Blue Screen multiple times - Dead PC??

I have a Windows XP Home on a Dell computer, several years old. Everything was fine yesterday. I am the main user (admin) and my daughters sign on as me to get online, etc. One daughter has her own user account and wanted to access Microsoft Paint program which for some reason we can't get to under my name so she "switched users". Then she went to "switch users" again and pc got stuck on the main screen -- then went to a black screen. (this has happened before which is why we usually don't mess with the "users" accounts and just use mine).

The computer stopped responding and stayed with the black screen so I pushed the power button to shut off the computer when it didn't respond to anything else. On reboot I got the Blue Screen of Death. I rebooted multiple times in the next hour and got the same message and Blue Screen. I waited 24 hrs. and tried again and still nothing but the BSOD.

I have restore CD's, I know some things about computers, but if you come on and talk about things in shorthand and abbreviations I'll have to ask for step by step help. Do I need to assume I'm wiping everything out and reformatting? If that means I have to tell the pc to boot from a CD you'll have to remind me how to do that too. I have tried restarting in Safe Mode, Safe Mode with networking, restoring to "last known good configuration", etc. It still will start to boot up and go to the blue screen.

Here is the message:
"Problem detected..windows has been shut down to prevent dameage to computer. Disable or uninstall any anti-virus, disk defragmentation, backup utilities. Check hard drive configuration & check for any updated drivers. (I can't do any of this since I can't get past boot up -- I didn't update or install any drivers or programs either).

Run CHKDSK /F to check hard drive for corruption (how can I do this if it doesn't boot up?) - Plus it seems pretty obvious something is wrong with the hard drive (?)

Technical Information:
STOP: 0x00000024 (0x00190203, 0x86F66130, 0xC0000102, 0x00000000)
The second number in the paranthesis is the only one that changes for each of the times I have attempted to restart the computer. It has also come up as: 0x86F9F110, 0x86FDB300 and 0x86F8A570.

I ran the IDE Drive diagnostics (I have no idea what that means) and it says "Primary IDE Drive 0 ST340014A - Pass".

I know this is long -- but I know there is a lot of smart people out there and I would appreciate help (I've called Dell before for issues, been on the phone for hours, haven't had the problem fixed, and then come here and had things resolved.)

Thanks for taking the time to read all this.

 

Thanks for your details. I used the term "recovery CD" -- what I have is the "Reinstallation CD - Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition..." Are we talking about the same thing?

This is what I want -- I would love to have my files backed up ....I have done a wipe out/reformat on computers at work and ---oy---what a pain. Will this be an option when I insert the CD I mentioned?

 

That article looks great -- I'll read it and give it a try Sat. Thanks a lot.

 

Well, it worked since I'm using my regular computer now. I have 2 questions:

1) if you're familiar with the article I was sent to -- my computer went to the first reboot only then it had a screen with the warning that the computer didn't shut down right -- choose "last known good config.", safe mode, etc. -- I didn't do anything and it went to normal boot, Windows Screen and all my regular users and settings were there. In the article it mentions 2 more repair and rebooting steps which this didn't take (maybe that's ok)

2) Do I / should I run any other diaganostics? What do the stop error and the above numbers mean? (I always want to know WHY things happen). Can I prevent this from happening agaiin?

Thanks

 

OK - I'll do it soon.

I already did that -- thanks

OK - this makes me nervous since you said to have the system disk ready (is that the restore CD I already used?)

What will this do? Everything is working great so I don't want to push it...

 

I started up my computer this morning and got the below message. This is NOT the first time I have received this. I know something has been going on with my registry but don't know what -- I mentioned at the beginning of another thread http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=100854&page=2 that I have not been able to use 3 different registry cleaners for the past few months. They cause Blue Screens as soon as I've tried to use them.

I was merrily typing an e-mail remotely to my work computer from my home computer today and had another Blue Screen -- ugh...but it did reboot back to Windows ok.

I have to believe that some of these Blue Screens are related to whatever is going on in the registry. How do I fix this? I have not done the above scannow -- is this a good time for it or something else?

 

Yikes -- I logged off here, closed Mozilla and was just about to shut down my computer (since it's a mess) and got another blue screen (that makes 2 in less than 30 minutes)

When I rebooted it was the same message about the registry as I've shown below.

Here is the Stop error -- it was also exactly the same both times:
STOP: 0x00000050 (0xFFFFBFF8, 0x00000000, 0x8054A832, 0x00000000)

 

I don't see this under "services"

NO

I was on for only 8 minutes and the blue screen happened again...but I was working remotely that time too ???

Below is the services that I see under "remote"...

 

Yikes -- I had another blue screen after rebooting and having the computer on for about 20 minutes this time.

All that was open was the internet - Firefox (Major Geeks - waiting to see if anyone replied to this) and I was reading e-mail (Thunderbird). That's all I was doing.

I had the exact same stop error as before.

 

I did this reinstall with recovery CD -- did it possibly cause some driver problems?

See "photo" below...I don't know why I have "?"

 

No - haven't installed anything like that except installing the CD's for using camera's and software for exporting the camera's pictures to the pc -- but that doesn't involve drivers I don't think.

That's all I do on this...e-mail, internet, pictures. Nothing fancy, no video, no drivers, no firewires, nada.

 

You mean like opening up my computer and adding a card? (like a firewire card?) Nope.

 

I have had blue screen after blue screen the past two days. I've thought they've happened about 20-30 minutes after I've turned on my computer and it doesn't seem to matter what I have open on the pc.

I decided to time the last 2 times I've had the computer on and at exactly 24 minutes both times the computer went to a blue screen...does that mean anything? I know the error looks like a driver device...but is something cycling through the harddrive or something and at 24 minutes - - crash (I don't even know if that could happen).

 

Yeah I have a bllue CD that says contents rivers, Diagnostics and utilities...I put it in and tried to have the Device Manager find what it needed to "reinstall drivers" but it didn't find anything (maybe I wasn't doing it right).

Below is what I see when I click on properties for Dell bios. I have never had a second harddrive...should I disable this?

 

I haven't run it long enough to find out.

Do I make ALL the services I showed you AUTOMATIC or just certain ones?

 

You mean the way I had them or making them all Automatic? I did make them all automatic like you said.

Yes - I've done this before -- I'll do it again.


Last night, I clicked out of this thread and got another Blue Screen! I looked at the time and AGAIN it was exactly 24 minutes since I had turned on my pc!!


I got into Mozilla Firefox right now to come here and it said it was updated but ALL my bookmarks are gone! This may be an issue for another thread -- I didn't know if it was related. So far, with all these BSOD I've retained all my settings and files.

 

OK - this can't be a coincidence.

Just now (Wed. afternoon) I got a blue screen again at exactly 24 minutes after turning on my pc. I made sure this time that all programs were closed and I just sat here looking at the desktop and - BAM - Blue Screen....with same STOP error message and the whole "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA" message at the top as before.

Below are 2 Everest reports -- I didn't know if you wanted the whole system (if "all pages" would be too large) or what specific report you needed so I did the "hardware" report and the "benchmark" report.

 

This pc came with one puny stick. I upgraded last year with 2 larger sticks of RAM that I did buy and install at the same time -- same brand.

I know, I know, I need to do this. I just keep jumping on for 20 minutes or so and doing what I need to and shutting down...I'll run this in safe mode and let you know (after I run my kids around and have dinner).

 

ProMOS 128 MB DDR-400MHz PC3200

I saved the 2 sticks for some reason -- they are what came with the Dell

 

I ran the scan. Is this what you wanted to know?
Dell Dimension 4600C
CPU Manufacturer: Genuine Intel
CPU Family: Intel Pentium 4 CPU 2.80 GHz
CPU Speed: 2793 MHz
Front Side Bus Speed 533 MHz

Current installed memory: 1024 MB
Maximum memory: 2048 MB
Total number of memory slots: 2
Available slots: 0

They recommend 184-pin DIMM modules which is what I installed last year:
Corsair, 512 MB, DDR-DIMM -- 2 sticks.

I am currently running in Safe Mode with networking and have passed the dreaded 24 minute mark and so far so good. I have not switched out the RAM yet because I wanted to see what happened in Safe Mode.

 

Well, it's been 2 1/2 hours and so far so good

 

Great -- it's been 3 1/2 hours now so I'm happy -- except everything is so freaky looking in Safe Mode.

I never did swap out the RAM so I guess we're leaving it that I don't have to. ??

I was thinking of doing a System Restore back to right when you had me use the reinstallation CD in Sept (the beginning of this thread). After that fixed the problem of Blue Screen with no boot up things were ok. But -- I don't know of anything that I did to change things/add drivers, etc. since then so I don't know how a system restore would "fix" anything either.

 

go to dell & download the BIOS driver

 

I've already updated the BIOS once before...I have version A09 released 8/26/04...do people update often? My Dell work computers have like, version A02 on them (yikes)

 

Yes on Oct. 3. You said to do it twice and have the reinstall CD ready. I did it once (not in safe mode) and it shows the bar where it is "checking window files" and then it closed that. I tried to run it again and got a blue screen (but I think that was related to my 24 minutes.

When I restarted the computer right away I did another scannow and got the same progression bar...then that was it. Never need to insert the CD or anything and there wasn't any other message.

 

That's what I thought too when I saw those "?" in the Device Manager. So I inserted the only Dell CD I have that says it has drivers on it and clicked on the "install drivers" box in the Device Manager but it said it couldn't find what it was looking for on that CD.

 

I looked through the event viewer for any pattern - especially yesterday. It did look like a couple times right before a BSOD that Windows Defender started doing a scan. This was something I installed when I had spyware issues last month. I know I also get a BSOD doing Registry Scans and it hasn't always been happy doing other types of scans either...could this be "setting something off"??

 

A couple "errors" that keep showing up relate to the Polaroid camera we have:

Source: Service Control Manager
Event: 7000

The Polaroid Digital Cam Video service failed to start due to the following error:
The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it.

 

Sorry - it's taken more a long time because I can't find this folder. I double checked that I have cleared and checked the folder view okay (I have) and then I even did a search for this...those are percentage signs in front of and behind the word windir ??

 

Um, is this the same as C:Windows\System 32\Directory?