Hi sharon.. I'm still trying to help my friend resolve this issue... she
said she went into error report and sent me a screenshot of what the error
said, but I never received it.. she said that it is a driver error.. the
error also says that it does not know which driver and when she clicked on
the link, it said they didn't know how to fix it..
.. Is there a way to
find out which driver it is? Perhaps in device manager? thanks for any
response.. Rainy
Unfortunately, vague errors like this are not easy to diagnose from a
distance. Some thoughts:
-Have her check again to see if there is any mention of a file name in the
error reports. If it's capturing enough to say driver error, it's very
possible a file name is mentioned too. When she has the error report from
Event Viewer on screen, there is a little button with an image of what
looks like two sheets of paper. Clicking this will copy the error report to
the clipboard. She can then click her mouse in an email message body and
paste (ctrl +V) the text into it.
-It wouldn't hurt to check device manager. If there is anything there with
a yellow exclamation mark, those would be good items to check first.
-Sudden shutdowns with no explanation ... A common cause is overheating.
Most modern systems will shut themselves down when a temperature threshold
is reached to protect the CPU from getting fried. The action is sudden and
there is usually no error message captured at all. One second you're
working away and the next - nothing! Wouldn't hurt to clean out the dust
bunnies and check the working condition of the CPU fan and the case fans.
If the PC tower is packed away in a cabinet - consider moving it out where
there is improved airflow.
-Display card that is overheating. If she has a fancy display card, it may
need its fan cleaned or replaced. Some display cards have no fans. There
are simple little fans available for purchase that can be placed next to
the display card. These draw heat off of the video chip on the card and
blow the hot air out of a PCI slot on the back of the PC tower. These cost
about $20 USD.
-Outdated or damaged display drivers can cause a wide variety of symptoms.
If these are at fault, her shutdowns will most likely be occurring when
doing something more stressful to the graphical engine. Examples: game
playing, viewing multimedia files (movies, presentations, etc). Have seen
new display drivers solve seemingly unrelated errors such as pesty errors
while browsing the internet. Most hardware can truck along decently with
half baked drivers but the same does not hold true for display drivers.
-A particular program in need of an update. If the problem only happens
with one application, check for an update. Example: I had a cute little
mahjong game that was in dire need of an update. Using it would sometimes
lock the machine to a black screen requiring a restart. The lockup was hard
and sudden with no error messages captured. No updates available from
vendor. After the last round of Windows updates, this worsened and
disrupted the video display to the point that the monitors went offline.
Finally uninstalled the game since it will not be updated.
thanks again.. Rainy