Topic: BAD_POOL_CALLER

[Sandra]

For the last week or so I have been having problems with my PC crashing,usually when Norton AV does a scheduled scan but occassionally as earlier today during a manual scan.
I left my PC downloading some files overnight and when I got up it had crashed again(Nortons scheduled scan was disabled,so it wasnt that causing it this time).
It has the error message :

BAD_POOL_CALLER

It advises checking hardware and software,which appear ok and disabling the SHADOWING and I think it said CACHEING (but not 100% certain of the second one)in the BIOS,neither of which appear to be in my BIOS to enable or disable.

I am running XP Pro on an ATHLON XP 2100+ PC with 512mb DDR and an AMIBIOS.

I have attached a screenshot of the system event log covering this afternoons crash in case it gives anyone any ideas  

[Sandra]

Hopefully a clearer picture of the event properties part of the previous screenshot  

[Clive]

Have you had a look at this Microsoft Technet article Sandra?

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default.asp?url=/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/reskit/prmd_stp_czgw.asp

[Sandra]

Thanks Clive,I had searched the knowledge base a few times and found no reference to it  
I am off to see if I need updated drivers for my new CD Writer which coincided with the problem starting,I think.
I did consider trying the PC for a few days with it disconnected to see if that was the cause but as it works fine for burning and has never crashed while using it,except on the one occassion that Nortons scheduled scan kicked in,I had discounted it  

[Sandra]

There dont appear to be any driver updates for my new writer,(there are however firmware ones which help the bufferrun,as I dont have any problem with that I will leave it alone),and as it has crashed 3 times in the last 2 hours I have now disconnected the writer and will see if its more stable  :'(

[Simon]

Don't know if it will be any more help, Sandra, but there's loads of entries on Google for the search term BAD_POOL_CALLER - <<see here>>  

[Sandra]

Thanks Simon.
A lot of those links are to the one that Clive found earlier.
I found a couple of forums where it appears to be quite common and thought to be a problem with XP,usually driver related.
I am going to try this later after its finished a download :

http://www.osr.com/ddk/ddtools/dv_5w1f.htm

Its a driver verifier utility  
Hopefully that may tell me something,if not it may necessitate an SOS to Brian  

I still cant understand why the SHADOWING and CACHING bits arent in my BIOS to disable as I have definitely seen them in other BIOS menus  

[Sandra]

Well I aint touching that again  
It said none were enabled so I selected enable all to verify then it wanted rebooting and it wouldnt even start again   :'(
Fortunately I could start it up in last known good configuration and its running again  
For how long though is anyones guess  

[greenking]

Every where I've looked seem to lead back to the link Clive posted with no definate answers  >

One site suggested copying XP over your existing one and that may correct any corrupt files  

[Tony]

Put a stable OS on your PC Sandra like W2K, Brian knows a good OS when he see's one.....well considering its made by Microsoft  

[Sandra]

Possibly too early to tell yet but in the early hours of this morning I reset the IRQ settings in the BIOS from auto to manual and enabled them all.
I have just reset Norton AV to do a scheduled scan at 2-15pm which it has just completed,something which had been causing it to crash within a few minutes of starting over the last week or so.
I had disconnected my CD Writer last night but reconnected it as I needed to burn some CDs,I had also downloaded and installed the latest updates for Nero.
Which if any of what I have done has fixed it is anyones guess  
I just hope that it has,I will let you know if it crashes again  

[Adept]

I hope I don't put the kibosh on you Sandra but I hope it works out OK

[Sandra]

I was round at Brians earlier and he decided that it was being caused by XP trying to release some memory from a previous program that had already been released  
That was from what he could make out from the error code in the link that Clive posted originally.
So far so good but it may do it again without warning anytime

[Sandra]

So far it appears to be sorted out as it has now done 3 scheduled daily Norton AV scans and hasnt crashed once  

[Sandra]

Looks like I spoke too soon  :'(

Five minutes into a scheduled Norton AV scan this afternoon it crashed again with the same error message.
I will disable the schedule scans again and see how it goes over the next few days