NMI: Parity Check/ Memory Parity Error -- System crash

On my end I'm going to call back Dell technical support sometime this week since the tech that I was dealing with for my NMI parity error issue wanted me to call back to tell them if replacing the Dell drivers with the NVidia drivers solves the problem(I already have a case file opened with them).

Since for now the problem has not shown up in about a month I'll inform them about this BUT at the same time forward them this thread to see if he can have this escalated so that Dell can investigate this further and so that they see that this is a serious ongoing issue(they MUST be getting lots of calls about this issue).

If for some reason the NMI parity error shows up again while I'm using the NVidia drivers I'll just try flashing back to BIOS version A01 as a last resort cuz by then anyways Dell says that they would replace my motherboard and video card if the NVidia drivers would fail as well

 

Board: Dell Inc. 0H7276
Dell Inc. OptiPlex GX280
Bus Clock: 800 megahertz
BIOS: Dell Inc. A04 02/09/2005
Intel(R) 82915G/GV/910GL Express Chipset Family
SanDisk U3 Cruzer Micro USB Device [CD-ROM drive]
3.00 gigahertz Intel Pentium 4
16 kilobyte primary memory cache
1024 kilobyte secondary memory cache

Hi,

I'm having the same problem with a Dell desktop (info above). it didn't start for over
a year after I starting using it. I have swapped the RAM out for a different brand and the
problem didn't go away.
I'm beginning to guess it may be a recent WindowsXP update or maybe the thumbnail drive
I recently started using. Anyone with this problem using thumbnail drives? OR having this problem that doesn't also use a thumbnail drive?

BTW .....my IT guy at our company said he is starting to see this problem on several computers on the network. No solution found so far...

Clearbranch

 

I got this error for 8 months continuously.

Try this BIOS http://support.us.dell.com/support/...eid=R120246&formatcnt=2&libid=0&fileid=160228

@Clearbranch : There is a thread about this issue on Dell forums of dell.com. Try every keyword related to the issue and find the right thread. I've read over a thread about Desktop Optiplex has this BSOD issue. There're a number of users are having this problem.

 

I just got this error _again_. Now I am starting to suspect the bluetooth adapter. I don't use it but it is active all the time. Anyways I will be getting in touch with Dell about this because it is unacceptable. Basically I reseated the ram and uninstalled i8kfangui. I also replaced the wireless adapter but it didn't really do anything. I am looking at a faulty bluetooth adapter or motherboard as being the most likely issues.

Here is the warning from the microsoft bluetooth drivers.

Windows cannot store Bluetooth link keys on the local transceiver because it cannot determine whether proper security is enabled for the device.

 

it couldn't be blue tooth. I tried to run the laptop with out blue tooth before and the system still crash. have you try to flash to BIOS A01 from link above yet?

 

I have not yet tried that. For right now I won't. I would like to try the dell avenue first and see what happens. Who knows. Maybe I can get the lemon clause to take effect. It just happened twice within a couple of hours yesterday.

 

Did you try using the NVidia drivers from www.nvidia.com that's what I'm using right now and so far my NMI parity error has not resurfaced for almost a month now

 

I tried it..it has a error msg.."it does not support hardware of this level of the system"...not too sure what it means..(BIOSA01)

 

I've had the same problem on my Inspiron 9400. I called Dell and after about four tries, got ahold of someone I could understand. After that, they went through various diagnostic tests and everything passed. After a lot of speculation on the tech's side, he ended up talking to a few senior techs about it and everyone seemed baffled. They basically decided to take a shot in the dark and send replacement RAM. With any luck, it'll help me a little. The Burning Crusade is just sitting on my desk, taunting me. Anywho, I'll post again once the RAM gets here to see if there's any improvement.
-Travis

p.s. Also, instead of it occuring once every couple of weeks like some people on here, mine occurs about 5min after I try to play any real games. Bastards.

 

I've been getting memory parity errors intermitently, about once a week, in my E1705 since I changed out the wireless card for an Atheros. I think it happens when the wireless is seeing interference.

 

[EDIT], here is ONE OF THE MOST POSSIBLE ANSWER I can guess for the whole thread.
- In this case. IT"S NOT THE RAM ISSUE so don't hope for your system get "fix".
- The error occur because of the BIOS and Video Card driver. This problem happned before with other Dell's Model.

- There is only 1 person confirm that his laptop works fine with the BIOS A01. YOu can look at the link above and try to flash your BIOS.

- You can completely remove the Nvidia drivers of Dell and install one from laptopvideo2go.com .

- I don' t have my system with me so I can't test the suggestion of changing BIOS. I hope you guys could help me confirm that. Otherwise, most of us get stuck with this issue.

 

So, is everyone here as big a bunghole as you? Hopefully not. I was only conveying that my Atheros card gives me parity errors every now and then. Nothing more. So chill out.

 

I can confirm that recent ATI video drivers cause my E1705 to blue-screen w/the NMI error on S3 standby. Any Catalyst after 6.5 causes standby NMI, version. 6.5 and earleir, no problem at all.

I think the obvious conclusion from reading this whole thread and it's linked threads is that 99% of all the NMI blue-screens caused by software, specifically vendor device drivers, not faulty HW or faulty memory as the blue screen info would have you think. And it can be the drivers for any hw device you have.

 

Hi!

This thread was the one, which lead me to this forum, as I got the same error message yesterday.

I use a Inspiron 9400, T5600, 2x512MB Ram, GF 7900GS (driver 84.69 from Dell), 120GB 5400RPM Toshiba HDD since Nov. 3rd 2006.

Yesterday, I was reencoding a DivX-Video with the Sonic MyDVD-Software, which produced high processor load and Ram usage, and at the same time I had IE7 open. I just wanted to open a video on Youtube, when the BSOD occured. That's what some users before also reported. But i have never had problems watching videos before.

The only similar issue I had before occured right in the first week I worked with the notebook. I zipped a large folder (>1GB) with WinRar and at the same time, deleted a DVD-RW with the Sonic software (the one delivered with the computer). That time, the computer suddenly crashed with a bluescreen displaying "Page fault in nonpaged area". I used memtest but didn't get any errors. Nevertheless, I spoke to a Dell technician which suggested using the Dell diagnotics tool for the Ram. But same thing here, no errors in several passes. I also did some "real life"-tests and stressed the computer with multiple tasks at the same time to get high processor and Ram usage, but everything was fine again.As the computer worked fine during the next weeks (my computer is running almost all day either for work or leisure), I forgot about it and thought it had to do with the sonic software.

I'm not sure if there is any link between the two crashes, but in both cases the computer was running at high load and i used DVD-burning-software from Sonic.

Yesterday, I was doing video-encoding almost all day, so I wasn't too worried about the crash, but when searching the internet, I found this topic here which worries me a little. I hope I won't get these errors relularly now...

Greets,
Tobi

 

Tobi1982,

Welcome to the NBR forums. About the problem that you are having, we have discussed alot about this issue and I have not hear anyone confirm an actual fix for it. Even Dell can't do anything, unless their engineer team will open a case to research more on this issue.

I noticed the place where you come from is Germany? so you have a European Dell model? or you purchased your system in USA?

I wonder if in UK or other country's Dell computer have this issue.

 

I'm in the UK.

I can confirm since using some none Dell NV drivers i have not had a crash in about a week and a half now.

 

Yes, I'm from Germany and I've got a European model. It's built in Ireland.

Until now, I wouldn't necessarily say I've also got this issue, as this particular bluescreen only ocurred one time yesterday. I don't know if the bluescreen I had once ago also has to do with this issue, but i rather think it has not and was just one of those "accidental" bluescreens which sometimes happen on almost all Windows-systems.

I read almost all the discussion (had found it when I searched for informations on that "parity error" yesterday) and it worried me a bit, as I wouldn't be the first user whose Inspiron worked fine for a few weeks and than starts with this problem. Today, it is running for about 10 hours now and I had no problems...

I'll tell you if I'm having the problem again.

But as far as I've seen, using different videodrivers seems to fix the problem partially?

Greets,
Tobi

 

Those who are currently experiencing the NMI parity error with their GeForce Go 7900 GS it would be a good idea to try the following drivers from NVidia's website:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_mobile_84.63.html

that's what I'm using right now and so far my NMI parity error has not resurfaced for almost a month now. Like that we could keep track in this thread if these drivers are working for most people by us posting in this thread if the NMI parity error went away or not after installing these.

By the way on that same link it also says on NVidia's website:

"Adds support for Dell XPS M1710 and Inspiron E1705 laptops"

The date for these drivers were newer than the date for Dell's stock drivers in Dell's drivers support section so maybe Dell's own has a few issues that these newer drivers straight from NVidia are resolving since my BSOD is gone for a month now (still crossing my fingers)

 

Hi.

My name is naresh and i am from the netherlands antilles in the caribbean. I bought my laptop about 6 months ago. Inspiron E1705 Intel core duo 1.83ghz, 2 x 512mb ram, 100 gb hdd, nVidia geforce 7900 gs and i have had this problem for a while. I get the memory parity error and i get an error that says the file nv4_mini.sys is gone bad. I have tried memtest and i have gotten all passes and i have reinstalled windows MCE and upgraded tp the latest drivers from the dell site but still i get crashes. After reinstallation it first crashed when i played Midnight club III and anytime i run a graphics application it immeadiately crashes!!! Anyone know what to do?

 

Hello Naresh,

Instead of using the Dell drivers try using the ones that I put up in my above post, try them and report back here and tell us if your system still crashes...Make sure you follow these steps: 1-uninstall the Dell drivers first , 2-reboot your laptop, 3-install the new drivers, 4-reboot the laptop one more time and post back here and tell us if this works for you

 

nope it doesnt work my graphics just breaks when i play a video. All my pixels go fuzzy.

 

I have tired installing drivers from the dell site, drivers from nvidia site, and the videolaptop2go thingy n they still dnt work. My graphics just breaks up and the pc just crashes. Can it be a virus since i didnt have an antivirus b4 i reinstalled XP MCE?

 

I am flashing to older bios i read on laptopvideo2go that this is the best option

 

nope it didnt work. I tried to instal drivers from dell, nvidia, laptopvideo2go , and flash back to bios a01 but still no results. anytime i turn it on my pc just frigs up on me

 

Ok this was freaky i just saw my lcd screen go blank n spots on it !!!

 

When you uninstal your video card drivers to install the new ones each time try using a program called driver cleaner to make sure that ALL files pertaining to the old driver is removed ...anything leftover sometimes when going through the add/remove icon in your control panel could cause issues when you try to install a new video card driver. If you try all of this and still NO driver can work on your system i.e. you're still getting getting dots on the screen call Dell tech support to have your video card checked (the video card itself might be defective)

 

IF you don't have antivirus before, it might be a cause. Try to reinstall your WInXP again and see. You might messed up when uninstall and instal drivers. I've messed up before .

Before you do that , if your screen can be see with off colors and things looks pretty big, it's probably because of your laptop doesn't see the video card driver. If you have the driver already installed.

go to START/ right click on My computer/ Choose properties

On properties windows, Chose Hardware/ Device Manager/ CLick on your display adapter. Then look on the tools bar, click on the Scan for hardware changes button. THis might help windows locate the right driver for windows.

 

I have a question. I live in the caribbean and i ordered my laptop thorugh the us site. Is my warranty still valid here?

 

I remember when i was installing MCE again i had the wrong drivers. So I then downloaded them from dell and installled them again. I must have messed up on it.

 

im gonna try to reinstall windows again
and install the video driver from nVIDIA itself.

 

OK tell us if everything is working after that

 

Latest update

Last Thursday I sent my replacement T60 back to Lenovo after getting BSOD again and dots on the screen they told me replacing the notebook won't solve the problem and I believed them because when they first replaced It we thought the problem was gone but it didn’t so the best thing to do is to fix my T60 and send it back to me I agreed they told me they will replace the motherboard , hard drive , ram ,graphic card ATI X1400
They also said many customers are returning there brand new T60's equipped with the ATI X1400 back to Lenovo support with the same complain BSOD!
Last Tuesday I received my notebook back after replacing all of its components!
Motherboard, ram, modem, ATI card, hard drive etc...
And they told me if they receive any solution from Lenovo they will give me a call I said ok today I was watching videos on metacafe.com when the BSOD struck again!!! I’m not sending my machine again I will use it until it’s totally consumed the BSOD is starting to grow on me!

 

Sorry to hear that man. Levono and Dell are now stuck with this BSOD issue. Sure they'll get a lot of returns with picky and well understand customers.

 

I've seen this thread before before I bought my 1705/9400. However, when I got my first BSOD, I didn't even realize I had already read about this issue before. Or when I was reading about the issue, I didn't realize I was getting myself into such a headache....

Here's what I posted today before I "discovered" (again) this thread:

http://www.notebookforums.com/showthread.php?t=187721&highlight=nmi%3A+parity+check

 

I advice you all don’t send your notebooks for repair or replacement because it’s just a waste of your time and they don't know what to fix!
Send it back if you want a refund only lets wait and see the problem will be solved eventually hopefully without a product recall.

DELL, Lenovo etc... Already know there is a problem but they don’t know how to fix it yet.

 

Does anyone think that Vista might solve this problem? I qualified for the free upgrade of Vista and will be getting it in the mail as soon as Dell ships it out to me. I'm going to give it a shot and see what happens and I will let you guys know if it happens to magically heal the BSOD. Lets hope so!

 

It would be interesting to know the results of testing a problematic system with a bootable linux distro. That would eliminate or not hardware as the cause. My NMI blue screen problem was fixed by finding the right video driver. It was never a hardware problem.

 

GOOD POINT!!! It's a waste of my time send it back and forth ( 3 times) and backing up my data.

 

Exactly, I remember reading in some thread (I believe it was over at notebookforums.com that somebody did test their problematic inspiron E1705 with a linux distribution and never got the BSOD while using that OS(I wish I could find the thread in question) thus pointing to a software issue rather than a hardware issue

 

i too used to get the BSOD all the time. recently did a fresh install of windows xp and then used the xtreme-g mobile force video drivers version 92.91 and havent seen the bsod since then (touchwood)
@eessie, im in montreal too

 

Cool another fellow Montrealer, I've seen a few on this site, its a small world isn't it!!!

 

I guess im the first Sony Vaio owner who has this issue as well.

I got the Sony Vaio FS630/W. Ive had it for a year now so its done good. Then all of a sudden it went bad and gave me issues, so i had the motherboard replaced along with other stuff. Then i got this error. I get this when inserting a Netgear 108 Mbps Wireless PC Card (WG511T)

My warranty expired 3 months before this issue, so im sol. I opened it and took out the wifi card, still same, took out cdrom, same. The major issue is that it freezes and does not even goto splash screen most of the times. If it does go, then gives me this Parity Error. Ive installed XP 10 times, Vista too. Ive replaced 3 hard drives, also Memory. It is something fishy. Hard to tell but i hope there is a solution, otherwise i have to sell this one for really cheap as/is.

My Vaio Specs:

ProcessorProcessor Intel Pentium M 1.73 GHz
Data bus speed 533 MHz
Cache MemoryType L2 cache
Cache size 2 MB
RAMInstalled Size 512 MB / 1 GB(max)

Technology DDR SDRAM
StorageHard Drive 80 GB
Optical StorageType CD-RW / DVD-ROM combo
CD / DVD read speed 24x (CD) / 8x (DVD)

DisplayDisplay Type 15.4 in TFT active matrix
Max Resolution 1280 x 800
VideoGraphics Processor / Vendor Intel GMA900
Video Memory 128 MB
Max Resolution (external) 1280 x 800

 

Received a call from Lenovo requesting me to install the new Bios 2.09

Summary of changes
Version 79ETC9WW (2.09)
(New) Support Microsoft Windows Vista.
(Fix) DOS EMM386.EXE causes system hang or memory key data corruption when the DOS boots from USB memory key.
(Fix) On a model with an ATI M64 graphics chip, Windows bluescreen occurs intermittently during DVD playback in battery operation.

After the installation i opened my browser IE7 and went to metacafe & youtube watched some movies nothing happened after that i opened Firefox
2.0.0.1 went again to metacafe & youtube while watching the movies It happened system halted!!! BSOD could it be Firefox????!!!

 

Hi,

I use IE7 but also got the bluescreen. But I also think that it's a software issue. I tested Ram, mainboard, video... with the Dell Diagnostic software thoroughly, but didn't get any errors (but also no bluescreen anymore, hope it stays like that )

 

A computer without dedicated graphic card has this issue? and it's a Sony. If you replaced mother board, hdd, ram, and it doesn't work, I have no clue... let the more expert user on here to help.

Did your laptop went bad in some reason and you got your mother board replace? So the BSOD crashed with the new motherboard, not the old one right? It might be a bad board.

How often do you get this BSOD error? how old is your system now?

 

I bought this computer September 2005. You are right. Before the new motherboard replacement, Everything was fine. All that was bad was the HDD. After the new board, after 2 months, the BSOD error occured. It has been happening everytime i restart. Just recently it has been doing fine. But i keep my fingers crossed, because it happened like this before. I think there is a ghost in my computer, hehe. Anyway, I agree, it might be the board.

 

HEy guys im planning to reinstall XP MCE on my laptop. Anyone knows which video drivers i should use?

 

The ones for your video card?

Handy advise. When asking questions, state make and model of laptop concerned. When asking about laptop graphics, state video card in laptop.

 

Alright. Replacing the RAM didn't accomplish anything, as most people already said. =P I'm also using BIOS A01, so that isn't the problem with mine. I'm using the latest Nvidia drivers for my card. I've tried reformatting and it's nothing to do with the software side of things. They're sending a tech to replace my motherboard and video card now, so I'll see if that solves anything. =/

 

Dell's hardware has some serious issue.. if it's not Bios, driver... then what? I'm looking forward for Dell send out a recall or something.