Regedit crashing my PC?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Terry Pinnell
  • Start date Start date
T

Terry Pinnell

Suddenly, when I use regedit to search for anything, XP Home (SP1) is
rebooting itself after 10-20 seconds into the search. Just a black
screen and a reboot. Every time.

I'm not sure whether this is related to either
- upgrading my 512 MB to 1 GB recently
- updating my nvidia driver
- or neither

Can anyone suggest possible cause or how to isolate and fix please?
 
In XP, rebooting implies damaged hardware and/or drivers. It's more likely
the ram than the display driver. That would just blank the screen.
 
Will said:
I use regedt32 though I got no answer (when posed here) as to difference
between
regedit & regedt32. You might try it. Also you could try Live one care scan
which finds error in registry here:
http://safety.live.com/site/en-ca/center/cleanup.htm
Click to expand...

Thanks both. I am strongly beginning to suspect that the RAM 'upgrade'
is indeed the cause. (Which will mean I'm £60 UKP, $110 USD out of
pocket. So my next step will be to remove the 1 GB card and replace
the two 256K cards.

I've spent a couple of hours in vain trying other things:
- Restoring to several older registry versions, including one before
the RAM change.
- Cleaning up with CC Cleaner
- Running Spybot and Adaware (which I typically run weekly).
- Running chkdsk /f on my OS partition C:
- Staring at Event Viewer

Never had this fault before. Stopwatch shows the reboot is at about 45
seconds from starting the search. (FWIW, if I start a search for an
entry I know is present near the 'top', that is found OK.)

I'll swap the RAM and report back. Now getting desperate!

Is there possibly some setting in BIOS to do with RAM that I could try
changing? FWIW, the 1 GB RAM single card (which replaced the two old
256 K cards) is described as "DIMM 128MX64 DDR PC3200 184-PIN UNBUFF".
And my m/b is an ASUS A7A266-E.
 
Terry Pinnell said:
Thanks both. I am strongly beginning to suspect that the RAM 'upgrade'
is indeed the cause. (Which will mean I'm £60 UKP, $110 USD out of
pocket. So my next step will be to remove the 1 GB card and replace
the two 256K cards.

I've spent a couple of hours in vain trying other things:
- Restoring to several older registry versions, including one before
the RAM change.
- Cleaning up with CC Cleaner
- Running Spybot and Adaware (which I typically run weekly).
- Running chkdsk /f on my OS partition C:
- Staring at Event Viewer

Never had this fault before. Stopwatch shows the reboot is at about 45
seconds from starting the search. (FWIW, if I start a search for an
entry I know is present near the 'top', that is found OK.)

I'll swap the RAM and report back. Now getting desperate!

Is there possibly some setting in BIOS to do with RAM that I could try
changing? FWIW, the 1 GB RAM single card (which replaced the two old
256 K cards) is described as "DIMM 128MX64 DDR PC3200 184-PIN UNBUFF".
And my m/b is an ASUS A7A266-E.
Click to expand...

I swapped the RAM back, but still no joy! Have replaced the 1 GB.

FWIW, if I search for an entry like 'jasc', regedit finds me scores of
them (I have JASC Paintshop Pro 8) as usual, going well beyond a
minute or so before I close. But searching for say 'win31', crashes
every time.

Very much appreciate any further suggestions please.
 
I use regedt32 though I got no answer (when posed here) as to difference
between
regedit & regedt32.
Click to expand...

In Windows XP, *ALL* Regedt32.exe does is *OPEN* Regedit.exe.

[[Regedt32.exe
In Windows XP and Windows Server 2003, Regedt32.exe is a small
program that just runs Regedit.exe. ]]
From...
Differences Between Regedit.exe and Regedt32.exe
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/141377

[[NOTE: In Windows XP, Regedit.exe and Regedt32.exe have been integrated
into a single program that combines the features of the two registry editors
in Windows 2000. ]]
From...
"16 Bit MS-DOS Subsystem" Error Message When You Install a Program
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314452

Try this.

Start | Run | Type: Regedt32 | Click OK |
Regedit.exe opens.
Leave it open.

Open the Task Manager, Ctrl + Shift + Esc.
On the Applications tab, right click Registry Editor and select Go To
Process.
Processes tab opens with regedit.exe highlighted.
Now look for Regedt32.exe under the Processes tab, you won't find it.

In Windows XP, *ALL* Regedt32.exe does is *OPEN* Regedit.exe.

That's why Regedt32.exe is only 3,584 bytes and regedit.exe is 134,144
bytes.

Regedt32.exe is in System32 and Regedit.exe is not, it's in WINDOWS.

--
Hope this helps. Let us know.

Wes
MS-MVP Windows Shell/User

In
 
You are never going to boot the system with a registry glitch, you are going
to get a blue screen at worst. If you want to think it's something besides
broken hardware or drivers, it's ok by me.
 
Mark L. Ferguson said:
You are never going to boot the system with a registry glitch, you are going
to get a blue screen at worst. If you want to think it's something besides
broken hardware or drivers, it's ok by me.
Click to expand...

Hmm, why get so sniffy?

But hey, if you want to think you're omniscient, it's ok by me.
 
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