Help debug BSOD on XP SP2

[Gary Fritz]

My old XP desktop started getting a BSOD just about the time I got a new
laptop. Which was good timing, but I've decided I need to figure out how
to resurrect the thing. I'm not having any luck tracking down the cause.

Symptoms: system powers up, goes through the Windows splash screen, then
BSOD's just before it would display the login page. BSOD says it is an
INTERNAL_POWER_ERROR, ***STOP: 000000A0 (0x00000101, 0x00000007,
0xBA517764, 0x00000000). (And naturally some of the later numbers change
each time.)

I can run the system in "safe mode with networking" but it's not usable
in that state.

Googling on INTERNAL_POWER_ERROR didn't get me any solutions.

I can't turn on minidumps because that requires the Alerter service, and
that won't run in Safe mode. Most of the other debugging techniques I
tried also wouldn't work in Safe mode.

I replaced the mobo battery -- no improvement.

I don't have a clean XP install CD so I can't do an in-place reinstall.

This is an eMachines T3512. See
http://www.emachines.com/support/product_support.html?
cat=Desktops&subcat=T%20Series&model=T3512 for product details.

Help???
Gary

 

[Kelly]

Wireless keyboard? If so, scroll down for suggestions:

http://communities.vmware.com/threa...6D571357605CF439632455A3F3C0?tstart=0&start=0

And: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314118

--

All the Best,
Kelly (MS-MVP/DTS&XP)

Taskbar Repair Tool Plus!
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/taskbarplus!.htm

SupportSpace
www.supportspace.com/pages?aiu=kellyskorner

 

[Gary Fritz]

Nope, USB. (Through a KVM but I doubt that's an issue.)

In fact I'm pretty sure it's not any periphs at all. I removed every
single peripheral and every PCI card, the CD burner, the keyboard and
mouse, even the monitor (!), and it still BSODs in normal mode. With
*nothing* but the mobo and C:.

Gary

 

[Unknown]

Long shot but worth a try. Remove all but one module of memory. Then if
failure occurs swap module. Best bet is try
another power supply.

 

[Gary Fritz]

I isolated the problem. It was a VMware keyboard driver. See
http://communities.vmware.com/thread/85731

Most of the people in that thread had wireless bluetooth keyboards, and
could unplug them during bootup to avoid the problem. Unplugging
anything didn't help me. But the last post in that thread had a
solution: change the load order of keyboard drivers in a registry entry.
I made that simple change, and shazam! Everything is happy now.

Gary