Stop error 0x0000007B

[Death Engineer]

I have had my fill of computer issues this weekend. I have solved all but the one I am about to describe, but let's just say this has been a week from hades for electronics in my home/business.

I am trying to get a system that used to run fine with XP reloaded. The parts are as follows:

Motherboard: MSI K8T Neo MS-6702
CPU: Athlon64 3000+
RAM: 1.5GB (3x512MB)
Video: XFX 6800XT
HD: 180GB IBM

The issue that I'm having is that when I put a bootable disk in the DVDR that I have temporarily attached, I get a BSOD upon bootup with a message about a stop error 7B. I've tried multiple windows XP disks and Ubuntu and all yield the same result.

Surprisingly enough, spinrite does boot off the CD and will run. It didn't find anything interesting though after 22 hours. :(

If anyone has suggestions on what to try, I'm all ears.

[Caged Anger]

so are you trying to load XP with an external cd drive?

[ME BIGGD01]

Need explanation to "DVDR that I have temporarily attached"

What do you mean by this?

The the dvd drive get recognized correctly in bios?

Is the DVD drive jumper set to master or cable select?

Here is what I would do....

I would chnage the ide cable to the drive and make sure to use an ata33/66. I remeber some drives getting problems when using a 133 cable. Use a 40 not and 80 cable.

After checking the first couple of questions and verify it's correct, I would take all but one stick of ram out of the system and see if that works.

[ME BIGGD01]

Another question...

Did this system use to work with the same exact parts? What happened that caused it to malfunction? The reason I ask is if a bios setting has changed or different hardware has been changed from your orginal. Socket 754 boards had some problems with the memory banks where you can only have 2 sticks of dbl sided ram. I see you have three stick of ram in there and wonder if that was changed after first install.

S754 did not support dual channel but withthese boards the memory controller on the cpu were very selective when it came to memory.

[ME BIGGD01]

Main Memory
• Supports three 184-pin DDR SDRAMs up to 2GB memory size
• Supports DDR400*/DDR333/DDR266 DDR SDRAM (*Refer to MSI recommended modules (http://www.msicomputer.com/msiforms/k8tneo_ddr400_recommended.asp))
Note: PC3200 (DDR400) maximum 4 banks (2 double-sided) only

Due to the High Performance Memory design, motherboards or system configurations may or may not operate smoothly at the JEDEC (Joint Electron Device Engineering Council) standard settings (BIOS Default on the motherboard) such as DDR voltage, memory speeds and memory timing. Please confirm and adjust your memory setting in the BIOS accordingly for better system stability.
Example: Kingston HyperX DDR500 PC4000 operates at 2.65V, 3-4-4-8, CL=3.
For more information about specification of high performance memory modules, please check with your Memory Manufactures for more details.

[Death Engineer]

Need explanation to "DVDR that I have temporarily attached"

What do you mean by this?

The the dvd drive get recognized correctly in bios?

Is the DVD drive jumper set to master or cable select?

Here is what I would do....

I would chnage the ide cable to the drive and make sure to use an ata33/66. I remeber some drives getting problems when using a 133 cable. Use a 40 not and 80 cable.

After checking the first couple of questions and verify it's correct, I would take all but one stick of ram out of the system and see if that works.

This DVDR is an IDE drive from another system that I yanked just for this load. It will go back there when (if?) I'm ever done.

I've tried both the HD (which is also IDE) and the DVDR on the same cable, separate cable, and every combination of Master/Slave/Cable Select. The thing just won't boot.

To prove to myself that I wasn't going crazy, I just took the DVDR and the HD to another system, disconnected the existing drives and attached the same ones that won't work on this MSI board and they both work fine. I went through a complete XP load without a problem.

I plug them back into the MSI and I'm back to square one....won't boot from either the HD or the DVDR. GRRrrr!

The DVDR drive is definitely being recognized in the BIOS and will even boot if I put in my SpinRite burned CD. I've tried both an ATA cable and an older 40 pin one. Both behave in the same way other than that the mode goes from 4 on the 80 pin to 2 on the 40 pin.

[Death Engineer]

Another question...

Did this system use to work with the same exact parts? What happened that caused it to malfunction? The reason I ask is if a bios setting has changed or different hardware has been changed from your orginal. Socket 754 boards had some problems with the memory banks where you can only have 2 sticks of dbl sided ram. I see you have three stick of ram in there and wonder if that was changed after first install.

S754 did not support dual channel but withthese boards the memory controller on the cpu were very selective when it came to memory.

This is a good question. I don't really know the answer. I was handed a motherboard box that already had the CPU/Ram in it (just double checked this as the original receipt is in the box and it only had 1 stick of 512 in the original purchase). What I don't know for sure is whether the Video card and/or HD was used with the same MB setup.

For what it's worth, I have tried it with just 1 stick or ram. I haven't tried every slot or alternated which ram I choose though.

[Death Engineer]

Main Memory
• Supports three 184-pin DDR SDRAMs up to 2GB memory size
• Supports DDR400*/DDR333/DDR266 DDR SDRAM (*Refer to MSI recommended modules (http://www.msicomputer.com/msiforms/k8tneo_ddr400_recommended.asp))
Note: PC3200 (DDR400) maximum 4 banks (2 double-sided) only

Due to the High Performance Memory design, motherboards or system configurations may or may not operate smoothly at the JEDEC (Joint Electron Device Engineering Council) standard settings (BIOS Default on the motherboard) such as DDR voltage, memory speeds and memory timing. Please confirm and adjust your memory setting in the BIOS accordingly for better system stability.
Example: Kingston HyperX DDR500 PC4000 operates at 2.65V, 3-4-4-8, CL=3.
For more information about specification of high performance memory modules, please check with your Memory Manufactures for more details.

I pulled the ram to see what it was and I've got:

(Bank 1) KingMax 512MB DDR-400 MPXC22D-38KT3R -- double-sided
(Banks 2&3) Crucial CT6464Z40B.8TDYNE 512MB 184-pin unbuff DUMM 64MX64 DDR PC3 -- single-sided

I know the BIOS is currently set to use the default memory timings. Do you have a suggestion on those? Should I just scale it way back and see what happens?

[Death Engineer]

Should I consider flashing the BIOS? I haven't even explored that. I should have also mentioned that I have tried a different video card (ATI Radeon 9200) with the same results.

[ME BIGGD01]

what you should do is before flashing bios, you should clear cmos and get into the bios at default settings.

The stop error you are getting coul dbe many things but it is or appears to be strictly related to one of your ide devices. Can you format that hard drive through another machine? Maybe run chkdsk on it. Also can you get your hands on another cd cdrive for this install?

Go into bios and disable raid functions. Set memory to 333 and only keep one stick in the first dimm just to install the os.

Make sure cpu fan is working and heatsink is not getting too hot.

Make sure your hard drive and cd rom are on seperate ide ports and make sure jumper settings are correct onboth devices.

disable all unneeded in the bios such as raid, com ports if you do not use, audio, anything. You can reenable them after install.

[ME BIGGD01]

I am looking at the specs you posted and I am curious, is that an 80 or a 180 gig HD?

WHat I also noticed wa sthe company IBM which is or was bought by hitachi. I have had so many problems with IBM drives before they sold and I think that is why they sold. I belive there was a class action suit against them. You know all of this chaos can be that hard drive.

Can you boot ubunto from the cd rom ?

If it was not late I would take a snap shot of all the IBM drives I have dead on one of my shelves. They really were bad. Mostly the 82.3 drives.

[Death Engineer]

You are the man Bigg. I finally tried clearing the CMOS by removing the battery (and leaving it out for roughly 5 min....something I failed to do the last time I pulled the battery out). This cleared it up.

I'm thinking there was some kind of raid or promise setup that was left from the old configuration that was sending the BIOS for a loop when it didn't find the hardware it was expecting.

Anyways....it now has XP on it and I should be able to complete the load later tonight after work. :) Thanks for all of your help. You know your stuff.

[ME BIGGD01]

good job:thumbs:

[OUTLAWS high ping camper]

Way to go DE and Mr Bigg. It's always nice to see a problem, and all of the paths that could lead to it's solution.:thumbs:

[ME BIGGD01]

Way to go DE and Mr Bigg. It's always nice to see a problem, and all of the paths that could lead to it's solution.:thumbs:


Honest to God, it is better to see when a problem is fixed when anyone asks for help. It gets frustrating when you try to help someone and they forget about the thread so you are unsure if a solution fixed the problem. I am glad DE let us know all is working so everyone can see a solution worked in case they run into the same problem.