Vista Crashes every 5 minutes

[Billy]

Ever since the most recent hotfix from Microsoft on 2/6/2008, my Windows
Vista Home Premium has been freezing, then crashing. The screen gets
pixelated with purple boxes and then everything freezes up and I have to
reboot the computer. At first, the crash was much less frequent, around
every 2 hours or so. Then today, it was every time I booted the computer.
I'm writing this in Safe Mode, which apparently doesn't crash the computer.
I've run virus scans with AVG, spyware/malware scans with Adware and Spybot S
& D. Also, when I looked into the Event Viewer for info on the crashes, it
was for a different reason everytime.

Originally I assumed it was the video driver failing because on many
occasions, when I rebooted the computer, it would go to a tiny 640 x 480
resolution. But after uninstalling and reinstalling the video driver, the
crashes still happened.

What is going on?

Computer specs:
Windows Vista Home Premium
HP Pavilion dv2500 Notebook PC
Intel Core 2 Duo PC T7300@ 2 GHz
2 GB RAM
32-bit Operating System
Nvidia NB8M-GS

 

[philo]

Ever since the most recent hotfix from Microsoft on 2/6/2008, my Windows
Vista Home Premium has been freezing, then crashing. The screen gets
pixelated with purple boxes and then everything freezes up and I have to
reboot the computer. At first, the crash was much less frequent, around
every 2 hours or so. Then today, it was every time I booted the computer.
I'm writing this in Safe Mode, which apparently doesn't crash the computer.
I've run virus scans with AVG, spyware/malware scans with Adware and Spybot S
& D. Also, when I looked into the Event Viewer for info on the crashes, it
was for a different reason everytime.

Originally I assumed it was the video driver failing because on many
occasions, when I rebooted the computer, it would go to a tiny 640 x 480
resolution. But after uninstalling and reinstalling the video driver, the
crashes still happened.

What is going on?

Computer specs:
Windows Vista Home Premium
HP Pavilion dv2500 Notebook PC
Intel Core 2 Duo PC T7300@ 2 GHz
2 GB RAM
32-bit Operating System
Nvidia NB8M-GS

Can you boot to safe mode and uninstall the hotfix
or perform a system restore to a date prior to the day you installed it?

 

[iacy]

Hopefully you can use system restore to go back to a point before the update
was installed.
If not, and if you dual boot to XP Microsoft decided to punish you by
deleting Vista restore points (one of the nastiest deliberate decisions ever
made by any software company ever), you may be able to selectively delete
the last update.
Otherwise, if you must reinstall an OS, take this opportunity to avail
yourself of XP and totally trash Vista. XP has its issues but is superior to
Vista in every way. You may actually be able to use all the programs you own
and might find that XP drivers for your peripherals include functions you
never knew were there (and never will be under Vista).

 

[Billy]

I have tried locating the Hotfix, but apparently I can't find it. The update
History has it listed as "Hotfix for Windows (KB936003)". Yet when I go to
uninstall it, I cannot find it. I have also tried to System restore to
2/5/2008, but the problem does not go away.

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

Rightclick the Command prompt icon on the start menu, and click 'run as
administrator'. At the prompt, type:
systeminfo
This will tell you what hotfixes are present, for sure.

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Mark L. Ferguson

..

 

[AlexB]

You are a scounderl, a deliberate scoundrel to say that it was a deliberate
decision.

It was a bug, and you know it.

Other people should read this:

No restore points are available when you use Windows Vista or Windows Server
2008 in a dual-boot configuration together with an earlier Windows operating
system

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926185

How to Stop System Restore Points from being Deleted in Vista when Dual
Booting with XP

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/127417-system-restore-points-stop-xp-dual-boot-delete.html

This post demonstrate unscrupulous tactics of malware writers who are
reeling from Vista's security ann want to discredit it.

 

[Ian D]

Ever since the most recent hotfix from Microsoft on 2/6/2008, my Windows
Vista Home Premium has been freezing, then crashing. The screen gets
pixelated with purple boxes and then everything freezes up and I have to
reboot the computer. At first, the crash was much less frequent, around
every 2 hours or so. Then today, it was every time I booted the computer.
I'm writing this in Safe Mode, which apparently doesn't crash the
computer.
I've run virus scans with AVG, spyware/malware scans with Adware and
Spybot S
& D. Also, when I looked into the Event Viewer for info on the crashes,
it
was for a different reason everytime.

Originally I assumed it was the video driver failing because on many
occasions, when I rebooted the computer, it would go to a tiny 640 x 480
resolution. But after uninstalling and reinstalling the video driver, the
crashes still happened.

What is going on?

Computer specs:
Windows Vista Home Premium
HP Pavilion dv2500 Notebook PC
Intel Core 2 Duo PC T7300@ 2 GHz
2 GB RAM
32-bit Operating System
Nvidia NB8M-GS

Did you download and install the latest version of directX? It could
also be due to an overheading video card. The pixelating and
freezing are symptoms of that.When running in safe mode the card is
not using hardware acceleration, and less subjected to heating. I
assume you checked to make sure your video card fan is working
and clear of dust along with the GPU and video memory heat sinks.

 

[Billy]

I've had DirectX 10 for a long time. I'll check on the overheating, but
since this is a labtop, that'll be difficult. I have no clue where the GPU
and video memory sink is and how to check whether or not they're free of dust.

 

[philo]

I've had DirectX 10 for a long time. I'll check on the overheating, but
since this is a labtop, that'll be difficult. I have no clue where the GPU
and video memory sink is and how to check whether or not they're free of dust.

I don't think anyone here knew it was a laptop...
that's a whole different story. Working on a laptop is closer to watch
repair
than it is to computer repair...so you should not be opening it up...

However, you should be able to tell at least if the cooling fan is
working...
It generally will run from time to time...
so if it seems quieter than usual...there could be an overheating problem...

 

[Billy]

The cooling fan is always running. Also I got some software to tell me what
my computer temperatures were and they were consistently hanging around 60 -
70 Celsius on idle. It would rise above that if I were to do anything CPU
intensive. Is this overheating?

 

[Billy]

The CPU temperature rises quickly to 80 - 90 C once I even load anything. I
think overheating is my problem.

 

[Ian D]

The CPU temperature rises quickly to 80 - 90 C once I even load anything.
I
think overheating is my problem.

Laptops are prone to overheating due to dust clogging. The underside fans
act like vacuum cleaners. It's pretty hard to clean them without removing
the case bottom, but you could try a can of compressed air to see if that
may loosen some. I didn't know there were laptops with DX10 capable
video cards on-board. What make/model is it?

 

[Billy]

My laptop is a HP Pavilion dv2514tx model with a Nvidia DB8M-GS card. (8400)
It came with DirectX 10. But apparently overheating is not the issue, it
just crashed again recently and Windows blamed the card for crashing.

 

[Ian D]

My laptop is a HP Pavilion dv2514tx model with a Nvidia DB8M-GS card.
(8400)
It came with DirectX 10. But apparently overheating is not the issue, it
just crashed again recently and Windows blamed the card for crashing.

Sounds like the video card is overheating. As I said earlier, the
pixelating is a classic sign of video card overheating. Have you
checked its temperature? It must still be under warranty. In any
case, here's the service manual with disassembly/reassembly
instructions.

http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c01295820.pdf

 

[AlexB]

Post the last error messages from the Event Viewer.

 

[forty-nine]

My laptop is a HP Pavilion dv2514tx model with a Nvidia DB8M-GS card.
(8400)
It came with DirectX 10. But apparently overheating is not the issue, it
just crashed again recently and Windows blamed the card for crashing.

You got a shitty HP...should have got a Dell XPS lappy.
You got what you paid for...serious gaming laps are close to 2
grand...anything less....is less.