[CCnKC]

Hi All!

I have a repeatable Blue Screen of Death on my Vista Ultimate SP2 32-bit laptop (Dell Latitude D830) that's being caused by SonicWall VPN software or Sprint Air Card software. It's driving me nuts, and I need to figure out exactly what the problem is, so I've installed the Window's Debugger and pointed it to the Symbols location in order to debug the dump files.

However, this is worthless at the moment, since my crashes are NOT producing any crash dump files. I've had plenty of BSOD's before, but never cared to troubleshoot them. But it appears that my laptop has NEVER produced any dump files in the past on the BSOD occurrences. I've been to Technet and followed all the Microsoft KB articles I could find and have made sure of the following:

> Page file is set to be greater than my RAM (4GB of RAM) -
----Custom Size: Initial Size: 5410MB; Max Size: 6145MB
> Crash Dump file location is set to C:\CrashDump, and the folder DOES exist (although trying to make it go to the root, and %SystemRoot%, ie \Windows, did not work either.
> Memory Dump type set to "Kernel Only". Forcing it to "Complete Memory Dump" via the CrashControl group in the registry did not work either.
> Overwrite previous dump is enabled.
> AutoReboot is NOT enabled.
> Dump on Non Maskable Interrupt is also enabled.

A minidump is not working either.

Free drive space is 23 GB.

On the BSOD, I get a Stop 0x7F ( 0x08, 0x805D3130 <--varies, and 0x8018A000 <-- also varies), and it says it is writing the crash dump information to file. The length of time to do this varies on the memory dump type option as expected, but either way, I let it finish and then hard reboot. But, never is there a dump file.

Any ideas?

[Elvandil]

Did you look in Windows for dumps?

Have you tried testing memory?

If you know what caused the BSOD, why do you need dumps? And how do you know?

[CCnKC]

Originally Posted by Elvandil

Did you look in Windows for dumps?

Yes. See my quote above: "> Crash Dump file location is set to C:\CrashDump, and the folder DOES exist (although trying to make it go to the root, and %SystemRoot%, ie \Windows, did not work either."

Originally Posted by Elvandil

Have you tried testing memory?

Memory tests are all good.

Originally Posted by Elvandil

If you know what caused the BSOD, why do you need dumps? And how do you know?

This problem has been occurring for 6 months, ever since I started using a Sprint air card and SonicWall VPN. However, it took 3 months for me to pinpoint that much information because I was using the SonicWall VPN before, but with a Verizon PCMCIA air card and it didn't happen. My company switched to Sprint, which is the reason I can't used the Verizon card anymore. I use the Sprint air card infrequently, but I would keep getting BSODs even without using it. Or so I thought...but I found out the SonicWall VPN was set to run on startup in the system tray.....even though no connection was being established. But since disabling the startup of that VPN, the BSOD no longer occurs.

Long story short, I finally figured out this BSOD only occurs when BOTH the SonicWall VPN and the Sprint air card software are installed, but does NOT occur when only the VPN software is installed, and I use my WiFi connection. The crash occurs whenever I try to get the VPN to connect to a UNC network path or mapped share via Windows Explorer (WiFi, wired, or air card connection), AND the air card software and drivers are installed, but not necessarily running.

So, with that knowledge, I asked Sprint to swap my air card with one that had the same functionality, yet was made by a different mfr, thinking that maybe it was a driver issue with the previous Sprint air card. They did, and I tested it last week, but unfortunately with the same outcome.

So, I need to debug the crash dump it generates to determine if it's a SonicWall component that is crashing, or an air card component that is faulting because of the VPN software, OR another possibility...the embedded Dell Verizon air card, which has been disabled as far as I can make it through the BIOS. The Sprint SmartView air card software and the air card itself install several components and several drivers when it is installed, so it's very hard to say what the exact component is that is causing this problem. Hopefully, a successful crash dump can tell me, and then I can either inform Sprint or SonicWall, or just remove the offending component if it is non-critical.