ALT+PrintScreen and CTRL+V causes reboot

[steve.c.w]

A user was having an issue today with performing a screenshot of the
active window via alt+printscreen key combination. He would take the
screen shot then attempt to paste it into the body of an outlook 2003
email message. Upon hitting ctrl+v to paste the screenshot the system
would reboot. The problem has seem to either gone away or fixed itself.
I'm interested in ideas as to what could cause this. I've included the
system information below.

Dell GX150
Windows XP SP2 Patched as of 4/5/06
McAfee Enterprise Anti-Virus

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

A user was having an issue today with performing a screenshot of the
active window via alt+printscreen key combination. He would take the
screen shot then attempt to paste it into the body of an outlook 2003
email message. Upon hitting ctrl+v to paste the screenshot the system
would reboot. The problem has seem to either gone away or fixed itself.
I'm interested in ideas as to what could cause this.

Why didn't you disable the automatic restart in order to obtain an error
message instead. http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb;en-us;320299

 

[steve.c.w]

I was not aware of this. Thank you for the link.

 

[Detlev Dreyer]

I was not aware of this. Thank you for the link.

You're certainly welcome.

 

[paulmd]

A user was having an issue today with performing a screenshot of the
active window via alt+printscreen key combination. He would take the
screen shot then attempt to paste it into the body of an outlook 2003
email message. Upon hitting ctrl+v to paste the screenshot the system
would reboot. The problem has seem to either gone away or fixed itself.
I'm interested in ideas as to what could cause this. I've included the
system information below.

Dell GX150
Windows XP SP2 Patched as of 4/5/06
McAfee Enterprise Anti-Virus

I would go through the usual BSOD troubleshooting routine.

Make sure all fans are spinning.
Make sure the computer is free of dust.

If it's all good, then it could be one or more of the following:

Bad memory
Bad hard disk
Bad video card
Bad CD (maybe)

Then take a look at the motherboard for bulged/leaking capicitors.

After that, bad SOMETHING else hardware.

As this seemed to be triggered by a keystroke, then bad keyboard or bad
ps/2. (unlikely)

 

[steve.c.w]

The problem has stopped unexpectedly. Seemingly on its own . I hope
it pops up again so I can get to the bottom of the cause.

I can't remember where but I read about the Clipboard cache being
corrupted and causing strange behavior.

 

[steve.c.w]

An update. The system is rebooting again. I narrowed it down to trying
to copy and paste images into outlook.

The system is perfectly fine in every other way. I think it's software
and not hardware.

A workaround seems to be enabling word as the email editor. This adds
over head, which is not a good thing for a PC with 1GHz P3!