Page fault in nonpaged area (WinXp Pro)

[Rasputin]

Although this error is certainly a memory component error, there are times that not even replacing the mem will allow you to re-install WinXP, since the apparent error is determined to stay at the hard drive level.
After 3 days of wrecking my brain (of course I had already decided to lose all my data and do a full re-install), and after continous searching in MS sites as well as in this Forum and others, and trying umpteen solutions and not having any success, the simplest of solutions arrived at this old tech's head.
If like me, when you try to re-install after repeatdly receiving this error, and WinXP goes thru the motions, but after the EULA and pressing F8, for no apparent reason the pc restarts, if this behavior goes on, I found that setting BIOS to boot only from the Floppy and inserting my old Win98 boot floopy, will allow you to Fdisk the drive, after it is done, without formating, insert the WinXP cd, and restart, change your BIOS settings to boot from the CDRom and this will allow you to format and install to a clean drive. Make sure when the options come you re-install using an NTFS installation.
Good luck! R.

[GoonMan]

Moved to Computer Help

[Manny Carvalho]

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.

I would think that your procedure, while it appears to be a workaround, will not cause the error to disappear.

For more information on virtual memory in XP please check here: http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

[Rasputin]

Thanks for your reply Manny. :ty:

The hard disk in this instance was not damaged and since the mem was replaced and the error did not go away, I believe as you stated, that the installation of an app, in this case ASMW Optimizer, caused this, but because I could not even get back to Windows it was imposssible to uninstall, of course after reformating this app is no longer there.

Yes, it is a workaround, but workaround or not, it worked, the error is history and its holding!
Thanks for the link.
Best regards, R. :D

[Manny Carvalho]

Your right R. I'm sorry but I didn't properly read your post. Since you were able to reformat then, of course, your procedure worked. I wonder why you couldn't boot from the XP CD?

I know nothing about the ASMW utility. Reading briefly about it, it doesn't seem like it should have caused you this problem. In any case, you rarely need to pay for utilities. In fact XP Pro, doesn't really need that many but if you are interested take a look at this freeware page - none of them will cause you any trouble and do all kinds of useful things: http://aumha.org/freeware.htm

[Rasputin]

No prob Manny. I like you, was also puzzled (and still am) as to why WinXP would boot from the Cd, get to the EULA, then when it would get to "Setup is checking for other versions of Windows", it would re-boot itself for no reason. Beats me! :confused:

I worked on this issue for 3 days off and on and could not come up with any better solution than the path I took. Almost every tech forum and site, including over 20 pages at MS, had only generalized suggestions. All of course related to the mem, but when this was replaced with known good mem at the begining of my dilemma and did not get better, all these places had very few other options to follow. Knowing that my HD was good helped; so as you suggested the only thing left was the software I had just downloaded and installed before shuttting it down, and that was ASMW Optimizer which I have had previously with no prob. A tiny corruption in a downloaded file? A faulty install? Who knows?
I believe that the mem may have gone bad since it did "fry" the originally installed mem; or was it "fried" before? But, why with a good known mem, was it doing the above? Again who can tell... :rolleyes:

The important fact is that the workaround works; and I felt compelled to share it with you and all the members here and techs worldwide.
When it all fails, find a way to re-install! ;)
Thanks for the link, a couple of the appz there, like ieSpell, MyIE2 and Zone Alarm are definately worth having around.

Many thanks also for allowing me to join and participate, as well as for your timely response and suggestions.
Keep the faith. R. :D

[Manny Carvalho]

You do have an interesting problem and you fixed it in an unusual way. Your right, when all else fails find a way to do a fresh install and those old Win98 boot disks can still be very handy.

I wonder if you might bring your problem over to the Aumha forums. There are some guys there that really know their stuff on virtual memory and things like this. Maybe we won't figure out why it happened but it should be an interesting discussion: http://forum.mvps.org/

[Rasputin]

Thanks for the invite. :ty:
Will do, but please indicate in which section would it be the most appropriate for the post to reside.
Best regards,
Rasputin

[Manny Carvalho]

In the Win 5X section, for XP, would be appropriate. But don't worry if you put it in the wrong section. Somebody there will set it right with no problems to you.

[Oligo]

Dear,

This is an old thread but I have exactly the same problem.

I have found however some other observation:

If I disable my L1 Cache in the bios (just L1, L2 stays enabled), the PC starts up correctly, although extremely slow.
This would indicate a memory problem.

But I am not sure that just replacing it will fix it, seen the previous message.

What is going on here ?

Any comments ?

I wonder if there could be a virus or other software problem at the root of all this ?

[boojibear]

There's one simple way to fix this problem. Just get a hold of Norton Ghost 2003 and a new hard drive. Slave the new drive to the one and load up Ghost with a Windows XP Startup disk. Then do a "Sector by sector copy" within Ghost. When it is done, remove the old drive and now make the new drive the master drive. (Using jumpers) When your done, turn on the system and your good as new. All your files will be untouched by ghost plus you have a complete backup just in case! No need to reinstall XP!

[jerryklnk]

My graddaughter brought her older thinkpad t20 running xp pro to me with this problem of rebooting continuously early in the process. I tried the hard drive in another similar laptop with the same result so I know it wasn't a hardware problem with the original laptop. Luckily I had CPR Configsafe installed, a restore point program that will boot off the cd and using one of the more recent restore points solved the problem

[jaswebpics]

I have had this problem for sometime and have done a lot of work removing non-essential hardware, repairing/format/reinstalling XP, trying a new boot drive, new graphics card, different RAM etc and the only thing that has worked so far has been to slow the RAM down via BIOS.

I have tried 2 brands/3 different types of RAM, dropping back to one stick, or two with and without dual channel enabled and all were rated at 400MHz (PC3200). I had problems will all configurations eventually. Now I have the RAM running at 333MHz and have been able to run all number of memory/CPU/drive intensive programs without any hitch (touch wood!). I don't know if this means something on my mobo has gone south, but this workaround has helped me and my computer stay sane so far!

Also, from what I've seen on various forums, everyone posting this complaint is running an AMD CPU... coincidence?

AMD3200+, Gigabyte GA7N400 Pro2 mobo, now 2GB Kingston RAM in dual channel mode, AGP graphics, Audigy sound (two slots away from gfx), IDE & SATA drives (IDE boot), XP SP3...

[jce]

Jaswebpics,
Have been fighting with this problem for months now. Frequent hang ups and restarts.

Got frustrated and attempted fresh install of XP which would not progress beyond "loading files" until BSOD Page fault in non paged area.

Your observation of "association with AMD" applies to my case perfectly.

Based on your post I tried lowering the DRAM frequency from 166MHz to 133 MHz and this has cured my problems.

Perhaps some other soul will be saved some of the aggravation we experienced

[jaswebpics]

Cool! One less person going Postal because of computer problems!

Still makes me wonder about the AMD update that Microsoft rolled out under Windows Update though...

[greendesert]

Jaswebpics,
Have been fighting with this problem for months now. Frequent hang ups and restarts.

Got frustrated and attempted fresh install of XP which would not progress beyond "loading files" until BSOD Page fault in non paged area.

Your observation of "association with AMD" applies to my case perfectly.

Based on your post I tried lowering the DRAM frequency from 166MHz to 133 MHz and this has cured my problems.

Perhaps some other soul will be saved some of the aggravation we experienced

Well, its already been discussed here. I also lower the ram frequency to 166 and installed windows smoothly. Been tearing my hair in the mid of night :)

[jaswebpics]

Since I posted that I did have problems again at the lower speed - it definitely isn't the solution, but it lets you get by until someone can figure out why! After a restart and chkdsk, it's ok again at the lower speed.

I haven't had problems since that... I'm still guessing at what the real cause is though. Only things I haven't swapped out are mobo, CPU and PSU.

[wist]

"Page fault in nonpaged area" error, usually indicates a severe problem in the system memory.

Although everything seems to point at the RAM circuits, the problem may be only caused by the CPU malfunction - meaning that there is nothing wrong with the RAM.:cool:

CPU malfunction that may be caused either by a broken CPU or a broken motheboard, or even both. The only way to know for sure is to test all the 3 components separately - RAM 1st.

[sundancer87]

In my case with this situation it wasn't memory related, CPU related, motherboard related or the actual hard drive. I had installed XP on this particular machine a few weeks back and had just set it aside for later use. One morning I fired it up to be met with the BSOD and a few days of troubleshooting.

I replaced all those components, except mobo, with known working components and still had the problem.

I was trying to install XP and could get as far as reformatting the hard drive, then the BSOD. That told me the memory was good because the preliminary files are loaded into memory before formatting.

I decided to pull the hard drive and take the XP install as far as possible. I progressed to the format portion and didn't experience the BSOD. That made me think it was hard drive related but not the actual hard drive itself.

This was a Dell Inspiron 4000 machine of which I have many parts. Since the machine was halfway disassembled I decided I would swap out the hard drive bay.

I did and that solved the problem. I was able to install XP on two different hard drives and the unit is still operational after a week.

Upon close inspection of the hard drive bay I noticed a green funky looking growth up in the corner of the header connector. I could see where the green stuff was bridging the header contacts and came to the conclusion that this was the problem. Apparently that was the problem because no more BSOD with that machine.