Windows XP blue screen problems

[conceptualclarity]

I have had a number of blue screens lately. 4 out of 5 have been UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP.. I've attached five minidump files.

Computer
Dell Computer Dimension 2400 (desktop) 2003
Operating System
Windows XP Home Edition (original and pre-installed) 32-bit SP3
reinstalled 02-20-2014
CPU
Intel Pentium 4
Northwood 0.13um Technology
RAM
2.00GB DDR @ 166MHz (2.5-3-3-7)
Motherboard
Dell Computer Corp. 0G1548 (Microprocessor)
Graphics
Default Monitor (1280x1024@60Hz)
Intel 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV Graphics Controller (Dell)
Storage
80 GB Seagate ST380011A (ATA) 28 °C
3.94 GBGB Lexar USB Flash Drive USB Device (USB)
500.11 GB HGST USB Device (external hard drive)
Optical Drives
SAMSUNG CD-R/RW SW-252S
Audio
Unimodem Half-Duplex Audio Device
Anti-Virus
Roboscan

 

[kemical]

One of my friends was using something the other day which was apparently quite good I'll find out what he was using... Let us know about the recent issues and perhaps we can help..

 

[conceptualclarity]

I had gone a good while without any blue screens, from Sept.21, till tonight. I was having CPU Usage dominated by System Idle Process, having my key programs be sluggish or unresponsive, so I shut my programs down one by one and clicked on Restart. I left the computer briefly as it was shutting down. I found it stuck on a blue screen when I returned.

A problem has been detected...

If this is the first time...

Check for viruses on your computer. remove any newly installed hard drives or hard drive controllers. Check your hard drive to make sure it is properly configured and terminated. Run CHKDSK /F to check for hard drive corruption, and then restart your computer.

*** STOP: 0X0000007B (0XF78A2528, 0XC000000E, 0X00000000, 0X00000000)

The usual paragraph after the codes was missing.

I shut down the computer. I went into Safe Mode, and very quickly it landed on the same blue screen. I turned it off for a while. Then I tried to boot normally. I got a message screen (not the normal one from tapping F8) offering me options. I chose Last Known Good Configuration or whatever. The computer booted normally. At some point it turned into another sluggish session leading me to shut it down for twenty minutes. Since then it has been functioning well.

I brought up BlueScreeView and didn't see these two blue screens. I went to C:\WINDOWS\Minidump and saw that their logs were indeed absent.

I did enter CHKDSK /F at the command line. It told me that I'd have to reboot to do that. When I rebooted, the system chkdsked C rather than my external drive F. The C chkdsk found no problems: I watched it the whole time.

Anything I can do to ensure there won't be more failure to log blue screens? What does this one signify?

 

[Pauli]

Well, XP is obsolete. If you only use it privately, it will work, but if you use it publicly --- it's out. You'll just get one problem after another. You need a new OS, Windows 7 at least.

 

[kemical]

I had gone a good while without any blue screens, from Sept.21, till tonight. I was having CPU Usage dominated by System Idle Process, having my key programs be sluggish or unresponsive, so I shut my programs down one by one and clicked on Restart. I left the computer briefly as it was shutting down. I found it stuck on a blue screen when I returned.



The usual paragraph after the codes was missing.

I shut down the computer. I went into Safe Mode, and very quickly it landed on the same blue screen. I turned it off for a while. Then I tried to boot normally. I got a message screen (not the normal one from tapping F8) offering me options. I chose Last Known Good Configuration or whatever. The computer booted normally. At some point it turned into another sluggish session leading me to shut it down for twenty minutes. Since then it has been functioning well.

I brought up BlueScreeView and didn't see these two blue screens. I went to C:\WINDOWS\Minidump and saw that their logs were indeed absent.

I did enter CHKDSK /F at the command line. It told me that I'd have to reboot to do that. When I rebooted, the system chkdsked C rather than my external drive F. The C chkdsk found no problems: I watched it the whole time.

Anything I can do to ensure there won't be more failure to log blue screens? What does this one signify?

Hi,
the error code 0X0000007B mean inaccessible boot device and you did the right thing by hitting 'last good known config'.
Link Removed

The link above will give you more information on this type of error.

To be honest you need to obtain a disk either XP SP3 or upgrade to something later if the machine will allow. If you intend to keep XP running (which I don't advise) then you at least need to be armed with a disk to make good any errors.
You may well be fine for a while now you've gone back to an earlier time when the os was running smoothly. Use this time to get yourself a disk and then at least you'll have some control.
As mentioned probably Ebay is your best bet for XP but do be careful on what you purchase.

 

[conceptualclarity]

Thanks for the information. What does inaccessible boot device mean?

To be honest you need to obtain a disk either XP SP3 or upgrade to something later if the machine will allow. If you intend to keep XP running (which I don't advise) then you at least need to be armed with a disk to make good any errors.
You may well be fine for a while now you've gone back to an earlier time when the os was running smoothly. Use this time to get yourself a disk and then at least you'll have some control.
As mentioned probably Ebay is your best bet for XP but do be careful on what you purchase.

You believe my Dell XP reinstallation disk for XP Home with Service Pack 1a is not likely to be of much use?

 

[conceptualclarity]

I will move to a new computer with Windows 7 as soon as I can, but there is a lot else on my plate now.

 

[kemical]

You believe my Dell XP reinstallation disk for XP Home with Service Pack 1a is not likely to be of much use?

As long as the disk isn't corrupted and it is actually a windows install disk then you can at least re-install and then upgrade to the latest service pack ( SP3). It's just when I asked you to perform a System File Scan you said the machine asked for XP SP3 as it needed files off the disk to run. You never said whether you tried your disk or not?

 

[conceptualclarity]

I haven't tried the disk yet.

What does inaccessible boot device mean?

 

[kemical]

Sorry... You did ask last time.. inaccessible boot device usually means your HDD couldn't be accessed for some reason.

This support page has more information on this type of error:
Link Removed

 

[conceptualclarity]

I have continued deleting files in preparation for backing up. It's also to hasten my being able to transition to a Windows 7 computer. I've greatly reduced my external hard drive F's data, and I got free space on my internal hard drive C from about 10 GB to about 43 GB. I went a month with no blue screens. That suggests to me that F is not a culprit.

On November 15 I had a blue screen while I was away from the computer sleeping. Contrary to my configuration, it spontaneously rebooted so I didn't see the screen. I posted the minidump below. Just yesterday I installed a new program called WhoCrashed. Its analysis says concerning this :

This was probably caused by the following module: vvbackd5.sys (VVBackd5+0xCAFC)
Bugcheck code: 0x1000007F (0x8, 0xFFFFFFFF80042000, 0x0, 0x0)
Error: UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP_M
file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\vvbackd5.sys
Bug check description: This indicates that a trap was generated by the Intel CPU and the kernel failed to catch this trap.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem. This problem might be caused by a thermal issue.
A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error. It is suggested you look for an update for the following driver: vvbackd5.sys .

Yesterday I got a program called Unstoppable Copier and began a very long, drawn-out process of copying F, with my recovered data from my old hard drive and other data for a total of about 100 GB, to my newly installed 128 GB flash drive E. It was consuming a lot of resources and things got pretty tough on my system. I had a rough shutdown of Outlook Express. Later after the next reboot I discovered a huge amount of fresh emails that had already downloaded to my Inbox were gone. I called my cable company and retrieved a fair number from their server, but an estimated 60 or so were not retrieved. Could they still be somewhere on my computer, maybe in Inbox.dbx?

About an hour later as my system was under yet greater stress in response to which I clicked Maxthon out, I was killing lingering Maxthon processes on Process Explorer. At that point I got another blue screen, messing up my backup. See the second mini-dump below. This time I also got a big MEMORY.DMP file, It's 232 MB, and I/m not able to upload it here. Know any way around that?

WhoCrashed says:

On Thu 11/27/2014 8:42:23 AM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini112714-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0x5C85E)
Bugcheck code: 0x50 (0xFFFFFFFFF99814D6, 0x0, 0xFFFFFFFFBF968F6D, 0x0)
Error: PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This indicates that invalid system memory has been referenced.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver that cannot be identified at this time.

On Thu 11/27/2014 8:42:23 AM GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\WINDOWS\memory.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: wrkrn.sys (WRkrn+0x10C82)
Bugcheck code: 0x50 (0xFFFFFFFFF99814D6, 0x0, 0xFFFFFFFFBF968F6D, 0x0)
Error: PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
file path: C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\wrkrn.sys
product: Webroot SecureAnywhere
company: Webroot
description: Webroot SecureAnywhere
Bug check description: This indicates that invalid system memory has been referenced.
This appears to be a typical software driver bug and is not likely to be caused by a hardware problem.
A third party driver was identified as the probable root cause of this system error. It is suggested you look for an update for the following driver: wrkrn.sys (Webroot SecureAnywhere, Webroot).
Google query: Webroot PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA

I had a six month trial of Webroot. Afterwards, it stayed functional on my system. It won't remove things for me, but I can remove things myself once they're identified, so I've kept it as an on-demand scanner. Now I see Webroot has got a driver in system32 which may be a culprit. I've done some research. At https://community.webroot.com/t5/We...s-causes-blue-screen-failure/td-p/3428/page/2, Webroot Support is reluctant to admit wrkrn.sys could be causing major problems. They suggest :

[ boot into Safe Mode WITHOUT Networking, navigate to the location of the file (this is usually C:\Windows\System32\drivers\WRkrn.sys) and RENAME it to something like WRkrnOLD.sys (always better than a straight delete),

What do you think?

I also today found and installed a nifty NIrSoft program DriverView. It is much of what I was looking for in a drivers info program (as opposed to a drivers update program). I would like a program that goes a step farther and evaluates whether one may safely delete the driver. Do you know of one? Or a website would serve the same purpose.

Through DriverView I have identified the source of vvbackd5.sys. It is from FarStone. I downloaded a shareware giveaway backup program from them, RestoreIt. Since I haven't made a decision to go with RestoreIt, I shredded vvbackd5.sys.

I also found and shredded the Glary GUBootStartup in system32.

I have gone nearly a whole day without another blue screen, suggesting to me my system is tolerating the new flash drive.

 

[kemical]

*******************************************************************************
*                                                                             *
*                        Bugcheck Analysis                                    *
*                                                                             *
*******************************************************************************

Use !analyze -v to get detailed debugging information.

BugCheck 50, {f99814d6, 0, bf968f6d, 0}


Could not read faulting driver name
*** WARNING: Unable to verify timestamp for WRkrn.sys
*** ERROR: Module load completed but symbols could not be loaded for WRkrn.sys
Probably caused by : WRkrn.sys ( WRkrn+10c82 )

Followup: MachineOwner

Hi,
out of the two dump files sent, the first was same as previous dump files and the above can be caused by many things including, drivers, RAM, out of date Bios and anti virus apps. In fact the probable cause is Webroot SecureAnywhere Anti-virus driver. If the BSOD continues consider removing the anti virus app.

This time I also got a big MEMORY.DMP file, It's 232 MB, and I/m not able to upload it here. Know any way around that?

To be honest I don't think it will add much more to what we know already and besides without a current install disk there is only so much we can do.

I also today found and installed a nifty NIrSoft program DriverView. It is much of what I was looking for in a drivers info program (as opposed to a drivers update program). I would like a program that goes a step farther and evaluates whether one may safely delete the driver. Do you know of one? Or a website would serve the same purpose.

Windows does carry it's own set of drivers. These kick in when you first install the system or when you remove a driver you've installed as an update. Usually it's safe to remove drivers you've installed as long as they are not the ones that came with the os originally.

It sounds like from what you say above that your BSOD free. This could be down to you freeing up HDD space as 10GB is not enough for a system to run correctly. You should aim to leave at least 25% free on the C drive as Windows needs room to run.

See how you go. Post any new dump files and good luck with the upgrade to win 7.