Need help fixing unstable system

[Sharon Guthrie]

Hi, first here is my current configuration, then I'll tell you what my
problem is.

AMD Athlon XP2000+ processor, 1.67 ghz
512Mb ram
Nvidia GeForce 4 TI 4600 video card, 512Mb video ram
WinXP Home edition, SP1 plus a bunch of update patches
Directx 9.0b
Nvidia detonator 44.67 video driver
Media player version 9.0

Late last summer my system started flaking out and crashing. I first
thought it was software problems, so I browsed the Microsoft Update
site, and that's where I picked up the variety of update patches. (I
had installed SP1 about a year prior with no major problems.) The
problem got worse until it finally became obvious that my RAM was
dying. I replaced the ram and that fixed the problem for the most
part.

However, since then my system still crashes when I try to run The Sims
or when playing DVD movies in Media Player. It's fairly stable as
long as I don't do those video-intensive things. That tells me it's
some sort of video problem. I asked for advice on guru3d.com.
Someone suggested I upgrade to the current versions of directx and
nvidia drivers. (I was at directx 8.0 at the time.) Of course that
didn't help and AFTER I had already done it, someone else posted that
older video cards like mine don't work well with Directx 9.0b. And I
saw where it says you cannot un-install directx 9.0b. Doh!

I'm now at a point where I'm pretty sure I have a good version of the
video driver. I don't know what's the best next step to take, though,
which is why I post here. SHould I attempt to remove the directx and
reinstall 8.0? Should I attempt to remove all those sundry update
patches (leaving SP1 of course)? Should I wipe the machine and
install everything from scratch?
Basically I'm still not quite sure what's crashing my system, although
I have it narrowed down to those three possibilities. I'd rather not
wipe-and-reinstall if I don't have to, but I can certainly do that if
you think my system is pretty well hosed.

- Sharon, limping along with this box

 

[Microsoft Video Driver OCA Triage]

Sharon,
Your video card should work perfectly fine with DX9.0b I would try the new
drivers from nVidia and see if they fix your problem. If you crash again
please send us the contents of your "minidump" directory in your Windows
directory.
Here is a link to nVidia's latest drivers:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_53.03
Please let me know if this works for you.....
Also if you don't have your most up-to-date AGP drivers installed you should
get them from your motherboard manufacture and install them. Not having
up-to-date AGP drivers has been known to cause a ton of problems for users
with ATI and nVidia cards.
Thanks,
Aaron C. Smith
Microsoft Video Driver OCA Triage
(e-mail address removed)
* This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.

 

[Sharon Guthrie]

Sharon,
Your video card should work perfectly fine with DX9.0b I would try the new
drivers from nVidia and see if they fix your problem. If you crash again
please send us the contents of your "minidump" directory in your Windows
directory.
Here is a link to nVidia's latest drivers:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_2k_53.03
Please let me know if this works for you.....
Also if you don't have your most up-to-date AGP drivers installed you should
get them from your motherboard manufacture and install them. Not having
up-to-date AGP drivers has been known to cause a ton of problems for users
with ATI and nVidia cards.
Thanks,
Aaron C. Smith

Aaron, thanks for posting to help. I tried the 53.03 driver and it
made my system crash more often, like every 3 minutes or so. Not
regularly like that, but you get my drift. I backed off to the
current version and it's much better.
Silly question perhaps, but what are AGP drivers? I'm searching the
MSI site for drivers to download (my system has a KT333chipset based
mainboard from MSI) and have only found bios and something called a
4-in-1 driver. MSI's website is fairly poor, the descriptions of the
drivers are very - shall we say, spare? Is the 4-in-1 what I want?
I can post the text from my event log also, if that will help
diagnose the problem. Is there anything else I'm forgetting to
mention?

- Sharon

 

[Microsoft Video Driver OCA Triage]

Yes Sharon the 4-in-1 drivers are what you want....
AGP = Accelerated Graphics Port
AGP is the interface the your graphics card uses to work in your system.
Thanks,
Aaron C. Smith
Microsoft Video Driver OCA Triage
(e-mail address removed)
* This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.

 

[Sharon Guthrie]

Yes Sharon the 4-in-1 drivers are what you want....
AGP = Accelerated Graphics Port
AGP is the interface the your graphics card uses to work in your system.
Thanks,
Aaron C. Smith

Ok, I updated my 4-in-1 drivers last week. The problem persists.

If you crash again please send us the contents of your "minidump"

directory in >your Windows directory.

When you say "send us" can you be more specific? Do I need to sign
up for MS support in order to do this? Or should I email the dump to
you? (I know better than to post a binary file to usenet. Heh.)

THanks again! Sharon

 

[Sharon Guthrie]

Ok, I updated my 4-in-1 drivers last week. The problem persists.

directory in >your Windows directory.

When you say "send us" can you be more specific? Do I need to sign
up for MS support in order to do this? Or should I email the dump to
you? (I know better than to post a binary file to usenet. Heh.)

Argh, this problem is so frustrating. Can anyone offer some help? I
was just watching a DVD in Media Player, version 9. Nothing else
running on the system. When I let the system send the crash report to
MS, it just tells me it's some unknown problem likely caused by a
device driver. Here's the text from my event log on the last crash:

"Error code 0000009b, parameter1 0014022e, parameter2 ed382094,
parameter3 ed381d94, parameter4 80533d59.
For more information, see Help and Support Center at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp."

This was logged in the system events, and there was nothing in the
applications events that coincided.

If I need to pay for MS support that's fine as long as they have a fix
other than "wipe the disk and reinstall". I don't mind doing THAT
either, but don't want to pay someone to tell me to do that. I hope
you all understand...?

Sharon

 

[Microsoft Video Driver OCA Triage]

Sharon,
I think Aaron forgot to flag this thread as follow-up and missed your
last two messages. Sorry about that. There is no need to sign up for MS
Support. Compose an e-mail with part of this thread in the body and attach
to the e-mail the minidumps located in c:\windows\minidump. Aaron or I will
analyze the dumps and get back to you with our analysis. Hopefully will be
able to help narrow down what your problem is now that your video and agp
drivers are up to date.

--
Thanks,
Lance Naugle
Microsoft Video Driver OCA Triage
(e-mail address removed)
* This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.