Computer Crashes Sometimes

For over a month now, windows has been crashing ever day or so. The thing is that it doesn't crash everyday, sometimes it does, amnd sometimes it doesnt. And if the crash does happen, it usually happens after windows has loaded up, within 5 minutes. After it crashes once, I have to reboot, weirdly enough,it doesn't crash again, it only crashes once per day, if it does happen, theres some flickering of the monitor sometimes, it turns on and off, then couple minutes later windows crashes. Now, I should describe the crash, the moniter basically turns off, thers no hard drive activity, but the computer still remains on. Its like the video signal is lost, hard to describe. Im not doing anything to cause the crash, and it just started happening by itself. Im almost certain that it's a software problem, theres nothing wrong with my monitor, I opened up my case and checked for any loose wires and connections, checked to see if all the hardware was seated correctly. Also, I looked around in the BIOS, checked to see if any settings were confgured incorrectly. So like I said, Im postive that its a software problem, not a hardware problem. After the crash, I reboot and windows and the computer work perfectly, with no problems. Im not sure why it's happening,and doubt that its a heat related problem, so I need your help in fixing the problem, its kind of annoying.

My PC Specs:

19 inch KDS Monitor
CPu: Athlon XP 2000+ @ 1.67Ghz
120Gb HD
K7S5A MOBO
GPU: Geforce Mx 420 64MB

 

btw i have checked my Event Logs(Im running XP Home), says nothing about any errors.

 

any help?

 

Without an error message, I would only be guessing at what could be causing your problem. Have you ran the scans from Basic Spyware, Trojan And Virus Removal? Just to make sure that some form of malware isn't causing your problem?

 

ya i have, there isnt any spyware or virus thats causing the problem

 

Have you tried updating your video drivers?

 

im gonna try that

 

updated my video drivers and it still happens

 

guys read these, these dudes have similer problems

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&ct=re...itor-loses-signal.html&ei=yLP-Qr6wBo-oaJ-YgG4
http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&ct=re...com/vb/topic27714.html&ei=yLP-Qr6wBo-oaJ-YgG4

 

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&ct=re.../forum/remark,14044202&ei=RLX-QsfuLZW4apnEnEY

 

Are you sure this is a software problem? I went back and read your original post again, the behaviour you describe makes me think your monitor or video card is going bad. Most likely the Monitor, if the card stopped functioning properly you would see a 'no signal' message on your monitor. Since you don't recieve a 'no signal' message, and sometimes the monitor flickers just before it happens points to the monitor being the problem. Check the power cord, it may be bad. Also check your vga connector for damage.

 

the monitor is fine, never have any problems with it, i checked it out, same as my video card, it runs fine all the time, the problem only happens during the first 5 mins after windows xp has loaded up, if it does happen, otherwise it runs fine. havent had a problem for 2 days after updating my drivers, but now its starting to happen again, im guessing its the damn drivers, im gonna uninstall the drivers, then reinstall them(nvidia drivers that is)

 

SPD. We had something like this a while back, can't remember the specifics but the nvidia drivers were in question, remember? Might try the MS version and see what happens.

Don't have time to do a good search right now (got company) but might be a possibility.

Good luck.

Steve

 

i appreciate all the help guys

 

Steve, brought up a good point, try the drivers for your video card from Microsoft Upadate. Unistall your drivers, reboot. Run Windows update and install the video drivers from MS and see if that fixes the problem.

 

will try that, but microsoft lists the same drivers from nvidia

 

It usually isn't recommended to download drivers from Microsoft. The drivers they list aren't always the most current and sometimes aren't the right ones. But in this case their driver download just might be the fix to your problem.

 

ok whT im doing now is uninstalling the nvidia drivers, deleting all the registry keys and folders, and then im going to reboot and reinstall the latest drivers, problem is stupid windows activation is asking me to activate windows again? i have 1 last activation left

 

What do you mean you only have 1 activation left. You can activate windows, online, once every 120 days, there is no numeric limit on activation

 

really? i thought xp home had only 3 trys

 

Urban Myth. You can activate it online once every 120 days. Microsoft purges their database that often.

 

ok done, uninstalled, cleanup up, then reinstalled drivers, ready to roll, ill see how it goes

 

lol, thnks , i didnt know

 

it still happens, the monitor still loses the video signal, again it only happens once, always during the first 5 mins of windows loading up. im gonna lower the refersh rate, see if it still happens

 

That's a thought. Your refresh rate could be too high.

 

Does window detect your monitor? If not, you may need to install the proper monitor "drivers". Sometimes this is the issue. If windows says you have a (default) monitor, then it doesn't detect it. It uses generic drivers to display your monitor.

Also, does working in safemode work?

 

yes safe mode works, and yes my monitor is recognized by my OS

 

anybody think it could be power supply related?

I only mention it because I've dealt with a similar problem before.

 

I just fixed a neighbor's computer with a very similar issue, although his would only hang on a restart (same as yours, no HDD activity, no video signal, but the CD drives would open/close). If you powered down completely & let it sit for a minute, you could then reboot it 99% of the time. After much trial & error & cursing, turned out it was the video card. See if you can get a hold of another...even an old "Virge S3 4MB" will do for testing. If it runs well for a few days, problem solved.

 

Yes the video card could be the cause. Nice catch.http://forums.majorgeeks.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

 

yap, even lowering the refresh rate doesnt seem to solve the problem, could be the video card or PSU, but im still thinking that its a software problem, since my PC runs perfectly fine after letting it sit for 10mins, I usually start using it after 10mins of booting up, if I do this, it doesnt lose the signal, and runs fine.

 

do think directx 9.0C drivers could be corrupted?

 

You can try using this to rollback 9 to 8. Then Install 9.0c again.

DirectX 9 Uninstaller

 

ok thanks

 

Hey Guy's,

I wanted to share a little info I came across and then I'll butt out.

I read an article today that described some of the symptoms you have, especially the computer running fine (stable) after the reboot.

Here is a portion we would be interested in:

thats the reason i suspect the power supply the first boot has a heaver load than a reboot or reset due to the capacitors having to charge on the first boot all so all the testing and reboots over the last few days may have speed-ed up the power supply's demises of cause this is all just guess work on my part as i don't have the computer on my work bench with all my diag programs and testers so i just look for a possible cause i may be totally wrong thats the thing with computers the same symptoms on ten different machines may have ten different causes

Steve

 

Steve you can butt in anytime you want http://forums.majorgeeks.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif. That's a real possiblity, have to see if I can get Rikky to come out of the hardware forum and have a look at the thread.

 

majinbuu mentioned it earlier, and after reading the information in the article it does make sense.

Steve

 

Rikky just got back to me, this is his thoughts on the subject.

Driver Cleaner Professional

 

I still have my old GPU drivers from the time I bought my PC, think I should install those?

I already used Driver Cleaner Pro 1.2 to remove my video card drivers, then I installed new ones, Like I said, it didnt work.

btw appreciate all the help

 

You can try the drivers that came with the card, and see what that does for you.

 

If safe mode works, I really think then it is a driver related issue. But, that is just my thoughts.

 

Are you using drivercleaner pro by restarting and going into safe mode this is the only way it will work if so ignore ,after you have tried the earlier drivers and installed the latest chipset drivers for your board and the problems persists try removing the driver again with drivercleaner,reboot,cancel the driver install box and use your computer,reboot it a few times and surf the internet and stuff see if it locks up,this could help us determin if another driver thats loaded when not in safe mode is causing the problem

 

ok ill try

 

Ok, I have installed the original drivers, I'll see how it goes.

 

with the original drivers, my PC locks up every little while, whats funny is that when I install a driver, it works fine for a few days, then I start seeing the problems. Any one think it could be a windows service that could be causing the problem? Also im using a custom login screen and boot screen, could that be related to this? (been using it for over a year)

 

Check your power supply.

 

If you would like to check out your power supply, you would have to know the form factor of your PC. Most are ATX...this means that the power supply should be providing 12V on the yellow lead and 5V on the red lead within a small area of tolerance.

 

did you try running the comp in normal boot,without a vga driver installed?this is really important for ruling out the video card driver

 

runs fine without the VGA drivers

 

I have a 300 Watt ATX power Supply