Try up[censored] the video driver first, also, try to check the GPU temps to insure it's within operating range. Do you get the BSOD while running games/3d apps? Also, try running some software that will test the memory on your video card, perhaps looping a benchmark will do the trick.

I was having the same trouble until I enabled "AGP Turbo" on my motherboard.
 
Has fixed the problem.

Thanks for the replies:
 
the BSOD seems to occur when I try and open something eg a picture or a video file... even occured once when I quit GTA III too. There doesn't seem to be any pattern to it. Since it has only just started occuring this past month or so Im assuming its something I've done to the system but im not sure what.
 
I'd doubt the GPU temp is too high (unless the fans are broke) because I don't overclock it. I might try some alternative BIOS configs.. I have it set to fail-safe mode atm just to be on the safe side.
 
My bet is that's its the dodgy RAM I've got in the machine.. I should be switching to a single module of Crucial stuff soon so that should improve stability.

Hi Curley Boy,
How about some pertinent information. What is your current driver distribution (IE NVIDIA direct or from some OEM) and version? If it's not NVIDIA direct that could be part of your problem as OEMs tend to try to do stupid things with the drivers to impress customers with useless features and inflate benchmark peformance. Start by up[censored] your drivers. Sure it could be caused by something else you've done like up[censored] DirectX or installing a game that came bundled with an updated version of DirectX or OpenGL. Basically just update your drivers, who cares if it's caused by an updated DirectX just install the updated drivers and maybe the newer ones will support the change. If you still have the same problem you're no worse off, if things get worse, well then you can uninstall the updated drivers and install the old ones, even then it wasn't a loss, because then you can rule out the most obvious culprit.
Good Luck,
Christian Blackburn

i used to get this error often - even just sitting there staring at my desktop - BAM! B.S.O.D with that error.
 
i then went back to 28.** drivers and no probs. - for a while 0 then started again!
 
anyways, one day it just stopped! so no clue what it was for me. as i format so often and try out so many new apps.

Quote:i used to get this error often - even just sitting there staring at my desktop - BAM! B.S.O.D with that error.

i then went back to 28.** drivers and no probs. - for a while 0 then started again!

anyways, one day it just stopped! so no clue what it was for me. as i format so often and try out so many new apps.
Hi Mr Guvernment,
I'm the same way I'm still using driver version 23.11. It seems to be working fine, so whatever I'm lacking I'm not missing it . Although the idea is for drivers to perpetually improve and sometimes they do. There's often no point in upgrading if you don't have the latest bleeding edge version of DirectX. I don't so why add code and CPU time to my display drivers? Perhaps other things have been fixed. I will break down and try a more recent release one of these days, but for now I'm happy with what I've got.

It sounds to me like you need to slow down and install no more than 1 application per week. Observe what happens and make changes more gradually. You can always keep a log of your changes and ones you plan on making and do them in some sort of order. However based on the fact that you said you re-install all the time you would be well served to get a good backup solution and become religous about it.

Anyhow that's my two cents worth on the subject. Good luck and I'm glad the crashing went away even if you dont' know why. You might try to do whatever it was you did before, run old apps and see what caused it, but if it's some program you don't even have installed anymore then I guess it really doesn't matter .
Cheers,
Christian

well, the backup part igot down pretty much as all my info and stuff i need is linked onto another parition.
 
 
i most always use thesame apps, and i had the b.s.o.d's even afetr a clean install with only Office put in.
 
But yeha, ohw ell, seems to have gone away, but is always nice to know why it was doing that.

Hi Mr Guverment,
If you are blue screening with just office and you have Office 2000 SP3 and Windows 2000 SP3 then I would say you have definetly have a hardware/driver issue, because both office and win2k have gotten pretty darn stable lately.
-Christian

yes - but i am using windows XP and Office XP
 
but either way - i think is was bad memory or memory slot as i seemed to often get bad start up errors which MS said was due to bad memory or memory slots on the mobo.

Hi Mr Guvernment,
If you're getting errors like that during startup you ought to download a memory testing application. There are tons of them. The easiest thing to do would be to disable the "Quick Power On Self Test" in your bios. This would cause your bios to do more rigorous testing of your system memory during POST (Power on Self Test). If you get a memory error from your bios you can almost guarantee that the problem is in fact memory related. Hell you could even get lucky and find that you just didn't seat your memory perfectly when you installed it. However, that isn't too terribly like on DIMM based systems since it's harder to not seat the ram correctly.
Good Luck,
Christian

I also wanted to mention that an old AOPEN board I had (glad to be rid of it too!) Video Ram caching enabled in the bios by default. This made my system crash like nobody's business. You might look and see whether or not this illogical feature is enabled.
Cheers,
Christian