Troubleshooting Blue Screen of Death on Windows XP - ialmdev5.dll error

[oddparent1]

Hi. Yesterday I was playing a game (Morrowind Tribunal) and when doing certain actions (resting, equipping things) I got the blue screen of death with a file ialmdev5.dll I wouldn't be so mad if it would only happen once, but it happens all the time.

Here are my system spec:

System:
Microsoft Windows XP
Media Center Edition
Version 2002

Computer:
Inter(R)
Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.06GHz
3.07GHz 504 MB of RAM

I don't know where you can find anything else. Sorry if it was already asked

 

[Shukie]

With this information alone it's impossible to tell.

 

[oddparent1]

I can't figure out where to find the rest info.

 

[B. Elliott]

What else does it say when the error occurs? Did it give a memory address?

 

[oddparent1]

I'm kinda scared to copy everything. What will happen when timer goes to it's limit?

 

[B. Elliott]

I'm kinda scared to copy everything. What will happen when timer goes to it's limit?

No worry, it'll just automatically restart the computer when it runs out.

Do this; Go to My Computer -> Control Panel -> System -> Advanced Tab ->... then uncheck the option "Automatically Restart". Should give you extra time to copy everything down.

 

[vincentm]

Have you installed the latest patches for your game?

 

[g33kski11z]

What type of VC are you using...?? Maybe update your VC drivers...?

 

[oddparent1]

Here I go. Not sure if I copied the right things:

ialmdev5.dll
Page_fault_in_nonpage_area
ialmdev5.dll - adress BFSOC63F base at BFA06000, DateStamp 43e8d1t

New error I got:
sysadio.sis
sysadio.sis - adress AA1FBC94 base at AA1F9000, DateStamp 41107f1aNot sure if game up to date

What's VC?

 

[B. Elliott]

Looks like it's an issue with either your video drivers or the physical RAM. I know Morrowind isn't a very intensive game so you shouldn't be having problems running it unless there is a conflict of some sort... or bad hardware. The sysadio.sis is a Silicon Integrated Systems audio hardware file and the ialmdev5.dll is an Intel graphics driver.

Go into your C:\WINDOWS\system32 directory and find the 'dxdiag' executable. Run it and see if it finds any errors. Wouldn't be a bad idea to go ahead and run the DirectDraw and Direct3D tests while your at it... they're under the Display tab.

Do you know what video drivers your motherboard takes?

 

[g33kski11z]

...I know Morrowind isn't a very intensive game so you shouldn't be having problems running it unless there is a conflict of some sort...

True.. it could use pixel shader 2.0 or something of that sort {nvr played the game} .. that would/could cause a bsod.
.. have you updated the drivers yet...?

 

[oddparent1]

I ran dxdiag and in all tabs it said that no errors were found. I also ran other tests and they were all successful

Where can I check/see what video drivers my motherboard takes?

The only thing I downloaded is IEGD 6.1 Graphics Driver Gold and I have no clue if it'll help me

 

[g33kski11z]

I downloaded is IEGD 6.1 Graphics Driver Gold and I have no clue if it'll help me

.. where di you dl this from?

 

[oddparent1]

Here:
3w.downloadcenter.intel.com/filter_results.aspx?strTypes=all&ProductID=2159&OSFullName=Windows*+XP+Professional&lang=eng&strOSs=44&submit=Go%21

Apparently it didn't help

 

[B. Elliott]

I ran dxdiag and in all tabs it said that no errors were found. I also ran other tests and they were all successful

Where can I check/see what video drivers my motherboard takes?

The only thing I downloaded is IEGD 6.1 Graphics Driver Gold and I have no clue if it'll help me

Download this and it'll tell you quite a bit about your system. It'll take a few seconds to gather all the information..

http://www.cpuid.com/download/cpuz_144.zip

See what motherboard and graphics device you have. Sounds like you probably have integrated graphics.

 

[oddparent1]

h.ttp://img59.imageshack.us/img59/6997/cpuzuv1.png

Hope that's enought

 

[B. Elliott]

Could you try making one that's just a little bit bigger? The only ones I really need is the Mainboard, Memory and SPD. Sorry I forgot to tell you.

 

[oddparent1]

h.ttp://img139.imageshack.us/img139/2789/cpuzha2.png

 

[B. Elliott]

Did you uninstall the drivers, reboot, then install, or did you just install over the existing drivers? Sometimes without completely removing the drivers it may leave a damaged file intact.

Is this the same driver that you downloaded?...

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/download.aspx?url=/13032/eng/GFX_XP_MCE_2K_14.19.50.4497_PV.ZIP&agr=N&ProductID=1673&DwnldId=13032&strOSs=All&OSFullName=All+Operating+Systems&lang=eng"

Also, just to make sure the drive isn't writing to bad sectors, tell Windows to run a disk check when you reboot.

Does it crash after you've been playing the game for a while or anytime you do those actions? You could open up task manager before you start the game and let it run in the background, and right before you do whatever action makes it BSOD, minimize the game and check what task manager says about the page file usage.

It giving you the audio file error is also a bit strange. Like the game is is shutting down when it tries to display the image and sound of what you're trying to do. It's strange getting both at the same time... as though its a memory allocation issue.

 

[oddparent1]

I did not uninstall anything

The driver I downloaded is different from the driver you gave me link, but I downloaded that one too

Do I run the disk check of the disk that I installed the driver on?

The BSOD appears when I do any kind of action, except for walking. Such things would include equipping, resting, selling, using a weapon or a spell.

Task manager thing would fail because I have no clue when BSOD appears and when I scroll down the game, the game image remains, but the mouse pointer changes and I can click on things

Damn you are smart

 

[vincentm]

Run a chkdsk /f on the driver installed disk. this will attempt to lock the drive to run the check, if it cannot do so it will notify that the check will run at next boot.

 

[oddparent1]

What do I do after I ran chkdsk?

 

[B. Elliott]

I did not uninstall anything

The driver I downloaded is different from the driver you gave me link, but I downloaded that one too

Task manager thing would fail because I have no clue when BSOD appears and when I scroll down the game, the game image remains, but the mouse pointer changes and I can click on things

Damn you are smart

Nah, I just have a lot of experience troubleshooting stuff like this. Really ticks me off when I can't figure it out though.

Do you know how to uninstall the drivers? right click on the desktop-> properties-> settings tab-> advanced-> adapter tab-> properties-> driver tab-> uninstall.

After you do this you'll need to restart and when Windows loads, it'll ask you for the driver. Cancel out of everything just let it use the generic display driver for now. Then, unzip the driver package that you downloaded and run the setup executable.

The only other thing I can think of would be to test your memory. What's the capital of the Czech Republic? j/k.

Download this .zip file and extract it to your desktop...
http://www.memtest.org/download/2.01/memtest86+-2.01.iso.zip

Then, download MagicISO so you can put the previous ISO file on a CD to boot the computer from...
http://www.magiciso.com/Setup_MagicISO.exe

Here's the instruction on how to put ISO image on the CD...
http://www.magiciso.com/howto/howto.htm#Burn CD with CD image file

After that, I'm not sure how familiar with the BIOS you are, but you'll need to enter you BIOS when you reboot the computer. Usually you have to press DEL, F2, ESC or F10 depending on who makes the BIOS or who the manufacturer is. Once you get into it, look for bootup or boot drive options so that you can tell the computer to boot from the CD drive instead of the hard drive. You can change it back to the hard drive later after the memory test is done.

 

[oddparent1]

Let me clarify.

1) Right click on Desktop -> Properties-> Settings tab-> Advanced-> Adapter tab-> Properties-> Driver tab-> Uninstall.
2) Reboot
3) Cancel setup wizard
4) Download and Setup "Video: Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator Driver"
5) Do I reboot again?
6) Download memtest
7) Since I had PowerISO, I extract it.

That's when I lost you.
Oh, and I only have a clue what BIOS is. Sorry.

 

[B. Elliott]

Let me clarify.

1) Right click on Desktop -> Properties-> Settings tab-> Advanced-> Adapter tab-> Properties-> Driver tab-> Uninstall.
2) Reboot
3) Cancel setup wizard
4) Download and Setup "Video: Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator Driver"
5) Do I reboot again?
6) Download memtest
7) Since I had PowerISO, I extract it.

That's when I lost you.
Oh, and I only have a clue what BIOS is. Sorry.

Did you extract it to the CD? If you did your done with the hard part. The BIOS is the core firmware that's stored on a little chip in the computer and is really the first thing that runs when you turn the power on. First it recognizes all your hardware and sets it up so you can use it... and so that OS's like Windows and Linux can then recognize and use the hardware. In other words, if you disable something in the BIOS, nothing else will be able to use it... Windows won't even recognize as there being anything there at all. Think of it like the base, core program that everything else is running off of.

There's really only a handful of companies that make BIOS's for 99% of the consumer PCs out there, so they all typically look about the same and are fairly easy to configure... even for someone who's never seen one before.

Here's the main screen for a Phoenix BIOS...
http://www.blendsblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/bios.jpg

And here's an American Megatrends Incorporated BIOS...
http://www.hardware-one.com/reviews/msi6309/images/BIOS.jpgRight after the computer restarts and beeps, it should say something near the bottom like "Hit Del key to enter SETUP" or "Press F2 to enter SETUP". That takes you directly to the BIOS.

You can look around all you want and not hurt anything. It's one of those things where if you don't know what the option does, don't change it. For the basic options they're kinda self explanatory what they do.

Look for an option call 'Boot sequence' or 'Boot device priority' or something to that extent. It should look like one of these...
http://www.netbsd.org/docs/guide/images/rf-awardbios2.png
http://www.publicwebstations.com/howto/boot_seq.jpg

Just change the order to make it read the CD-ROM first. The second and third device doesn't matter so you can leave it however you want for now. Won't hurt anything.

 

[oddparent1]

Ahh, I see. Basically you want me to put "Video: Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator Driver" on a Compact Disk?

 

[B. Elliott]

Ahh, I see. Basically you want me to put "Video: Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator Driver" on a Compact Disk?

No. You need to put the memory testing program on the CD so the computer can boot with just the memory tester and that's it... no windows no anything. It'll just boot up, automatically read the CD and start running the memory test, and then it'll reboot.

The reason is that the memory tester does a more thorough test when nothing else is using the RAM... like windows and the rest of your installed hardware. All that stuff takes up RAM and if the RAM is being used... it can't check it. It'll only end up testing say, 250MBs of the total 512MBs.

 

[oddparent1]

But isn't CD = Compact Disk? Or you mean like disk C:

 

[B. Elliott]

But isn't CD = Compact Disk? Or you mean like disk C:

Ok, I think I see where I'm confusing you. The memory tester and the Intel video driver are two different things.1- Uninstall the video drivers like I told you before, then restart Windows
2- When Windows load back up, install this driver file... http://downloadcenter.intel.com/download.aspx?url=/13032/eng/GFX_XP_MCE_2K_14.19.50.4497_PV.ZIP&agr=N&ProductID=1673&DwnldId=13032&strOSs=All&OSFullName=All+Operating+Systems&lang=eng"
3- Try out the game and see if it still crashes, if it does, go to step 4.
4- Put the files that this zip file extracts onto a CD using the MagicISO program... http://www.memtest.org/download/2.01...+-2.01.iso.zip
5- Restart the computer and go into the BIOS, then tell it to boot from the CD drive. Find the option that says 'Save and Exit Setup' and select it... hit [Enter]... The computer will then restart and read the memory tester from the CD.
6- When it's finished, go back into the BIOS and change the hard drive back to the first boot device (instead of the CD-ROM drive)

 

[oddparent1]

WOOOOOOT!11! Thanks a lot man. Few hours of playing without a single crash. I LOVE YOUUUUUUU!

 

[B. Elliott]

WOOOOOOT!11! Thanks a lot man. Few hours of playing without a single crash. I LOVE YOUUUUUUU!

haha you're welcome. Glad I could get you going again. Had me worried for a sec that I couldn't do anything to help.

 

[oddparent1]

Since I can't find edit/delete button, I'll have to double posts.

You might be a bit upset and what not, but I started to get the same thing again, except the time interval between staring the game and the crash is much bigger. Can it happen because my drivers are out-of-date? My newly created topic has more info. Link just in case: https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=237261