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Page Fault in non page area
Tuesday, 15 December, 2009
OLDER QUESTION
Often when switching between programs I get a blue screen with the message
page_fault_in_non_page_area
and then the computer goes into memory dump counting from 0 to 100 and shuts down. I re-start and it’s okay again for a while. Currently it happens a few times a day. I have Windows XP Professional.
Can you help?
(Originally posted May 2006)
Mark Huber, Glenmore Park, NSW
 DRIVER_IRQL_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL_TO and PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON_PAGED_AREA errors would, I’d think, represent the vast bulk of all ‘Blue screen of death’ or ‘Memory dump’ events. Whilst the immediate suspicion is a driver incompatibility or corruption for the former or a memory problem or disk corruption for the latter, that distinction is not an exclusive one, and the reality is that those errors can be generated by any number of things. That means there’s no realistic way I or anyone else can tell you to “Do this and it'll be right!”
You could print out (or save to a file) the contents of the memory dump and the messages in the event log, give them to a technician and get assistance in tracking down the specifics of what caused the event on your system. You might even be fortunate enough to find some kind soul in an on-line forum somewhere who enjoys reading those things enough to look through yours for free. Anyone considering going down that route will find useful information in Microsoft’s Knowledge Base article number 314084 http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314084 .
But realistically, the most likely way you’re going to solve your problem is through the process of eliminating potential possibilities. Here are the more likely ones:
- Older or poorly written software. You might be using a program which simply doesn’t work very well under the Windows version you use, for example. Alternatively, you may be using a program for which a ‘patch’ has been released to correct a particular problem, and you’ve not yet installed the patch. If it’s an older, unsuitable program then getting rid of it would be the way to go. If a more current and suitable program seems to be involved, then the best course of action is often to uninstall it, reboot, and then reinstall the program making sure that all available updates are also installed. Remember that Windows itself is a ‘program’ of sorts. If it has suffered any ‘damage’ then you may need to do a repair or a refresh install to correct it.
- RAM mismatch. If your system has more than one RAM module installed, and they aren’t identical, they just may not be getting along together very well. That’s rather easy to determine. Use one module at a time, in memory slot 1, and see if the problem goes away! If it does you know that your RAM was at fault. Matched modules – same brand, same model – are always best! (You could also run Memtest to check your system in case it’s a failing RAM module or memory controller, rather than a mismatch.)
- Cheap power supply unit. The power supplies contained in many cheaper units can, under some circumstances, lead to problems because the voltage levels they deliver fluctuate far too much. That’s not so easy to determine, but if the activity on your system when you experience problems involves the use of ‘power-hungry’ devices then the power unit becomes a likely suspect.
- Device drivers. Driver corruption causes lots of problems for lots of people. The device drivers installed for your hardware components should be up to date and obtained from the manufacturer. Previous drivers should be uninstalled before newer ones are installed. Major changes to hardware should be accompanied with a format/fresh install, rather than made with a simple installation of new device drivers.
- Drive corruption. Just as our CDs and DVD's can physically suffer from the ravages of time and use, so can our hard drives. The diagnostic tools available for download on the manufacturer’s website should soon indicate whether or not your drive has suffered. Alternatively, if a file on your hard drive has suffered corruption related to other causes, that file needs to be replaced.
- Unwanted intruders. Every system should be regularly and thoroughly scanned for malware, and any instance of malware detected should be removed. Ensuring that the system is free of such intruders is an extremely important part of any trouble-shooting.
- System corruption. As mentioned above, the Windows installation can, and does, suffer damage. Repairing or refreshing could well resolve that problem.
- Overheating. If the insides are clogged up with dust and gunk all sorts of nasty things can begin to happen. They should be kept clean, and that won’t happen.
Those are presented in no particular order of importance. Some are easy to eliminate as potential causes, some are more difficult. You can possibly get hints as to what your problem is by looking more closely for ‘patterns’ in the behaviour of your PC. You suggest that the problem arises when you switch between programs, for example, but you might be able to narrow things down if there are particular programs involved when that happens.
It’s quite possible of course that all those things can be eliminated and the problems still persist. When that happens I’ve a simple solution. Back up data, format and start over with a fresh install. That procedure completely eliminates software causes, and if the system is still problematic it’s time to have a much harder look at the hardware.
The above is a lengthy ramble, but there’s no escaping the fact that you can adopt one of two possible approaches. You can try following the “What button do I push to make this go away?” approach. That method can remove the annoyance, but does nothing to help you understand how it got there. Alternatively, you can adopt the “What caused this to happen?” approach, which not only leads to an understanding of how to ‘fix’ it, but also to an understanding of how to avoid it happening in future. I like that second approach. It won’t always lead to finding a resolution to the problem. But overall it’ll lead to you having fewer problems to find resolutions to.
That’s one of the reasons I seldom ask people for those detailed print outs of reports and logs. The other reason, of course, is that I’m not one of the people who can easily make sense of them!
Cheers, and I hope you can track it down, Terry O'Shanassy
 Reader solutions
amitPosted: 18/02/2010 re: Page Fault in non page area indian people have this problem Scott D BowenPosted: 09/02/2010 re: Page Fault in non page area Sorry, the URL(s) should read:
http://www.memtest.org/
http://www.memtest86.com/
Scott D BowenPosted: 09/02/2010 re: Page Fault in non page area Run the RAM test at: http://www.memtest86.org
BrianPosted: 05/02/2010 re: Page Fault in non page area Having this problem with XP on a client's Dell D420. It started immediately after I installed SP3, now it won't boot into safe mode or last known good. Currently running chkdsk off an external optical drive - SLLLOOOOWWWLLYY...
to 'lrf' - I know it's a month ago and you probably have your data back by now, but if not, find someone with a Mac and plug your external drive into it - the mac will read the disk and allow you to copy files off it. Depending on what the problem is it might even repair the drive. I can't do that myself because this thing has a 1.8" drive (identical to a 5G iPod) in it and I have no external interface for it. John WhalleyPosted: 29/01/2010 re: Page Fault in non page area I have seen this many times on computers I have had in for repair and although it can have many causes in most of my cases the problem has been power supply, often people will say "I took out a memory module and it went away", or "I disconnected a drive" etc,this works very often because the power requirements are now less and the poor supply can cope,I wonder how many components have been discarded unnecessarily in my experience only twice has changing the power supply not cured it, in those cases it was a clogged cpu heat sink causing overheating, as a test try diconnecting all non essential hardware, remove any non essential add on cards,run the machine and see if that cures it, if so change your power supply, most proprietory cases come with very poor psu's.
Competent amateur
(Thanks John. -PZ) John JonesPosted: 15/12/2009 re: Page Fault in non page area So far it seems that the issue was mis-matched (different manufacturers) as well 8GB of RAM for a 32bit board. I have 4 2GB sticks and took out 3 of 'em. Haven't gotten a blue screen yet but then that was only a half hour ago :-) Thanx so much ronPosted: 05/11/2009 re: Page Fault in non page area its a ram problem you should change your ram with a new one..seeyah JayPosted: 30/03/2009 re: Page Fault in non page area Throw it away MRGPosted: 20/02/2009 re: Page Fault in non page area I had same problem, frequently the problem was appearing and disturbing me, on checking i found that RAM is creating problem, i had total 512mb ram i have removed the defective ram its seems ok, than i delete all prefetch files IrfPosted: 04/01/2009 re: Page Fault in non page area hi, i have the same problem but to make it worst, the computer do not start at all in any mode.
i moved my laptop hard disk and placed this in a SATA cover and on XP machine as soon as it dedecut hardisk it regards
on dell laptop, as soon i connect this hardsiek to backup my files, it brings the same blue screen error, i.e. connected my crashed pagefault laptop hardisk to external SATA casing and tryign to connect to different computers to back up so i could reformat, anybody experienced this al i need is to recover my data CraigPosted: 17/09/2008 re: Page Fault in non page area I found elsewhere on the web that a lot of people were having this msg due to memory timing and an Athlon XP processor. I dropped the memory speed in BIOS from 100% to 80% on my motherboard and the problem disappeared. ChrisPosted: 12/08/2008 re: Page Fault in non page area I'm having This Problem on A Fresh Install Of Media Center, YAY Time to Start Digging :( TonyPosted: 24/04/2008 re: Page Fault in non page area First off, giving credit where credit's due, I for one commend Terry O'Shanassy's outstanding and comprehensive post. However (and in no way diminishing my applauding Terry) after years of troubleshooting PC's I have to go with Norm's approach purely for pragmatic reasons and time saving.
Previously I used to search endlessly it seemed for solutions relating to Windows/software/hardware related problems only to end up doing a fresh install.
With respect to backing up non-recoverable files there are a number of approaches all of which are perfectly valid however the method I use is simply copying the root drive of the malfunctioning machine onto one of the hdd's on my LAN and reinstalling the relevant program and files. Clearly this method is only doable if you have access to the relevant programs that run the files.
"If it ain't broke then it's not operating to full capacity" (directed at those of us with more time then sense :)
Tony MikePosted: 14/02/2008 re: Page Fault in non page area One way to determine if it is a hardware problem is to boot from a Linux "Live CD" and run system tests -- especially memtest. If all test OK, then it is likely a Windows/software problem.
(Thanks Mike. Good tip. -PZ) Rolando MartinezPosted: 16/12/2007 re: Page Fault in non page area I had the same problem in an HP dc5100 pc. After a long way looking for the problem I saw that the hard drive and the network card were sharin the same irq. I tried disabling the ethernet and no problem anymore. Try this way. Maybe the are devices sharing IRQ and tring to acces at the same time. Lee ParkerPosted: 04/09/2007 re: Page Fault in non page area In my case it was a new install after partitioning and formatting drive C:...
It took me a while, but I found that it was the ATI Control Pannel Application that was getting installed from PXE boot (OSIM Image over the network - XP Professional SP2 with Slipstreamed Driver Packs). I was able to start in safe mode and uninstall the ATI Control Pannel application and I have not had any issues since. I only seem to be having this issue on the Dell D640 Laptop. JohnPosted: 20/07/2007 re: Page Fault in non page area - blue screen - ecard.exe I stupidly downloaded and executed the "ecard.exe" virus (aka Storm).I had first virus-checked the file with latest Macafee, which found no virus (although I now see that SOPHOS and SANS know about this one).
When I executed ecard.exe, my XP laptop bluescreened, with the above message, and STOP code 0xC0000005. I deleted the file and all seemed OK, but then every time I started Windows, it bluescreened after a few minutes of slow running.
After a lot of thought, I reloaded in Safe Mode and searched the hard drive for files timed/dated when I executed the file, and I found that ecard.exe, and a couple of other dodgy looking files with then same time/date.... were in the WINDOWS/PREFETECH directory.
I deleted the contents of PREFETECH, and all now seems OK (I hope!) I hope I have saved myself a rebuild, the likley option suggested by the company IT dept.
So, the moral is that if you have suspect software on your XP machine, clear out the PREFETCH directory asap. Windows search by date also a powerful tool.
Another lesson is not to trust your anti-virus provider (however expensive the software!), and to google a file if you are suspicious. In this case, a search of Mcafee's site for "ecard.exe" yields no result (as at 19/7/7). IanPosted: 07/02/2007 re: Page Fault in non page area I had the same problem on a 10 month old IBM R50e running XP Home. Re-installed the OS, the problem persisted. Eventually removed the 1gb memory stick I bought last year and PC has been perfectly good since, although only after another OS and Apps re-install - but see next paragraph.
I downloaded Acronis True Image Home and cloned the disk from another identical computer. This saved a lot of messing about hunting down drivers, etc., and gave a perfect result. I'm now going to clone my new install on to a spare external hard drive, so if the problem ever happens again, I've lost nothing.
Acronis is a great product, the trial version is for 15 days after that you buy. It took about five hours to clone the disk, but it did it all by itself, with no fuss at all.
I've no association with Acronis, just my two cents.
Ian. NormPosted: 18/05/2006 re: Page Fault in non page area I know... I know.. pick me (waves hand franticlly.)
It's Windows!
I'm afraid Terry's right... the best cure is Format C: / setup.exe
I've been here before with a clients machine and wasted hours (read money) trying to track it down. Like Terry, I'm a bit of a "why is it so " person, and it sometimes costs me dearly. In my case a reinstall worked. It'd be a p**s off if you go to that trouble and it still BSD'd! so load apps one at a time to see if you can sort out what causes it. Do you run something legacy? odd hardware?
In this case an attempt to run "Mosaic_32" legacy web browser (W95) messed the system, as far as I can make out. Did you try to load/run something that didnt work?
Try a disk/registry cleaner like Ashampoo Win Optimiser in case its something simple
(I have no Association with Ashampoo... just a happy customer!)
Norm |