Bad Crashes, Please Help!

**Wendigo**

Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse...

I was having a bit of success with my RAM swapping project; I had gotten the game to run (albeit with monstrous lag) with one of my two 512 MB memory sticks in. Though my system locked up at jack in a couple of times, I hadn't experienced any of the BSOD crashes I was getting before. I was strolling along headed for a hardline, when suddenly BSOD.

Upon reboot, I now get the message "Loading PBR for descriptor 2...done" then on the next line "Bad PBR". I know enough about computers to know this is really bad. Ive run all of the diagnostics from the Dell utility Partition, and everything passes, but I can't get the machine to boot.

HELP!!!!!!!!!!!

**jeffers**

Looks that it might need you to restore your computer and losing all your data.

Firstly though, just make sure that you have reseated all the RAM correctly in your computer again.

Otherwise, I'd take a look at the notes here unless Phi or BradG or anyone else has any other suggestions.

Jeffers

**Wendigo**

A pox on Dell and all their kin!

I've got the PBR thing fixed, but I'm so freakin' scared to even try MxO again. There's no chance of me missing the anniversary event, so what else can I do without risking total failure again?

**phi**

PBR errors = Can't load Primary Boot Record

Bad news. You want to replace your RAM and HDD ASAP as the RAM is faulty and the HDD is egtting boot sector errors. It might be time to consider that upgrade.

**Wendigo**

New RAM and HDD are here! SMILEY

Two crashes in the last hour! SMILEY

Pretty stumped, please help me. I'll repost my diag info in a bit.

Xintax

Wendigo wrote:

New RAM and HDD are here!

Two crashes in the last hour!

Pretty stumped, please help me. I'll repost my diag info in a bit.

hmm yeah i was already wondering where you went =\

**Wendigo** · 03/22/2007 03:54:55

It seems the crashes are getting more consistent at least. Let's narrow this down.

It always seems to be after I've been in-game for a short period of time (10-15 minutes).
The most frequent cause is attempting to use a hardline or an Archivist.
The process is always the same: First the sound makes a weird crackling noise, then goes into a loop of whatever sound it was. The screen then goes black, and comes back as a BSOD. The error message is that an attempt was made to write to read-only memory. The guilty party is nv4_disp.dll - my video card driver.

So we know it's not bad hardware now, so what the hell is going on? Remember, I didn't change anything when all of this started, I just went from being able to play for as long as I want, to total repeated failure.

Here are the updated spec files: MSINFO DXDIAG

**jeffers**

I'm not sure what else to suggest, it's stumping me completely.

Had another dive through the Dell website for your computer and notice there's an updated driver for your sound card on it, but then there's a more upto date version on the creative website also.

Maybe download those and give them a shot see if they make any difference, I'll keep thinking though.

Jeffers

**Wendigo**

Old drivers FTW!!!

I pulled out the oldest video card driver I could find and just enjoyed my first crash-free MxO experience in months. Thanks to all who chimed in to help!

**jeffers**

Glad it's sorted (at last!) SMILEY

Jeffers