intermittent crashes - opening resulting core dump crashes the mac

[Guest]

Hi.

One of my users is on a local OEM box. He's been having issues with
intermittent hard crashes; he'll be doing something and then the interface
freezes (ie mouse won't move on the screen), the screen goes black and the
machine reboots. WHen it comes back up, the system reports that it recovered
from a serious error and offers to send a core dump to MS.
This happens about 5-10 minutes into editing a Word document, and sometimes
while using various other programs. Interestingly, I can get the crash to
reliably recurr if I open one of the core dump files in Microsoft Visual
Studio (apparently the default application for these types of files.)
I figured it was a hardware configuration bug just because the machine would
essentially cut power and reboot rather than giving me a blue screen, but the
fact that I can cause the issue to recurr by opening a core dump file makes
me think something else is going on, maybe something viral. The user HAS
been running files back and forth from home using a USB key - a known virus
transmission vector. However, I have already run AVG virus scanner, SpyBot
S+D, and Microsoft Defender; none of which found anything. I also ran
Hijackthis! and did not see anything suspicious.
Bad power supply?
Active rootkit?
Microsoft Word virus?
Did somebody smear donuts all over the motherboard?
Any ideas? My next move is to reimage the whole thing - anybody who could
save me the required 6 hours is a champ.

Thanks!

 

[MowGreen [MVP]]

You left off - Bad memory
Suggest testing the memory overnight to rule that out first -
http://www.memtest.org/

If the memory isn't the culprit then check the App Event logs if
Word/Office is suspect as to it's trustworthiness.

Yikes !! It would be best to have the USB device scanned by an AV prior
to allowing it to access any system on the network.


MowGreen [MVP 2003-2007]
===============
*-343-* FDNY
Never Forgotten
===============

 

[Guest]

You left off - Bad memory
Suggest testing the memory overnight to rule that out first -
http://www.memtest.org/

Yep, memory has about a dozen errors. Thanks for the tip! I'll add that to
my tool kit...

Thanks!

 

[MowGreen [MVP]]

You're welcome, Pete. In situations such as you described I check the
memory first. That's *if* my memory is functioning correctly

MowGreen [MVP 2003-2007]
===============
*-343-* FDNY
Never Forgotten
===============