Windows XP Hardware crashes

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SchoolTech

I have 3 machines more or less identical hardware. One crashes a lot
more than the other two. When it does Windows puts up a message at
startup saying "The system has recovered from a serious error".

Is there any way to find out the information on the STOP error that I
presume caused the computer to shut down?
 
SchoolTech said:
I have 3 machines more or less identical hardware. One crashes a lot
more than the other two. When it does Windows puts up a message at
startup saying "The system has recovered from a serious error".

Is there any way to find out the information on the STOP error that I
presume caused the computer to shut down?
Click to expand...

See "Windows XP Restarts Unexpectedly or Restarts When You Shut Down
the Computer" (http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=320299).
 
SchoolTech said:
I have 3 machines more or less identical hardware. One crashes a lot
more than the other two. When it does Windows puts up a message at
startup saying "The system has recovered from a serious error".

Is there any way to find out the information on the STOP error that I
presume caused the computer to shut down?
Click to expand...

Could be a number of things.
My other PC crashed regularly right from the day I got it brand new. It
took at 4 trips back to store to get them to check it out for a lot longer
than just 2 minutes after reinstalling XP each time, plus a perfectly good
new hard drive. The fault turned out to be a faulty stick of RAM. It has 2
512MB sticks of RAM in it. Finally when they got round on the last visit to
try one stick at a time, they found the fault at long last. With the faulty
stick of RAM replaced it's been faultless ever since.

Only when someone checks it out properly will the cause of the fault
actually be found.

E. Scrooge
 
I have 3 machines more or less identical hardware. One crashes a lot
more than the other two. When it does Windows puts up a message at
startup saying "The system has recovered from a serious error".

Is there any way to find out the information on the STOP error that I
presume caused the computer to shut down?
Click to expand...

If the PC is rebooting (no time to see the STOP message), change that
option in the System Properties, Advanced tab, Startup and Recovery
(uncheck the "Automatically Reboot" option).

The first two lines are important - if you can copy that info down. You
can Google that info - and probably get pretty good results. If it
looks like hardware and it's under warranty - get it back to the shop.
If it looks like drivers, use the Windows driver stress testing tool to
try and determine which driver.

Ideally, it's good to get the complete STOP screen - a digital camera is
ideal for this.
 
Windows driver stress testing tool
Click to expand...

Ok, where is that ?

--

.... Brendan

This is the exciting part.
This is like the Supremes
see the way it builds up?
Feel it?

Note: All my comments are copyright 6/02/2005 12:03:06 p.m. and are opinion only where not otherwise stated and always "to the best of my recollection". www.computerman.orcon.net.nz.
 
E. Scrooge said:
Could be a number of things.
My other PC crashed regularly right from the day I got it brand new. It
took at 4 trips back to store to get them to check it out for a lot longer
than just 2 minutes after reinstalling XP each time, plus a perfectly good
new hard drive. The fault turned out to be a faulty stick of RAM. It has 2
512MB sticks of RAM in it. Finally when they got round on the last visit to
try one stick at a time, they found the fault at long last. With the faulty
stick of RAM replaced it's been faultless ever since.

Only when someone checks it out properly will the cause of the fault
actually be found.
Click to expand...

A run of MEMTEST86 would have easily found that, as it did with one of
our other PCs that turned out to have faulty memory. This machine used
to have Windows 98 running and, as far as I can tell, ran it quite stably.

I turned it on the other morning and a message came up about having
recovered a registry file from a backup. The power supply has been
changed without an apparent improvement so I would be guessing hard
drive or memory as other possibilities.
 
T-Boy said:
If the PC is rebooting (no time to see the STOP message), change that
option in the System Properties, Advanced tab, Startup and Recovery
(uncheck the "Automatically Reboot" option).

The first two lines are important - if you can copy that info down. You
can Google that info - and probably get pretty good results. If it
looks like hardware and it's under warranty - get it back to the shop.
Click to expand...

Ah no - it's a Celeron 700, 4 years old, Asus CUW_RM
If it looks like drivers, use the Windows driver stress testing tool to
try and determine which driver.
Click to expand...

Where do I find this tool?
 
SchoolTech said:
A run of MEMTEST86 would have easily found that, as it did with one of our
other PCs that turned out to have faulty memory. This machine used to have
Windows 98 running and, as far as I can tell, ran it quite stably.

I turned it on the other morning and a message came up about having
recovered a registry file from a backup. The power supply has been changed
without an apparent improvement so I would be guessing hard drive or
memory as other possibilities.
Click to expand...

Funny that. As both sticks of DDR RAM tested fine, yet one was obviously
causing the crashing. Running benchmark software to load things up is a
real test for the hardware. With a Gig of RAM very little of it is actually
used for most things, it runs just as well doing most things with 512MB RAM.
It's only at an idle right now.

Since you've got more than one PC, swapping the RAM over would prove if it's
the RAM or not. Making sure all the drivers are up to date is another easy
step.

E. Scrooge
 
Ah no - it's a Celeron 700, 4 years old, Asus CUW_RM


Where do I find this tool?
Click to expand...

Start, Run, verifier - or from a command prompt w' /? - as it has a
number of options that could be useful.

Have you spotted anything useful in the Event logs? - Eventid.net is a
good site to drop in event log ID's to search on.
 
Ok, where is that ?
Click to expand...

Verifier.exe - W2k and XP AFAIK. OK, it can be a bit limited in its
usefulness (it sure helps to know the suspect driver beforehand). For
eg. I've found if you load *all* drivers to test/verify/stress - a
(possible) BSOD can be quite misleading. There's a bit of info about it
on MS if you wish to search.
 
Funny that. As both sticks of DDR RAM tested fine, yet one was obviously
causing the crashing. Running benchmark software to load things up is a
real test for the hardware. With a Gig of RAM very little of it is actually
used for most things, it runs just as well doing most things with 512MB RAM.
It's only at an idle right now.
Click to expand...

In disneyland again huh. Benchmarking *won't* (generally) test all the
RAM - it's not designed to. Any decent RAM testing tool *will* test
near all the RAM - as that's what it does, step through all the
available free RAM (and off a DOS boot disk, that's most of it). And if
you have two RAM sticks onboard (or more) then swapping RAM and
retesting guarantees you've tested *all* RAM (even that used booting DOS
given the sticks have been swapped).
Since you've got more than one PC, swapping the RAM over would prove if it's
the RAM or not. Making sure all the drivers are up to date is another easy
step.
Click to expand...

It has been mentioned that the PC was stable under 98. So rather than
make blind stabs in the dark about RAM (*your* PC experience), it's
best, IMO, to always test hardware by swapping suspect componentry into
a known good system. eg. The PSU has been replaced - but the
replacement *could* be bad too.

In short, your advice to date is very poor (you might be *right* - it
*might* be the RAM) but your advice and technique (as usual) is flawed -
chances are you're leading SchoolTech up the garden path.
 
Verifier.exe - W2k and XP AFAIK. OK, it can be a bit limited in its
usefulness (it sure helps to know the suspect driver beforehand). For
eg. I've found if you load *all* drivers to test/verify/stress - a
(possible) BSOD can be quite misleading. There's a bit of info about it
on MS if you wish to search.
Click to expand...

Thanks.

--

.... Brendan

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Love is the law, love under will." -- Aleister Crowley

Note: All my comments are copyright 9/02/2005 12:56:20 a.m. and are opinion only where not otherwise stated and always "to the best of my recollection". www.computerman.orcon.net.nz.
 
T-Boy said:
Start, Run, verifier - or from a command prompt w' /? - as it has a
number of options that could be useful.

Have you spotted anything useful in the Event logs? - Eventid.net is a
good site to drop in event log ID's to search on.
Click to expand...

System Error 0x0...0A
equivalent to STOP 0x0....0A
IRQL something something

The system made 38 faultfree passes of Memtest86 over 20 hours
continuous running, overnight.

It has been fairly warm, guess I could check the CPU temp next. We had
one machine in a classroom that made this continuous tone from the
speaker when the CPU got to 70 C. I changed the CPU fan and heatsink but
it still gets to 64 C , it's a K6/2 350
 
T-Boy said:
In disneyland again huh. Benchmarking *won't* (generally) test all the
RAM - it's not designed to. Any decent RAM testing tool *will* test
near all the RAM - as that's what it does, step through all the
available free RAM (and off a DOS boot disk, that's most of it). And if
you have two RAM sticks onboard (or more) then swapping RAM and
retesting guarantees you've tested *all* RAM (even that used booting DOS
given the sticks have been swapped).




It has been mentioned that the PC was stable under 98. So rather than
make blind stabs in the dark about RAM (*your* PC experience), it's
best, IMO, to always test hardware by swapping suspect componentry into
a known good system. eg. The PSU has been replaced - but the
replacement *could* be bad too.
Click to expand...

It had 64 MB of PC 133. The other 128MB was put in at the same time that
it was upgraded to XP.

It has the original PSU back in after taking out the new one.
 
SchoolTech said:
It had 64 MB of PC 133. The other 128MB was put in at the same time that
it was upgraded to XP.

It has the original PSU back in after taking out the new one.
Click to expand...

Hard to tell how far you've gone with upgrades on old PCs. The best upgrade
would've been to completely replace the things. And you wouldn't need the
best PCs on the market to notice a big improvement from what you've been
playing round with. New systems don't cost a lot these days.
PCs are upgradable but there comes a time when adding parts to old PCs just
aren't worth it compared to getting an entirely new system. In another 10
years or even less, people will be better off with new systems if they
really need them instead of trying to upgrade what will be a very basic PC
by then.

Your PCs either have video cards or they don't? Very little about the full
specs and age of the PCs in your original post. If they're using shared
video off the main memory then get some basic video cards for them. You
need all the memory you've got (which doesn't sound like very much) just to
run the things with XP, without worrying about sharing some of the memory to
run the display as well.

E. Scrooge
 
It had 64 MB of PC 133. The other 128MB was put in at the same time that
it was upgraded to XP.

It has the original PSU back in after taking out the new one.
Click to expand...

As slow as it's going to be - you should run up the PC on the 64Mb RAM
/and then 128 RAM - see how it goes under both those situations. If
you're getting crashes *only* while *both* RAM is loaded - well, it's
not rocket science is it :)

Your STOP info points to illegally addressed RAM - another hint on the
RAM.

BTW, this may not be bad RAM, but incompatability amoung the RAM you
have. Perhaps you can borrow a 256Mb stick of SDRAM and try it out? Or
even purchase on trademe or a 2nd hand shop (new price on say Tastech,
is $80 incls GST for "Generic PC133, 256Mb").

Have you checked out the Event Log yet?
 
System Error 0x0...0A
equivalent to STOP 0x0....0A
IRQL something something
Click to expand...

See other reply - but FYI...

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/e
n-us/prmd_stp_xbsx.asp

The system made 38 faultfree passes of Memtest86 over 20 hours
continuous running, overnight.

It has been fairly warm, guess I could check the CPU temp next. We had
one machine in a classroom that made this continuous tone from the
speaker when the CPU got to 70 C. I changed the CPU fan and heatsink but
it still gets to 64 C , it's a K6/2 350
Click to expand...

I'd like to hear others opinions - but 70C and above is, IMO, gettin' up
there! Especially for the CPU you have - they shouldn't run that hot.
You might be able to drop the temp down *heaps* by remounting the CPU
with thermal heat paste (it's worked for me a few times - though I've
only done about five overheating problems in the last two years). On
that, if you have the case off and the PC up n' running, how hot is the
PSU (just in general "touch hot" terms) ???

Only other thing I can think of re hot CPU, check the voltage settings,
bus speed and multiplier settings (that's mobo dependent of course).
 
T-Boy said:
As slow as it's going to be - you should run up the PC on the 64Mb RAM
/and then 128 RAM - see how it goes under both those situations. If
you're getting crashes *only* while *both* RAM is loaded - well, it's
not rocket science is it :)

Your STOP info points to illegally addressed RAM - another hint on the
RAM.

BTW, this may not be bad RAM, but incompatability amoung the RAM you
have. Perhaps you can borrow a 256Mb stick of SDRAM and try it out? Or
even purchase on trademe or a 2nd hand shop (new price on say Tastech,
is $80 incls GST for "Generic PC133, 256Mb").

Have you checked out the Event Log yet?
Click to expand...

You're now suggesting it's possibly a RAM problem?
**** sake you're a real prize after going on about me for suggesting that it
could possibly be a RAM problem.

E. Scrooge
 
i aggree with the possible RAM issue, but i'm concerned about the heat
issue.
my AMD 2 ghz , 768 DDR, on a Gigabyte board, is in the hottest room in the
house and has been running non-stop (short about 12 reboots) for a year now,
and it maintains 32c.

also, have you checked the event logs?


--
EasyFeelings
A+
MCP
MCSA

"When your computer is working good, That's an EasyFeeling"
 
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