ran the Memtest86 and then the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool all night. Both said my memory has problems.

Since the technical results of the memory tests are beyond my comprehension, I took pictures of everything: all the different results, etc. So I can post some or all of those if you want to take a look. However, the Windows Memory Diagnostic tool has a very simple error distribution summary which said I had 64 errors on one memory module in slot DIMM1 and no errors anywhere else (see attached jpeg file). Can I just assume I need to replace this stick and be done with it? As opposed to worrying about analyzing the more detailed results of the two tests? Or would I learn something else (such as what caused the problem) by doing a more in-depth analysis?

Yes. Take out the RAM stick on bank 1. There's nothing further needed to know. 64 is way too corrupt. If you continue with it inside, you may loose all your HDD data. Either just keep the others and run Windows that way or buy another instead to replace it. This RAM is definitely faulty as you can see. Plus, it'll only get worse. Good job in finding it there.

Hope that helps.