Major Crashes

[Guest]

I am experiencing a lot of crashes on one of my machines. The application and
Windows itself crashes without warning. This is not a system hang -- where
the screen freezes up. This is a sudden failure where the screen goes blank
and the power goes off.

Checking the Application logs in Event Viewer, I am getting a series of error
messages stating that Windows Security Center cannot establish connections
with third party Anti-Virus software and Firewall. Also errors that my
anti-spyware program is hanging.

I am using Windows firewall, not a third party program. I was using AVG
(free version) on this machine for months without a problem. I have been
using it on another machine for a year, and a third machine for several
years. All are running Win XP Pro SP2. I replaced AVG on the crashing machine
(my newest) with CA antivirus and I see the same problems. Also, on Windows
start, I get successive error messsages which say:

"Error caused by a device driver
Thank you for sending an error report to Microsoft.
Error report summary
Error type : Windows stop error (A message appears on a blue screen with
error code information)
Solution available? : No (see Next steps)
What does this error mean? : Windows has encountered an error from which it
cannot recover and needs to restart
Cause : Unknown device driver
Computer symptoms : A message appears on a blue screen with error code
information (for example: e.g. 0x0000001E, KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT_HANDLED)
Additional steps for you to take : Important: Please continue to send error
reports so analysts at Microsoft can study and try to correct the problem as
quickly as possible "

I just want to get my machine back to normal and working like all my other
computers, but I don't know what to do to make the Windows Security Center
behave. I don't want to repair the whole Windows installation, because that
means re-installing all the updates and hot fixes to SP2 and there are a lot
of them. Any ideas?

 

[LSCS]

Remove AVG and then reinstall a fresh copy.
That should solve the problem..

 

[Richard Urban]

I am experiencing a lot of crashes on one of my machines. The application
and
Windows itself crashes without warning. This is not a system hang -- where
the screen freezes up. This is a sudden failure where the screen goes
blank
and the power goes off.

This is indicative of a hardware crash and likely has nothing to do with
software or drivers.

It could be a problem in your computers power supply.

It could be that your CPU is overheating because of cooling fan failure.
Just because you hear a fan spinning does NOT mean that you do not have this
failure. There are likely 2, or more, fans in your computer (some have 4-5).
The only way to be certain is to open the case and physically see if all the
fans are spinning.

It could also be a failure in the system RAM.

If you are not comfortable servicing hardware problems, or lack the
expertise, tools and handy cabinet of spare parts (to substitute for
possible defective pieces of hardware), take your computer to a competent
P.C. repair shop.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!