XP crashing like flies dropping to the floor!

[doggammit76]

I am at my wits end.

My XP Pro installation keep crashing on me. States that its something to do with a device driver. I've had 7 crashes in the last 3 hours! Explains my not supproting the statement that XP never crashes. Eminent half-a-second BSOD then it restarts on its own.

My hardware setup is preety much up-to-date with the oldest equipment being my floppy drive. But that works fine. I've tried troubleshooting according to MS's "troubleshooting software device drivers crashes" but still no sign of any probable problem. Yet it randomly crashes.

My hardware setup :
Iwill KD266 Mainboard
AMD Athlon 1Ghz
256 x 3 (all Kingston PC100 RAMs)
Nvidia TNT2 M64 Graphics Card
Intel 10/100 Pro Management NIC
3COM 10/100 NIC
Adaptec Duo Connect USB2/IEEE1394 Card
Creative SBLive (value) Audio Card
Samsung 52X CD-ROM
Quantum Fireball 20G HDD (ATA 66)
Seagate 30G HDD (ATA100)

System Setup:
XP Pro SP1
All drivers are up-to-date according to Windows Update.


Any kinda help would stop me from pulling out any more hair. Its really THAT frustrating.
Information is free....dont hog it!

 

[cschaffer]

Does it say which driver is causing the problems?

 

[smah]

Some more helpful information to post if it happens again would be the actual error information. You can set your computer to not automatically reboot by right clicking on My Computer, Properties, Advanced tab, Startup & Recovery Settings button, uncheck Automatically restart. Now you will have time to see the error and copy it down.

You can also check the event viewer to see what errors are listed at the time of the crash. Start, Run, eventvwr.msc

 

[doggammit76]

cschaffer

nope, it doesnt say. it just says that its caused by a driver but they cant determine the exact problem. (windows error reporting). this already happened when it was still a virgin install. SP1 upgrade sorta "settled" it for a while.

smah

thats the first place I looked at when it first started. but nothing logged under system. except for a "DCOM unable to initialise error". i am not much suprised that it isnt working cos i did a selective startup in an attempt to isolate the problem. everything worked fine with it off ....then it crashes again. so my guess is, that part isnt contributing to the problem.

I tried almost everything I can think of, removing hardware, reinserting them one by one (and letting the system run after each install), disabling services at startup, then turning them back on one by one....still nothing. it just randomly crashes.

thanks guys, but this one is still a major head scratcher. Information is free....dont hog it!

 

[smah]

Disable the automatic rebooting as I mentioned above, then report back the actual BSOD error the next time it happens.

 

[doggammit76]

update

i took smah's advice on switching off auto restart upon crash. here's what i got from a bsod that happened during startup.

STOP: 0x000000024 (0x001902F4,0xF65EE464,0XF65EE164,0xF7400B6C)

Ntfs.sys - Address F7400B6C base at F73D4000 Datestamp 3d6de5c1

Oddly, after restarting, windows reporting didnt fire up after this one. my guess is that this crash is related to something with the hdd. not a driver. i ran chkdsk anyways and it didnt find any problems.

there are times when I did a restart, it "restarted" normally, and yet windows error reporting comes up and says that the pc has just recovered from a crash caused by a driver (again, its unable to pinpoint which driver ).

seems that i am back at square one.

any more ideas guys?



Information is free....dont hog it!

 

[smah]

Here's some info about that error:

http://www.aumha.org/kbestop.php#0x24

This can also sometimes be caused by bad memory. Have a look at:

http://www.simmtester.com/PAGE/products/doc/docinfo.asp

 

[adkmom]

Hi-

If the previous posts don't work, try leaving out the Soundblaster card for the sake of argument. Lots of problems w/SB cards.

Your best bet though is to have no cards in at all except what you must have- mainly video- unless you have onboard disabled to use AGP. Use the onboard then so that there's less to look through for a cause. Fire it up with the min. & if it still crashes, it's definitely something with/on the mobo. If you could figure out just when it all first occured, that would also narrow it down for you.
I try to do a system restore point prior to changes in case I find something gets gummed up. I just name it whatever program/hardware I'm changing/installing (for future reference).

 

[doggammit76]

hi adkmom

Thanks for your post.
I did try the hardware troubleshooting thingy earlier but to no avail. I couldnt find which hardware is causing the problem.

I've noticed that SB drivers are not 100% XP supported. XP stills warns that the drivers are have not passed the XP standards during install. Its kinda frustrating that such an widespread and established company not having full xp supported drivers even after almost a year of the OS's release.

Thanks again, i'll keep things posted as soon as another damn bsod happens. Information is free....dont hog it!

 

[Marcs41]

Doggammit !

The SB Live drivers for XP already exist some time
Always check the manufacturer site first!

http://www.americas.creative.com/support/files/download.asp?Centric=107&OS=13

Further, Remove some RAM modules, try to work with just 1 in there, if it crashes, replace it with another, etc..
If it crashes with all 3 (seperately), at least you know it is not the RAM. This is easy to test. The solution is out there.

 

[firewolfrl]

check your BIOS settings.
are you overclocked?
is your ram and your cpu clocked insynch?
this sounds like a ram or cpu timing issue
you need to get ahold of Iwill tech support and they can help you set the BOIS for stablity

 

[firewolfrl]

I had a similar issue with an ASUS motherboard
fixed it in the BIOS

 

[dilettante]

I'd be curious if anybody has combed this whole forum and added up the number of times XP has been a headache for people using AMD processors and nVidia cards?

Didn't this turn out to be a problem with many VIA chipset motherboards for AMD processors and an incompatability between the BIOS and the nVidia Video BIOS extensions that only shows up under XP?

Was the fix a BIOS setting, or did it take a new BIOS, or was the answer to throw away the nVidia card?

I could be all wet, but I'd swear I've seen this problem posted here over 'n over. As I've been "lucky" enough to be using all Intel stuff I wasn't really interested enough to pay attention, but maybe a search of the forum might yield some fruit.

 

[Beer4meok]

Try disconecting your Quantum fireball hard drive
I have had the same problem with a fireball 60
and have sent it back twice,finaly got a good one,Phone Maxtor they bought Quantum.

Free replacement if less than three years old.5 years on
some.Same on the Seagate I think.

I hope XP/OS is on the seagate 30HD, then it will be easy to check.

If not you will have to do a reinstall on the Seagate.
or the other way around and check to see witch one is causing the problem.



Dave