[STOP: 0x0e3 A thread tried to release a resource it did not own]

I would be playing a game on my WinXP Pro SP2 computer when all of a sudden, it shuts down. It comes up the the error message that looks like this:

"A thread tried to release a resource it did not own."
"Technical:
STOP: 0X000000E3 (0X8642F960, 0X85FBBC38, 0X85E55E48, 0X00000003) "

This error has come up when I was playing Half Life 2, Counterstrike: Source, Rise of Nations, and a java-based game RuneScape.

It does not happen right away. Usually takes 5-10 minutes of playing for it to occur.

What does it mean and how do I fix it?

 

Interesting. Haven't seen that particular error since Windows2000 and Microsoft fixed it at about SP2 I think so quite a while ago.

To pin down the specific cause will probably mean your letting the PC create a dump file when the error occurs, running that through an analyzer utility (available free but not real simple to run) and posting the dump contents here for examination then going with the advice given.

You now have the sum total of my knowledge but I'm changing your thread title slightly so one of the stop-error experts will be likely to take a look and advice you from here.

 

You have a driver that is malfunctioning. Its trying to free something it shouldn't be.

You'll need to collect the memory.dmp file, and run it through the debugger, or use this tool a guy here wrote to automate it.