Problem with BSOD "Page fault in non-paged area".

[SysProg]

My wife's computer started acting up today and I'm looking for some advice. I built us two very similar machines and mine isn't having any issues. We both have the same motherboard, graphics card, memory, etc. The only differences are the sound cards and the size of the hard drives.

Today her computer started giving her the BSOD with "Page Fault In Non-Paged Area". The display just before the BSOD has a series of parallel discolored lines that are about an inch high and extend about 85% across the screen. There are several discolored areas on the display. I also noticed very early in the BIOS messages (where the mobo displays the Asus logo) that the Asus logo is not a solid orange, parts of what should be orange are black cicles (kind of like Cherrios).

Her case was full of dust, so I took it outside and blew all of the dust out of it with a can of compressed air. I also removed the video card and blew the dust out of its cooling fan and the cooling fins. The video card is an ATI X1650 256MB DD3. When I reconnected all of the cables and booted up the machine the Asus logo was still messed up but the Window 7 (Home Premium) desktop looked great (no funny lines, etc.). The machine was fine for about 30 minutes then the display was goofed up again and gave the BSOD when I tried to shut it down.

Could the video card have overheated due to the dust? Any ideas? If it is the video card, can you recommend a replacement (I am a fan of ATI cards)? I checked on Newegg and apparently they no longer carry video cards manufactured by ATI, only cards containing the ATI chips.

Thanks.

 

[American Zombie]

Test the ram.

Memtest86.com - Memory Diagnostic

ATI is now owned AMD

http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/24/amd-buying-ati-for-5-4-billion/

 

[LeeJend]

Typical symptoms for a video card that is dying.

If the cards are identical swap them between your PC and the wifes. If your PC starts having problems you know it is just a matter of replacing the video card.

If the wife's PC has MB Video you can remove the video card and switch to the MB video and see if the problem goes away.

Once a video card starts getting heat damage it only gets worse. A dusty CPU will usually recover after a cleaning. Video cards are pushed a lot harder and are more vulnerable to damage.

If desperate, you could try under clocking a dying video card to extend it's life a little but don't expect much. Maybe a few months.

Good luck.

 

[SysProg]

Thanks guys - the problem has been resolved (I hope).

I was tired when I posted last night or I would have thought to swap video cards and test. I swapped them this morning and sure enough, her card in my PC had the same issues and my card in her PC worked flawlessly.

We went to Fry's and picked up an XFX Radeon 5750 HD with 1GB of GDDR5 Vram for $160. The card is awesome, though it does require its own PCI-E power (the old card didn't). She has been playing WOW for about 20 minutes now with no issues. Her old card showed its symptoms within 5 minutes of playing the game.