Blue screens of death upon loading saves

[bben46]

Just reinstalling does not always fix all problems as it leaves behind entries in the windows registry as well as the ini file. A corupt registry entry can cause a BSOD, as can a bad ram stick as Hickory suggested.

 

My article on complete uninstall and reinstall addresses the registry problem as well as any other install problem. There is no problem with UAC in XP as it was not introduced until Vista so installing in the default location is not a problem - and neither is installing elsewhere with XP.

 

Here is a link to my complete uninstall/reinstall procedure located in the articles section of the Nexus

http://www.tesnexus.com/articles/article.php?id=240

 

It allows you to preserve any saves and mods, or remove them completely - your choice.

 

As for testing ram, the program I use is memtest - it's available FREE here: http://majorgeeks.com/MemTest_d350.html

[kardolus]

Alright, thank you to all of you for your helpful replies.

I've ran memtest for quite a few passes, but I'm afraid it came up with no errors.

I also *recently* cleaned up my PC, including cleaning the RAM sticks, but I did again to be sure. No difference I'm afraid.

I'm afraid the problem also occurs without any .esp's, but thank you for pointing out the Natural_Weather_by_Max_Tael.esp, I replaced that one.

About the complete uninstall/reinstall, I'm afraid I already did it that way (apart from the defragmentation after the uninstall, but I do those twice a week, suppose I could still try that if it could make a difference..) and the problem still persists. I did it without preserving the mods, too.

 

The .ini file has been reset quite a few times already as well I'm afraid.

 

So the problem still persists.

But still, thanks a bunch for all the help I've been receiving so far, and I hope that there are still more things to try!

[Shadowfen]

So the problem still persists.

But still, thanks a bunch for all the help I've been receiving so far, and I hope that there are still more things to try!

 

Since the problem occurs with or without mods and with a new install of Oblivion, I started googling on the error that you reported and found this:

 

The Non-Paged area is that area of RAM which contains the system core code. Since this code is unlikely to contain errors a‘Page Fault in Non-Paged area’ likely indicates a serious problem with RAM. It might also be faulty code put there by a damaged hard disk. Lastly, some utility software puts code there and if this error occurs after a new installation, you should remove the software.

 

The cause in this discussion was a utility app, but the only way the guy involved could remove it was with a drive reformat and reinstall because the app in question could not be uninstalled.

 

Hope this helps.

[kardolus]

Hm, so either it's serious RAM issues (I suppose Memtest should have found that though, and other games show me no issues whatsoever, wouldn't that be odd? Just wondering about that really, I have no clue.) or I have to reformat my drive.

Well, somewhere in the next few weeks I'll do a clean format anyway to install Windows 7, replace my E8400 CPU with a Q9550 and replace my Nvidia GTX 8800 with an ATI 5850HD.

Funny thing is, I'm going to keep the ram. Bleh.

[Shadowfen]

Hm, so either it's a serious RAM issues (I suppose Memtest should have found that though, and other games show me no issues whatsoever, wouldn't that be odd? Just wondering about that really, I have no clue.) or I have to reformat my drive.

Well, somewhere in the next few weeks I'll do a clean format anyway to install Windows 7, replace my E8400 CPU with a Q9550 and replace my Nvidia GTX 8800 with an ATI 5850HD.

Funny thing is, I'm going to keep the ram. Bleh.

 

You could do a chkdsk (or equivalent) to check the health of your harddrive, but that might be a long shot.

 

When you do go to Win 7 and reinstall Oblivion, remember to install it somewhere other than the default Program Files (x86) directory - say in C:\games\oblivion instead - avoid the whole UAC security issues from the start...

[kardolus]

Aye, will be sure to do that.

I ran chkdsk in read-only mode, and at the 67% part it gave me the message that errors were found and that it couldn't continue in read only mode.

How shall I proceed?

Edit:

Interesting find. I will update the mainpost with this as well.

I found out that if I load a game, while being inside a game (read: I have to start a new character and then load a game) the game doesn't give me a BSOD! It works just fine that way.

Still, it's quite an annoyance to start a random character every time I want to load a game, but it's a start nonetheless.

Also, I wrote down some more details from the BSOD, not sure if they might be useful.

Technical Information:

Stop 0x00000050 (0xFFFFFADF67CED4E, 0x000000000000000, 0xFFFFFADF92692612, 0x000000000000000)

Adress FFFFFADF92692612 base at FFFFFAD925EA000

Date Stamp 47b109d5

[Shadowfen]

Aye, will be sure to do that.

I ran chkdsk in read-only mode, and at the 67% part it gave me the message that errors were found and that it couldn't continue in read only mode.

How shall I proceed?

Edit:

Interesting find. I will update the mainpost with this as well.

I found out that if I load a game, while being inside a game (read: I have to start a new character and then load a game) the game doesn't give me a BSOD! It works just fine that way.

Still, it's quite an annoyance to start a random character every time I want to load a game, but it's a start nonetheless.

Also, I wrote down some more details from the BSOD, not sure if they might be useful.

Technical Information:

Stop 0x00000050 (0xFFFFFADF67CED4E, 0x000000000000000, 0xFFFFFADF92692612, 0x000000000000000)

Adress FFFFFADF92692612 base at FFFFFAD925EA000

Date Stamp 47b109d5

 

 

It depends on what kinds of errors chkdsk found what you can do at this point. If it is complaining about bad sectors, then allowing chkdsk to try to repair may not help beyond moving the data off of the bad sector - what I mean is if the data on that bad sector was changed (corrupted), chkdsk has no way of knowing or repairing it. With the error that you are seeing, it seems possible that some of the operating system itself was corrupted <cringe> - leading to a reformat and reload. Other chkdsk errors, chkdsk has very good odds of repairing completely.

 

I think if it were my system, I would run a chkdsk /fix and allow it to do what it can to repair; then see what state everything was in afterwards... but it is your computer and your choice.

[Hickory]

The STOP 0x00000050 narrows down the problem somewhat -- STOP (BSOD) are not always easy to diagnose, because they can be encountered because of many and varied issues. However, check Jim Eshelman's excelent troubleshooting page (click on 50: Page Fault... in left column), which may give you some more insight.

[kardolus]

Somehow, it seems that it either comes down to faulty hardware, faulty antivirus or faulty drivers..

.. the only issue is, I can't really identify any of those. Although it does point to faulty ram..

[Shadowfen]

Somehow, it seems that it either comes down to faulty hardware, faulty antivirus or faulty drivers..

.. the only issue is, I can't really identify any of those. Although it does point to faulty ram..

 

If it was faulty anitvirus, you should be seeing the error a lot more often and with different (unrelated) programs. You could run a virus scan - if it BSODs, then the antivirus can be a suspect otherwise I would not consider it to be a player right now.

 

Have you installed new hardware, new drivers? Do you have a game controller/joystick/whatever connected? If so, disconnect it and see how (if) oblivion starts then - Oblivion is known to have issues with joystick drivers...