Windows XP system keeps rebooting itself: STOP: 0x0000009C error

[slb]

Hi- My 2yr old Windows XP professional system keeps rebooting itself,
at least one time per day. It seems to happen usually while I'm using
it, most often when I have photoshop or winamp open, and a few apps
open at once. After it reboots, it says Windows has recovered from a
serious error, and reports:

STOP: 0x0000009C (0x00000004, 0x00000000, 0xb2000000, 0x00020151)

It links to:
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 329284
SYMPTOMS
You may receive the following Stop error message:
STOP: 0x0000009C (0x00000004, 0x00000000, 0xb2000000, 0x00020151)
"MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION"
The four parameters inside the parentheses may vary.
CAUSE
This behavior occurs because your computer processor detected and
reported an unrecoverable hardware error to Windows XP. To do this,
the processor used the Machine Check Exception (MCE) feature of
Pentium processors or the Machine Check Architecture (MCA) feature of
some Pentium Pro processors. The following factors may cause this
error message:

* System bus errors
* Memory errors that may include parity or Error Correction Code
(ECC) problems
* Cache errors in the processor or hardware
* Translation Lookaside Buffers (TLB) errors in the processor
* Other CPU-vendor specific detected hardware problems
* Vendor-specific detected hardware problems

Anyone know how to tell if this is a power supply issue or an
overheating problem? I've only seen this happen since I moved into a
new place a couple months ago. I have a Soyo SY-KT400 dragon ultra
motherboard and Athlon XP 2100, which has been very stable up until
now.

Thanks.

 

[Malke]

Hi- My 2yr old Windows XP professional system keeps rebooting itself,
at least one time per day. It seems to happen usually while I'm using
it, most often when I have photoshop or winamp open, and a few apps
open at once. After it reboots, it says Windows has recovered from a
serious error, and reports:

STOP: 0x0000009C (0x00000004, 0x00000000, 0xb2000000, 0x00020151)
(snip)

Anyone know how to tell if this is a power supply issue or an
overheating problem? I've only seen this happen since I moved into a
new place a couple months ago. I have a Soyo SY-KT400 dragon ultra
motherboard and Athlon XP 2100, which has been very stable up until
now.

Sure sounds like hardware to me. Could be power, overheating, bad RAM.
Here are some generic hardware troubleshooting steps:

1) open the computer and run it open, cleaning out all dust bunnies and
observing all fans (overheating will cause system freezing); 2) test
the RAM - I like Memtest86 from www.memtest86.com - let the test run
for an extended (like overnight) period of time - unless errors are
seen immediately; 3) test the hard drive with a diagnostic utility from
the mftr.; 4) the power supply may be going bad or be inadequate for
the devices you have in the system; 5) test the motherboard with
something like TuffTest from www.tufftest.com. Testing hardware
failures often involves swapping out suspected parts with known-good
parts. If you can't do the testing yourself and/or are uncomfortable
opening your computer, take the machine to a good local computer repair
shop (not a CompUSA or Best Buy type of store).

Malke

 

[slb]

Sure sounds like hardware to me. Could be power, overheating, bad RAM.
Here are some generic hardware troubleshooting steps:

1) open the computer and run it open, cleaning out all dust bunnies and
observing all fans (overheating will cause system freezing); 2) test
the RAM - I like Memtest86 from www.memtest86.com - let the test run
for an extended (like overnight) period of time - unless errors are
seen immediately; 3) test the hard drive with a diagnostic utility from
the mftr.; 4) the power supply may be going bad or be inadequate for
the devices you have in the system; 5) test the motherboard with
something like TuffTest from www.tufftest.com. Testing hardware
failures often involves swapping out suspected parts with known-good
parts. If you can't do the testing yourself and/or are uncomfortable
opening your computer, take the machine to a good local computer repair
shop (not a CompUSA or Best Buy type of store).

Malke

Also, I dual-boot Fedora 2 linux on this box, and it NEVER reboots/has
a problem when I run linux. Could this point to the problem being a
windows driver or software issue, or could it just be that linux is
less sensitive to hardware/power supply/memory issues?

 

[Malke]

Also, I dual-boot Fedora 2 linux on this box, and it NEVER reboots/has
a problem when I run linux. Could this point to the problem being a
windows driver or software issue, or could it just be that linux is
less sensitive to hardware/power supply/memory issues?

It sure would have been nice to have that information in your first
post. Of course it makes a difference. No, Linux is not less sensitive
to marginal hardware/power/memory. If your Fedora never crashes on the
same box, then yes - look to drivers in XP as a possible culprit.
Otherwise, do a clean install of XP and make sure all hardware is
compatible. You'll have to reinstall Grub or LILO, whichever you're
using of course.

Malke

 

[slb]

It sure would have been nice to have that information in your first
post. Of course it makes a difference. No, Linux is not less sensitive
to marginal hardware/power/memory. If your Fedora never crashes on the
same box, then yes - look to drivers in XP as a possible culprit.
Otherwise, do a clean install of XP and make sure all hardware is
compatible. You'll have to reinstall Grub or LILO, whichever you're
using of course.

Malke

Thanks for the tip. I didn't test using Fedora originally, but since
I have, there have been no issues. I went back into XP, ran system
file checker, installed new VIA drivers, and ran checkdisk (scandisk)
yesterday, and now I'll wait for another crash before reinstalling XP.
I also uninstalled the new zone alarm, since it's buggy and prevents
checkdisk from working.

 

[Malke]

Thanks for the tip. I didn't test using Fedora originally, but since
I have, there have been no issues. I went back into XP, ran system
file checker, installed new VIA drivers, and ran checkdisk (scandisk)
yesterday, and now I'll wait for another crash before reinstalling XP.
I also uninstalled the new zone alarm, since it's buggy and prevents
checkdisk from working.

Hope it all works out for you. Thanks for letting me know.

Malke