The Mystery of the STOP 0x8E Windows Error
Posted by Wade Burchette at 11:00 AM Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) | Computer Repair Notes | Windows
While working on a computer, I encounted a computer that would exhibit the STOP 0x0000008E blue screen but only just after I told Windows to restart. A quick Google search revealed that STOP 0x0000008E is a very common problem. In fact, Microsoft had three articles about this very STOP code. Most BSOD also have some text in all capital letters which is very helpful when crossreferencing this STOP code. STOP 0x0000008E is supposed to have the text KERNEL_MODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED. Since you probably don't know what that means, I explain it.
The kernel is the core of Windows or any other operating system. Basically, it runs and manages your entire computer. Your computer is interactive thanks to the kernel. Programs interact with the kernel, especially when they need to use some hardware. When a program encounters a problem, it throws an exception. For instance, suppose the program wanted to divide a number by 0. You cannot do that, so the program would throw an exception. The CPU has special features on it so that exceptions can be managed easier. Ideally, the program throwing the exception has a way to manage the exception so that it can recover. In the case of this STOP code, the kernel threw an exception that it could not handle or an exception was thrown when the kernel did not expect it. Not good.
Bad memory could cause this. The reason why is because the memory contents could become corrupted due to it being bad and thus the kernel doesn't know what is the correct action and displays this BSOD. Therefore, the first thing I checked was the memory.
And it was not the problem. Now it gets interesting.
My next guess would be a rootkit. I removed from this computer some scareware, one of the older ones from the so-called Russian Business Network. Thus, it may have already funneled in something else. But there was no rootkit or any other malware on the computer.
So I tried search the internet for reasons why this STOP code can appear during a restart. One of the results, http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/thread-83542.php, stated that this is a known problem with Nero and iTunes software. The user had iTunes, but not Nero. Of course, iTunes has been known to cause problems in of itself, so I decided that if I needed to, I would un-install iTunes.
Before I un-installed anything, I decided to install Windows XP Service Pack 3 since the computer was stable until a restart. To help speed up installing SP3, I systematically started to terminate some programs using the task manager. After I terminated one program, this STOP code appeared. I had found my culprit. In this case it was a Computer Associates security program. In fact, no matter how long I had Windows running, the STOP code would not appear until I attempted to terminate the Computer Associate processes.
This was a program the user paid for, so before I removed it, I wanted to see if I could fix the problem. So I installed SP3 in safe mode first. And then installed all new Windows updates. After installing all of the updates, the problem no longer appeared.