If anybody out there likes the challenge of trying to solve a tough problem, try a stab at this...
I'm running a Celeron 533 @ 850 with 384 MB RAM, 2 hard drives (a 7200 and a 5400), a CD-RW, and the usual other stuff (1 floppy, 2 fans, 8 meg video, etc. -- nothing special). For the past few weeks, the system has crashed occassionally. I get a blue screen saying that it's dumping physical memory (not the blue screen of death, as I am running WinXP), and it also says something like, "if this is the first time that I'm getting the message, then there's no reason to worry. If you've seen this message before, a new device that you've added may be causing your sytem to crash." It says some more, but I get about 2 seconds to read the message before the system reboots, so I'm not sure what it says exactly.
Does anybody know what's causing the computer to crash? Just before it started giving me these problems, I added more RAM, a PCI hd controller, and a new hard drive. I'm thinking that there are 3 possibilities:
1) not enough power (I'm running this system with a Sparkle 235W PSU)
2) some kind of hardware problem, like possibly a bad RAM stick
3) a driver problem. Windows says that all my devices are working fine, but after it crashes and reboots is *sometimes* says that I have a device (or driver, can't remember which now. doh!) problem.
4) CPU is unstable because of overclocking
Did I leave out any possibilities? It's hard to test out possible causes for this problem because it doesn't happen that often. I'm worried that if the power supply is being stressed too much though, if it eventually blows, it'll take the rest of my system with it. Is anybody familiar with the error message that I'm getting?
POSSIBLE CLUES...
1) My system crashed on me 3 times while I tried to d/l some pics from my digicam to my PC through a serial cable while I was multitasking. When I just let the computer sit while d/ling the pics, it was generally more stable. However, my computer has crashed while I have been doing just about anything now: running defrag, e-mail, etc.
2) I noticed that my old 32 MB RAM stick (4 years old) lost 8 MB about a month ago. I think this was right before my computer started crashing. I replaced that RAM stick about 2 weeks ago, but the computer is still crashing. I'm wondering about the possibility that the fact that the old stick lost 8 MB might indicate that there's too much heat... maybe? Or maybe it was just b/c it was old?
SIDE NOTE...
Most of the times it has crashed, it's just my PC that goes down (and reboots). But a few other times, the lights have flickered in the rooms on my floor of the house (not sure about other parts of the house, unfortunately). In most situations, I would have thought that it was because there wasn't a consistent line of power to my computer that caused it to reboot suddenly without any prior warning. But the thing is that this has happened 3 times in the last 2 weeks, and the power in my house has been extremely consistent up until the time my computer started having problems. I don't think I've noticed any flickering lights around my house more than once a year before this. Is it possible for PSU problems cause anything like this? I'm thinking that a sudden change in the amount of power to be drawn through the lines might cause inconsistent power flow for a second through my house.
A HUGE thanks in advance to everyone for their input!
I'm running a Celeron 533 @ 850 with 384 MB RAM, 2 hard drives (a 7200 and a 5400), a CD-RW, and the usual other stuff (1 floppy, 2 fans, 8 meg video, etc. -- nothing special). For the past few weeks, the system has crashed occassionally. I get a blue screen saying that it's dumping physical memory (not the blue screen of death, as I am running WinXP), and it also says something like, "if this is the first time that I'm getting the message, then there's no reason to worry. If you've seen this message before, a new device that you've added may be causing your sytem to crash." It says some more, but I get about 2 seconds to read the message before the system reboots, so I'm not sure what it says exactly.
Does anybody know what's causing the computer to crash? Just before it started giving me these problems, I added more RAM, a PCI hd controller, and a new hard drive. I'm thinking that there are 3 possibilities:
1) not enough power (I'm running this system with a Sparkle 235W PSU)
2) some kind of hardware problem, like possibly a bad RAM stick
3) a driver problem. Windows says that all my devices are working fine, but after it crashes and reboots is *sometimes* says that I have a device (or driver, can't remember which now. doh!) problem.
4) CPU is unstable because of overclocking
Did I leave out any possibilities? It's hard to test out possible causes for this problem because it doesn't happen that often. I'm worried that if the power supply is being stressed too much though, if it eventually blows, it'll take the rest of my system with it. Is anybody familiar with the error message that I'm getting?
POSSIBLE CLUES...
1) My system crashed on me 3 times while I tried to d/l some pics from my digicam to my PC through a serial cable while I was multitasking. When I just let the computer sit while d/ling the pics, it was generally more stable. However, my computer has crashed while I have been doing just about anything now: running defrag, e-mail, etc.
2) I noticed that my old 32 MB RAM stick (4 years old) lost 8 MB about a month ago. I think this was right before my computer started crashing. I replaced that RAM stick about 2 weeks ago, but the computer is still crashing. I'm wondering about the possibility that the fact that the old stick lost 8 MB might indicate that there's too much heat... maybe? Or maybe it was just b/c it was old?
SIDE NOTE...
Most of the times it has crashed, it's just my PC that goes down (and reboots). But a few other times, the lights have flickered in the rooms on my floor of the house (not sure about other parts of the house, unfortunately). In most situations, I would have thought that it was because there wasn't a consistent line of power to my computer that caused it to reboot suddenly without any prior warning. But the thing is that this has happened 3 times in the last 2 weeks, and the power in my house has been extremely consistent up until the time my computer started having problems. I don't think I've noticed any flickering lights around my house more than once a year before this. Is it possible for PSU problems cause anything like this? I'm thinking that a sudden change in the amount of power to be drawn through the lines might cause inconsistent power flow for a second through my house.
A HUGE thanks in advance to everyone for their input!
