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re: Question about 'Top reasons for random, fatal crashes in Windows XP and Windows 2000' Thursday, February 27, 2003 at 2:57 pm Posted by Ricer46 (22031 messages posted) I would not have answered this, but since no one else has responded... First: in regards to your comment "that was one of your reasons..." you need to understand how this forum works. The article you read was swritten by the forum's management, but they do not contribute to the forum on a daily basis. People just like yourself get together and share their combined knowledge and experience through this forum so that we can each learn from one another. Now in regards to your problem. You are really on your own, intermittent reliability problems can be a nightmare to solve, almost anything can contribute to your failures. So the ability of any forum contributor to offer any real help is extremely limited. Sorry Now here's what I would do: Check easiest things first Power supply quality is often overlooked, and may be easy to check. Your motherboard MIGHT have the ability to monitor such key parameters as, cpu temperature, fan speeds and voltages. If so your motherboard manufacturer MIGHT have software (it sould be on CD you received with the computer) that can provide you with a real time monitor of these parameters. Computers don't like sudden spikes or drops in voltage. You could be overheating, especially if it's an AMD cpu. The monitor above would help you determine that, you also might be able to read your cpu temperature in one of the BIOS setup screens, but that's not as good as the Windows monitor. Your memory could be not up to the task. I don't know of an inexpensive way to determine this. One person that gives a lot od good advice recently suggested to someone that they might be able to find a local shop that would test their memory. I haven't found a PC test, that would convince me of anything unless the RAM was absolutley trash. You could have a bad chip (not neccessarily the cpu) on your motherboard, essentially impossible to determine without replacing it (the m/b). You could have a problem with you hard drives, there are some on line testing capabilities that I have read about on the forum, but never used. It sounds like they work very well. You can probably find them either on your drive manufacturer's web page or with a Google search. You could consider doing a complete clean re-install of Windows, earlier versions of windows frequently displayed problems that couldd be remedied this way. I am inclined to think that this is not your problem. You also ought to check to see if you have all of the latest hardware drivers for your computer, these can be found at the manufacturer's web page for each component. An obsolete driver can produce strange results. This is especially true if you have a m/b with a Via chipset and an AMD cpu. A last resort could be to see if the motherboard's BIOS is satisfactory with XP. I would not recommend this unless you have run out of all options except replacing the motherboard. You can get the software and instructions from the manufacturer's web site. You would want to read the associated readme file to verify that the update addresses a specific problem that is related to your system. It might help if you provide more detail about your computer. On Wednesday, February 26, 2003 at 1:23 am, Neil Morgenstern wrote: >I have a question about Top >reasons for random, fatal crashes in Windows XP and Windows 2000: > >I experience random crashing, but it does not blue-screen or reboot, it simply stops >dead. > >And this will often happen even when I'm doing nothing, i.e. when the machine is >left idle (overnight). > >It's totally unpredictable - sometimes it stays up for hours and other times it crashes >within seconds. It can even crash before I have clicked on my name to start up XP. > >I do have an NTFS and a FAT32 drive - that was one of your reasons. Is that the most >likely cause? > >I've had this problem for nearly a year now, and I took it to the shop where they >sold me the drive and XP, but they couldn't be sure of the cause, and thought there >might be disk-corruption on my big drive. I want to make sure before any drastic >action is taken. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Question about 'Top reasons for random, fatal crashes in Windows XP and Windows 2000' Sunday, June 15, 2003 at 3:02 pm Posted by sundeep (1 messages posted) Hey i have the exact same problem. my computer running on an AMD athlon processor always crashes after i play a game and normally during it is also raandom like your e.g happening as soon as i login or after a while. I seem to have the problem when Kazzaa is running, Winamp andafter i exit the game Return to Castle Wolfenstein. i have 512 RAM AMD Athlon processor Big hardrive I have tried everyhting please HELP! [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Question about 'Top reasons for random, fatal crashes in Windows XP and Windows 2000' Wednesday, September 17, 2003 at 6:33 pm Posted by Annette Russo (2 messages posted) I have the same problem happening now with Windows 98 - especially when the system is idle and even when no programs are running. I have 256 Ram, 20 G HD, About the same time as this, I had freezing up when trying to burn a cd from either my cd burner or my dvd burner. It seems like a lot of people are pointing to the power supply - what do I do with the power supply to fix this? Please help!!! [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Question about 'Top reasons for random, fatal crashes in Windows XP and Windows 2000' Monday, November 10, 2003 at 9:22 pm Posted by Eckhardt (1 messages posted) I have been dealing with this exact problem for just over a month now. I am running xppro on a 2.6g 512pc2100 w/ 400 watt power supply. I maintain a steady temperature of 27 c which is 80.6 f apparently. This is the same power supply that i was using on a p4 1.7 with NO problems at all. I am not eliminating it as the cause, but am doubting it. The lockups are time so randomly, sometimes before desktop even loads up, that im also doubting overheating is a problem either. I have a very well ventilated case anyway. The one thing I have not been able to verify ist that my memory isnt the cause. It is far from being name brand memory and its really the only thing left besides a faulty mb/cpu that i havnt tried. Someone else suggested testing your memory, im inclined to agree. On Wednesday, February 26, 2003 at 1:23 am, Neil Morgenstern wrote: >I have a question about Top >reasons for random, fatal crashes in Windows XP and Windows 2000: > >I experience random crashing, but it does not blue-screen or reboot, it simply stops >dead. > >And this will often happen even when I'm doing nothing, i.e. when the machine is >left idle (overnight). > >It's totally unpredictable - sometimes it stays up for hours and other times it crashes >within seconds. It can even crash before I have clicked on my name to start up XP. > >I do have an NTFS and a FAT32 drive - that was one of your reasons. Is that the most >likely cause? > >I've had this problem for nearly a year now, and I took it to the shop where they >sold me the drive and XP, but they couldn't be sure of the cause, and thought there >might be disk-corruption on my big drive. I want to make sure before any drastic >action is taken. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Question about 'Top reasons for random, fatal crashes in Windows XP and Windows 2000' Wednesday, March 17, 2004 at 11:43 pm Posted by sacha (1 messages posted) did anyone come up with an answer to this problem? i'm having exactly the same issue. just bought a new pc.. amd xp2600+, 512mb, asus A7V8X-MX SE motherboard. i took it back to the shop and they swapped the motherboard and cpu but i still have the same issues. they think it's my xp disc but i've tried a few different ones.. all with the same results. completely random failures. dozens of dll errors and then the computer just goes dead. power remains on, no BSOD, just black.. i'm leaning towards it being either faulty memory or some sort of conflict between the ram and the piece of crap onboard video that uses 64mb of system memory instead of having memory of its own. can someone else post their machine specs to see if there's something in common? sacha On Monday, November 10, 2003 at 9:22 pm, Eckhardt wrote: >I have been dealing with this exact problem for just over a month now. I am running >xppro on a 2.6g 512pc2100 w/ 400 watt power supply. I maintain a steady temperature >of 27 c which is 80.6 f apparently. >This is the same power supply that i was using on a p4 1.7 with NO problems at all. >I am not eliminating it as the cause, but am doubting it. The lockups are time so >randomly, sometimes before desktop even loads up, that im also doubting overheating >is a problem either. I have a very well ventilated case anyway. The one thing I have >not been able to verify ist that my memory isnt the cause. It is far from being name >brand memory and its really the only thing left besides a faulty mb/cpu that i havnt >tried. Someone else suggested testing your memory, im inclined to agree. > > > >On Wednesday, February 26, 2003 at 1:23 am, Neil Morgenstern wrote: >>I have a question about Top >>reasons for random, fatal crashes in Windows XP and Windows 2000: >> >>I experience random crashing, but it does not blue-screen or reboot, it simply stops >>dead. >> >>And this will often happen even when I'm doing nothing, i.e. when the machine is >>left idle (overnight). >> >>It's totally unpredictable - sometimes it stays up for hours and other times it >crashes >>within seconds. It can even crash before I have clicked on my name to start up XP. >> >>I do have an NTFS and a FAT32 drive - that was one of your reasons. Is that the >most >>likely cause? >> >>I've had this problem for nearly a year now, and I took it to the shop where they >>sold me the drive and XP, but they couldn't be sure of the cause, and thought there >>might be disk-corruption on my big drive. I want to make sure before any drastic >>action is taken. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Question about 'Top reasons for random, fatal crashes in Windows XP and Windows 2000' Wednesday, May 26, 2004 at 4:30 am Posted by ProArt (1 messages posted) I have same problem with my AMD XP 1700, and as far as I know, I have found out, the reason for crashing is "Windows idle tasks" system, which runs when computer is idle or sometimes when there is low process amount. I bumped into document description idle tasks and there was also command how to force Windows run these idle tasks by commandline. %windir%\System32\Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks Normally, this command would process all idle tasks and thus, flush to processing times but as estimated, It crashed (or jammed, freezed) Windows as it does sometimes when idle. So if this is a problem, what is the solution? Dunno. But I am going to find out ;). If running that command also crashes your computers which seem to hang sometimes on idle, then we all have common problem and finding solution is little bit easier. [Reply or follow-up to this message] re: Question about 'Top reasons for random, fatal crashes in Windows XP and Windows 2000' Friday, August 19, 2005 at 10:56 am Posted by Betsy Walker (3 messages posted) Neil ~ Did you ever resolve your problem? I am experiencing the same thing with my 2004 Dell laptop. For the last 36 hours, my computer has randomly 'crashed' showing a blue-screen message that 'Windows has shut down to prevent serious damage'. Now my computer ALWAYS crashes when it goes 'idle' and sometimes crashes when I am working on it ~ sometimes online; sometimes offline. I'm at a loss as to what to do... On Wednesday, February 26, 2003 at 1:23 am, Neil Morgenstern wrote: >I have a question about Top >reasons for random, fatal crashes in Windows XP and Windows 2000: > >I experience random crashing, but it does not blue-screen or reboot, it simply stops >dead. > >And this will often happen even when I'm doing nothing, i.e. when the machine is >left idle (overnight). > >It's totally unpredictable - sometimes it stays up for hours and other times it crashes >within seconds. It can even crash before I have clicked on my name to start up XP. > >I do have an NTFS and a FAT32 drive - that was one of your reasons. Is that the most >likely cause? > >I've had this problem for nearly a year now, and I took it to the shop where they >sold me the drive and XP, but they couldn't be sure of the cause, and thought there >might be disk-corruption on my big drive. I want to make sure before any drastic >action is taken. 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