Page Fault Found In A Non Paged Area

Anytime Windows says there is a PAGE or DATA error then the problem is almost certainly a memory issue.

Causes

There are several possible causes for the following types of error messages:

Page Fault Found In A Non Paged Area BSOD's Memory Dump BSOD's IRC BSOD's

(BSOD = "Blue Screen of Death")

Troubleshooting

BIOS Caching Enabled

The first thing to do is make sure that EPROM CACHE is disabled in the BIOS. If this is enabled, some versions of Windows can get confused and might display the BSODs randomly.

In fact, for Windows XP (home or Pro) you should disable all BIOS caching options, XP does not use these caching features at all.

If this option isn't set or turning it off doesn't fix the BSOD (or your motherboard doesn't have this option) then the next most likely cause is one of the memory modules.

Overheating

The next most typical cause of this type of BSOD is overheating.

The fastest way to check this is to remove the sidepanel on your computer and use a room fan to blow air into the case. If the problem goes away, then you have an overheating problem.

It is also possible for there to be dust or dirt or some other contamination on the motherboard or memory causing this, especially if your warm computer case has become a home for some animal.

Check to make sure that there is no dust or contamination on the ram or motherboard that could be linking pins together and ensure all memory DIMMs are properly inserted into the motherboard memory slots.

Follow the motherboard manufacturer's recommended memory slot order, especially for motherboards that are double rate capable.

At this point, you should run extended memory tests on your computer to locate the faulty memory. There are several free programs you can use, here is a list with links.

Memory Tests

It's always good to run a memory test or two if you get memory errors of any kind just to make sure it isn't something easy to find.

Here are a few you can get for free:

• Windows Memory Diagnostic Download Page
• Memtest86
• Simmtester DocMeM Memory Test Program

Overclocking

With the current rage to overclock systems, you get two more sources possible causes for these errors. Overclocking causes heat that can create or aggravate an existing problem, and overclocking also pushes the timing margins which can make your computer system unstable.

Anytime you have errors like this you should immediately revert your system back to normal clock and voltage settings.

Windows reports if there is any error in the transfer of data to or from the Harddrive, Memory or SCSI or IDE controllers. Primarily errors such as these can occur if Windows cannot write to the swapfile.

This condition would present a typical hard drive timeout error for Windows and thus throw a flag or BSOD and kill all processes to prevent damage to the hardware or from overwriting files on the hard drive. This is a standard memory error protection feature in XP.

Faulty harddrives, graphics cards and sound cards can also cause BSODs, Creative sound cards are known to have problems if they are too far down the PCI bus.

It isn't unusual for cards to become partially unseated from their connectors, especially if the computer has been moved or the screws are not tight.