How can I find the cause of errorless crashes in windows XP?

[Infohawk]

I have a compaq presario laptop. I've been having crashes that give me no
blue-screen or other indicators of what's wrong. The crashes freeze the
screen and the mouse, but sometimes I still see my wireless network card
keep flashing for a bit afterwards. The computer doesn't shut down. No
blue screen comes up. I don't think it's a certain application because the
error occurs even if the login screen is the only thing that's up. I
thought it might be heat but it doesn't seem to be because of that because
sometimes it crashes in the morning after it's had time to cool down and I
haven't used it very long. Also, I know someone who had problems with
heating on this same computer and they said they're system just completely
turned off whereas mine doesn't power off, it just locks up.

Since this machine is a laptop, the hardware hasn't changed much. I use a
wireless card. I add speakers and a microsoft mouse. But this freezing
occured before I added the wireless card and the speakers. I've had driver
problems with the mousepad (on the laptop) but when that happened a
bluescreen came up and told me so. I downloaded newer drivers and I
haven't had that problem since. Anyway, this freezing problem started a
while back with the basic configuration. The problem has become worse over
time. I have the latest drivers. I've tried various video drivers. The
compaq user boards are useless and mostly talk about the problem that
deals with the sudden powering off.

I've run memtest86 for a couple days with no errors so I don't think the
RAM's a problem. Also, the system has never crashed under knoppix linux
(although I don't run it that much).

Suggestions for finding the root of the problem? Are there any logs or
applications that could monitor what's happening?

Thanks

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

Start/run eventvwr.msc and see if the system logs hold any clues.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Win9x

Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

Does this Presario have an AMD processor, by any chance? I've
seen the same exact behavior on other Compaq laptops, caused by
overheating. In one case, the laptop's case was partially melted.

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:

 

[Infohawk]

Indeed, I have an AMD Duron processor. (I also have a Twister c3 video
card and 240mb of ram). I've always presumed it wasn't a heating problem
because a) people with heating problems have told me that their systems
tend to turn off completely, whereas my system just freezes and because b)
this problem sometimes happens first thing in the morning after the
computer has had the night to cool off. Sometimes it happens in the
windows login screen where I can't imagine there's much burden on the
system. Would there be anyway to confirm if it's a heat problem?

 

[Infohawk]

Hi,

Start/run eventvwr.msc and see if the system logs hold any clues.

The system log doesn't show any errors. (Well, there's only DHCP errors which
don't coincide with the crashes.)

 

[tml]

I think I have the same problem you have with my computer. I have a HP Pavillion a710n. The log might not be an error. But what I found is that the log is under system as i8042prt. Every single time my mouse or computer freezes up for a few seconds the system log i8024prt is at the same time. Let me know if you have that log. It has something to do with the buffer size. You should be able to click on the log and it should take you to a micosoft website that addresses the error.