Update - what could be crashing my PC?

By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics and access other forums reserved for members. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today by clicking here.

Trophy Videos · Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 11:56 pm

Yup. I would suspect power supply, or perhaps you got a bum motherboard? Are there any new chipset drivers for the board, any updates for known problems with that board that have fixes? Check motherboard website for anything new.
I still don't think it's a windows OS problem, but running a live cd version of ubuntu or puppy linuux for awhile to see what happens might give you another clue. If linux will run all day long with no problems, then i would think it was something in windows causing it.

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 3:56 am

Did you check the power supply? Shocked

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 8:40 am

I hate to contradict SlapHappy but it can be software, though I'd suspect the hardware.

Try opening up the box and disconnecting everything but the hard drive, (power cable AND data cable) and removing all PCI cards that you aren't desperately in need of.
Assuming you have onboard graphics and LAN you should be able to take any and all pci cards out.
See if you can make it crash like that.

Also - does it crash if not connected to the net?

Do the memory tests and also follow OD's advice about Automatic Restarts. (Does it go to a blue screen; does it just switch off; does it restart?)

For the Arctic Silver, did you chuck great wodges at the cpu (like most guys) or tiny fairy drops as per instructions?

If it crashes after all that, go to Msconfig and use the diagnostics mode and the concept of halves to gradually isolate the problem.

In that order..

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 12:24 pm

Ok, I'm away for a few days but I'll check it all out when I get back.

Reboot is a black screen, as if the plug was pulled. Setting XP to not reboot makes no difference.

AFIK, ALL resets have been while connected to the net, what makes me suspicious is that 95% have been while on one image sharing site, but not all.

On reeboot checkdisk finds some bugered up strings and entries it has to sort out, usually involving Firefox. The temp readings have been quite stable.

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 12:37 pm

OK, now take out the bits - the pci cards etc - that aren't necessary and report back. That will minimise the effect of the load on the psu. Do you have a fancy graphics card? Some of the new ones are pretty psu intensive

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 12:55 pm

Same graphics card as before, my Nvidia one. thats the only card I'm using ATM, there is a usb port card, nothing plugged into it. On this board the ethernet is biult in.

It just crashed again, this time it ate all my Firefox bookmarks, a lot of dead wood there, but still a bummer. I dont think it's crashed when not connected to the internet, that must be significant.

As the screen goes black there is a 'clink' either from the HDD or the fans stopping.

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 1:35 pm

I've had a similar problem, but mine doesn't continually happen as yours does. I traced it to the fact that I have McAfee NoScript installed and at certain (even non-prOn) websites the system crashes.

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 3:22 pm

As a last resort to determine if it's software related, you could do a repair XP install, or even a full blown re-installation. If you just put it back together you won't have much to lose other than time.

Baiting Guru Joined: 31 Jan 2007 Posts: 12237

Try a live Linux CD and see if it crashes with that. You could then determine if it is a software or hardware issue.

There are many to choose from, http://www.slax.org/ is one example.

Edit: I see that SlapHappy already mentioned this.

Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 10:43 pm

Don't suppose you have SP3 do you? LINK

Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 12:08 pm

and for those who want new motherboards but still have IDE hard drives, there is THIS

Update - what could be crashing my PC?	View next topic View previous topic