XP hard crashes after a varying amount of time

[Jacob]

I have a very strange problem that I have spent some
money and a great amount of time trying to fix. When I am
playing a game, watching a video, or doing basically
anything with my PC, after an amount of time...my system
crashes so hard that the only way to restart it is to hit
the reset or power button! I have Windows Home w/ SP1 and
all of the latest patches that I can find, the newest
drivers for my video,sound,Motherboard drivers,etc. I
also have checked my power supply and DirectX install. I
found something strange about my 9.0b directx
though...one of the drivers is not signed or not
available, but when I try to reinstall DX, it doesn't
overwrite this program or driver. the driver is the
dplaysvr.exe, it is found in the windows/system32 folder
on the root C: drive. what the heck is this file? is this
the cause of my strange crashing? any help would be much
appreciated. also, to be clear about the extreme nature
of my system crashes, when the system dies, a screeching
sound is heard from my speakers. a high pitched
beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep or buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuzz. . no
idea what that is caused by either.

 

[Gerry]

Does the problem happen after the computer has been on for
a little while? If so, it might be a heat related
problem. Check and make sure all your internal fans are
working including power supply fan and that computer has
sufficient air flow around it.
Another possibility is that you may have a memory chip
going bad. A problem like this is difficult to isolate.
If the first suggestion doesn't help, try removing all
your memory dimms/simms except the bare minimal (example
if you have 512 megs of ram, take out all except 128 megs
worth) Run the computer for awhile and see if the same
thing happens. Then replace additional simms/dimms one by
one. As I said earlier, this can be a difficult problem
to isolate. Good luck on your troubleshooting. Hope one
of these suggestions helps.

 

[Guest]

-----Original Message-----
Does the problem happen after the computer has been on for
a little while? If so, it might be a heat related
problem. Check and make sure all your internal fans are
working including power supply fan and that computer has
sufficient air flow around it.
Another possibility is that you may have a memory chip
going bad. A problem like this is difficult to isolate.
If the first suggestion doesn't help, try removing all
your memory dimms/simms except the bare minimal (example
if you have 512 megs of ram, take out all except 128 megs
worth) Run the computer for awhile and see if the same
thing happens. Then replace additional simms/dimms one by
one. As I said earlier, this can be a difficult problem
to isolate. Good luck on your troubleshooting. Hope one
of these suggestions helps.




.
hey Gerry, thx for the tips on the memory...I haven't

tried that yet but I have a hardware monitor that came w/
my Motherboard...and the temp. seems to be ok. I also
have a Enermax high quality Power Supply...so I sure hope
it isn't that either(cost me quite a bit). I will try the
memory sticks and see if one is bad. one other thing is
that it seems to run pretty ok 'til I play a video on
Windows Media or play a game. weird huh?

 

[gls858]

-----Original Message-----

tried that yet but I have a hardware monitor that came w/
my Motherboard...and the temp. seems to be ok. I also
have a Enermax high quality Power Supply...so I sure hope
it isn't that either(cost me quite a bit). I will try the
memory sticks and see if one is bad. one other thing is
that it seems to run pretty ok 'til I play a video on
Windows Media or play a game. weird huh?

If you are going to check your memory this might be helpful.
Saw it on techtv this morning. It's free from MS.
http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/downloadoftheday/story/0,24330,3550720,00.html

gls858