Unstoppable warmboot crash..!

[River]

Hi "team", here's one that may cause some headaches.

A while back I attempted to install the latest version of Antiviral Toolkit Pro for 95/98/2000/NT on a system that had dual booting 98/2000 Pro.
After going through the install of Antiviral and doing the final warmboot the system went into a continuous warmboot sequence in-which was unstoppable.

We tried all known recoveries including safe start modes, BIOS defaults and changes, etc... emergency disks and list goes on.

We had to eventually remove the hard drives, install another hard drive with another operating system on it and low-level format the original hard drives and re-install hard drives, operating system and all software.

What fun indeed!

Below is the original error message, which would only be visible for about 5 seconds before the
re-booting started again...

-------------------

Serious Fatal Error

*** STOP: 0x0000007F (0x00000000x4...)
UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP
if this is the first time you've seen this error screen, restart your computer.
If this screen appears again, follow these steps:
Run a System diagnostic utility supplied by your hardware manufacture.
In particular, run a memory check, and check for faulty or mismatched memory.
Try changing video adapters...
Disable or remove any newly installed hardware and drivers, disable or remove newly installed software.
If you need to use safe mode to remove or disable components, restart your computer, press F8 to select advanced start up options...
Refer to your getting started manual for more information on troubleshooting stop errors...
--------------------

We later tried to replicate the crash on another test unit but were unable to cause the same failure.

Any thoughts on what may have caused such a major system crash?

River

 

[butchrecon]

Hope this helps:

SYMPTOMS
You may receive the following error message while running Windows NT:

STOP 0x0000007F (UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP)

CAUSE
These error messages can occur if either of the following conditions exists:

Your computer is having hardware or software problems (hardware failure is the most common cause).

You try to over clock the speed of your computer's processor (for example, you set a 150 MhZ processor to run at 187 MhZ).

The above STOP error means a trap occurred in kernel mode and the trap is either one the kernel is not allowed to have or is always fatal. The most common causes of a STOP 0x7F are:

Low-level hardware corruption, such as corrupt memory (RAM)

Mismatched memory modules

A malfunctioning motherboard

To determine an approximate cause, examine the parameters at the top of the STOP screen:

**STOP 0x0000007F (0x000000XX, 0x00000000, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)
UNEXPECTED_KERNEL_MODE_TRAP

The most important parameter is the first one (0x0000000X) which may have several different values. The cause of this trap can vary, depending on the value of this parameter. All traps that cause a STOP 0x7F can be found in any Intel x86 microprocessor reference manual as they are specific to the x86 platform. Here are some of the most common ones:

Values Meaning
---------- --------------------
0x00000000 Divide by Zero Error
0x00000004 Overflow
0x00000005 Bounds Check Fault
0x00000006 Invalid Opcode
0x00000008 Double Fault

Divide by Zero Error
A divide by zero is caused when a DIV instruction is executed and the divisor is 0. Memory corruption (or other hardware problems) or software failures can cause this.
Overflow
The overflow instruction occurs when the processor executes a call to an interrupt handler when the overflow (OF) flag is set.
Bounds Check Fault
This fault is generated when the processor, while executing a BOUND instruction, finds the operand exceeds the specified limits. A BOUND instruction is used to ensure that a signed array index is within a certain range.
Invalid Opcode
This fault is generated when the processor attempts to execute an invalid instruction. This is generally caused when the instruction pointer has become corrupted and is pointing to the wrong location. The most common cause of this is hardware memory corruption.
Double Fault
A double fault occurs when an exception occurs while trying to call the handler for a prior exception. Normally, the two exceptions can be handled serially, however there are several exceptions that cannot be handled serially and in this situation the processor signals a double fault. The two primary causes for this are hardware and kernel stack overflows. Hardware problems are usually related to CPU, RAM, or bus. Kernel stack overflows are almost always caused by faulty kernel-mode drivers.

RESOLUTION
To resolve this issue, use the appropriate method:

If either software or hardware can cause a particular trap, a debug is required to determine which is the cause. If you suspect a hardware problem, try the following hardware troubleshooting steps:

Run diagnostic software and test the RAM in the computer. Replace any RAM reported as bad. Also, make sure all the RAM in the computer is the same speed.

Try removing or swapping out controllers, cards, or other peripherals.

Try a different motherboard on the computer.

If you are over clocking the speed of your processor, set it back to the speed at which it is designed to run.

Check with the hardware vendor for any updated hardware drivers or BIOS updates, or both.

James Collins
Computer Hardware Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

 

[butchrecon]

It sounds as if the Anti-Virus's Shield program was corrupted on install or had a problem with Win2K itself. You may never be able to replicate the problem. Hope you enjoy the Memorial Day weekend. James Collins
Computer Hardware Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

 

[haslo]

Maybe it helps to just boot in save mode and then take the AntiVir software out of the Autostarts in the Start Menu and Registry (sorry, I don't remember the key), then uninstall the VirScanner and reinstall it? allow thyself to be the spark that lights the fire

http://www.haslo.ch

 

[River]

Thanks 'team' for the replies, they have helped.
River