Windows XP freezing and rebooting...

[Conutmonky]

I just built a new computer and i'm having some trouble with it. At random times, the computer will just freeze up completly and then i'll have to restart. After that, sometimes it will freeze right away or sometimes it'll be half-way through starting up windows and freeze or sometimes it will start windows and work fine! I'm led to believe this is a hardware issue because i recently got fed up and formated my hard drive and reinstalled windows xp and drivers, and that's about all right now. Any ideas? I was thinking maybe the memory, but why would it freeze at different random times? One time after freezing and rebooting it said windows registry recovery was successful, another time scandisk(or the equivilent) ran and found a bunch of files that were "orphaned" and recovered those. But how could it be a software issue if i just reinstalled windows xp? I have an asus K8N motherboard with an athlon 2800 754 chipset, maxtor SATA hard drive, ati radon 9800 pro and 512 ram, not sure what brand. Thanks for any help

 

[aquias]

My first thought, is that it's a memory issue. I had a very similiar issue on my last PC build. It ran fine for anywhere from five minutes to 8 hours or so and then would blue screen or lock up on me.

Your first thought is a good one, but if a reformat didn't work I'd look to the hardware (one question here, did the lock ups continue prior to any third party software being installed? If they happened after you started software install I would say rollback and see when they stop).

I would try, if you have two DIMM's, removing one DIMM and seeing if the problem resolves itself.

I haven't had time to research any new bugs that may cause this, but I'll try to look later.

 

[micker377]

How does it work in safe mode?

 

[Conutmonky]

Well thanks for the quick posts guys! I don't have any extra memory right now...i'm tempted to go buy some though just to see what happens. And i haven't run it too long in safe mode, but i don't think it did ever freeze up during that. I don't really have any software installed except for microsoft products and norton. And winrar. If it is a hardware issue though you would guess memory? If I bought another stick, worst case is I have an extra right?

 

[shakru]

are you overclocking? that can cause instability, also if you have one of those manual controlled fans make sure its running fast enough or else the cpu may be overheating and causing the system to behave the way it does. check with AMD to see how fast it should be going. Also, if you haven't already, wouldn't hurt to use some thermal compound. However, I agree with aquias, prolly an issue with the RAM. Check with your mobo manual and see if the RAM you're using has been tested on that board.

 

[micker377]

If it runs OK in safe mode, it could be a driver problem. You could use "msconfig/startup" to eliminate drivers on-by-one to find the "baddie".

 

[Conutmonky]

Alright new update: Was working fine for a couple days, then this morning froze up on my with the blue screen saying

A critical or vital windows something has unexpectly quit. Windows is exiting to protect you.

Or something like that. And then it said the error was in

win32.sys(?) a win something .sys, and it also gave exact addresses

0x000000F4 (x81FED880, X81FED9F4, two more that i didn't get)

Anyone have ANY idea? Also, restarted in safe mode, but computer didn't even finish loading windows before it crashed. Help would be nice if anyone knows! Thanks

p.s. Not overclocking, fan speed controlled by motherboard but has a temp gauge and the computer itself seems at a good temp. Still thinking memory?

 

[bcastner]

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=228888

http://www.retosphere.de/tipsandtricks/ntfserror.php?menu_id=20