Yeah- if it even bombs during a reformat, that does start ot point toward hardware.

Check your RAM first; Microsoft lists that as the primary cause of 0x8E errors, especially if they happen during the setup/reinstall process.

- Download and run the free memtest86 RAM-testing utility. It runs from a bootable CD or floppy, and it will do a pretty thorough battery "stress tests" of your RAM and give you the results of any errors it finds. Let the test cycle run for a few hours or more for the best results.

- If you've got more than one RAM module installed, run the computer with only one of the modules installed at a time. If you find that the system only crashes when one particular RAM module is being used, replace that module.

i told him it probably boiled down to the memory possibly having gone bad. somehow i get the impression he doesnt believe me cos hes taken the PC to work with him. he's a trainee PC technician.

he thinks its got something to do with the graphics card or the motherboard again. suppose anythings possible really in todays world of computing though i have to agree with you about the 0x8E errors (read two or three books over the last few days about these).

i wait and see what his workmates say and if they say what i've said i'll tell him 'i told u so'

I understand what you're saying. I've worked with a lot of techs who misdiagnose a problem simpy because they don't keep an open mind and consider all of the options, or because in their training they were told that problem "X" is 99.9% of the time due to failure "Y", and they take that as "gospel".

However- he might very well be right. Microsoft really isn't very good at publishing the exact reasons for many of their STOP errors, but both RAM and video problems/conflicts are often listed as probable suspects for many of those errors. Part of the reason for that is that it's not uncommon for systems to dedicate/set aside a portion of general RAM for graphics use only; this obviously ties the two together in a way that can't be separated without further and more in-depth testing.

Regardless of the outcome, keep us posted. Any further information that you can post will obviously be helpful to our members as a whole.

The stop error you initialy encountered appears to be caused by a memory access violation during startup of the kernel. As DMR posted, Microsoft does list bad memory as the most likely cause, however, I have run into a similar problem during a XP install which was caused by the CD-Rom drive, of all things. Since the system seemed to be working prior to updating the video drivers, I would try uninstalling the device rather than rolling back the drivers, and perfrom a clean install of the drivers before reloading the OS. You should be able to remove the device in Safe mode and then you may need to force the drivers after you restart by telling Windows to use the new drivers from your driver disk rather than any existing drivers. If that doesn't work or if you must reload Windows, try removing the memory and only installing one stick at a time (if you have more than one) in the DIMM 1 slot to see if the error goes away. See the following links for more information.
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=315335&sd=RMVP
http://aumha.org/win5/kbestop.htm
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...b81455.xml.asp

ok guys, i'll keep u posted - dont worry about that. as i dont have the pc here with me at the present i cant try any of the things you've suggested BuggZ. however i will keep this is the back of my mind.

i'm also thinking that maybe the processor may have a fault. reason for this is that these blue screen errors appeared before when there was a different graphics card etc in there. everything from the motherboard to the memory was replaced then apart from the processor and heatsink.. researching i think that the problem might be L2 cache.

i will keep posted once i know for sure though as i dont like to say something then find its wrong.

i have an update for you.. the pc is still at my brothers workplace and they've only just begun to look at it this morning.

the update is that as soon as they turned the pc on the graphics card completely uninstalled itself. strange eh. maybe theres a virus lurking around in there too.. who knows. hopefully though it should be back on its desk tonight or tomorrow night. they are testing the mobo as i speak.

more updates soon.

hi there again

As promised more updates.. We have the computer back in its home position. The problem also baffled the technicians at PCWorld. They tested the motherboard etc but didnt find anything wrong with it. Reformatted and reinstalled windows xp and touch wood there wont be any more problems. it looked as though apparently the NTFS file system had been corrupted and had a leakage.

still least its functional now.

thanks for your help fellas

You're welcome. I hope the reinstall holds up.

Its holding up to a certain degree but we're still getting errors crop up occasionally

i downloaded a utility but its not a commercial program. it seems to have found an error in the memory dump which is part of the processor. the program is called 'debugging tools for windows'