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Strange Random Crash in WinXP SP1

R

Rhombuss

Golden Member
Just did a reinstall of WinXP and updated it to SP1 yesterday. Since then, it's been having extremely random crashes. Here are some of the things I remember doing as it crashed, each a separate occasion.

Looking through my recycle bin
Installing JASC PaintShop Pro 8
Unplugging my 20GB USB HDD

I don't even get the BSOD, the system just restarts itself. Any ideas?
 
Check the event logs for errors. Control panel, Admistrator tools, event viewer. Then goto Event ID and see what they say. Also post any error messages that seem relevant here. 😛

Just remembered,

Goto My Computer, right click and select Properties. Then goto Advanced, Start up and Recovery. Uncheck the automatically reboot on error.
 
Checked the event logs....nothing of particular suspicion came up. I have a feeling it MIGHT be my RAM. It's OCZ stuff that could be flakey, but my previous install of WinXP lasted for almost 2 years with minimal to zero crashing.
 
There are two reasons XP unexpectedly reboots like that: BSOD, or hardware failure.

Go to control panel, system, advanced, startup and recovery, and uncheck the autoreboot checkbox.

Reboot for settings to take effect.

If it happens again, it's hardware. If it's a BSOD, get us the STOP code and parameters.
 
NogginBoink: Thanks for the tip, I've disabled the autorestart. So far, no reboots as of my last post. It's funny though, I remember pretty distinctly what I had been doing in each instance, and I've tried to replicate it as much as possible. Can't reproduce the crash. It's as if my computer's experiencing chicken pox, once it crashes due to one symptom, it'll never happen again 😛.

CTho9305: I've actually running on OCZ PC3000 RAM (yeah, that POS). Regardless of bad experiences by many in our hardware community, I was able to keep the RAM extremely stable at 175MHz (DDR350) at 2.8V, and I'm using those same settings now. I ran memtest last night, and it checked out fine apparently.
 
Oops, sorry for the late edit. Had a 911 run.

Anyhow, if you are suspicious of the memory, do you have an extra stick laying around you can put in it?
 
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