PC Crashes~Restarts~Kernel Error? Plz Help!

I hope you guys can help....


During playing games ...out of nowhere ...the computer crashes or just restarts on it's own and then when it comes back on it says something about a Kernel error. The pc acts fine until I play a game and sometimes it's 5 minutes into it and sometimes it's 30 minutes to an hour ...but it ALWAYS happens but ONLY during games. I can use AOL and IE and everything else and it runs fine. It only happens when I'm playing some sort of game. It's driving me NUTS! I don't want to reformat the thing because I have too many files that I don't have the money to back up right now.


Do you have any idea what it could be?? All drivers and updates are current for all hardware. I can't figure it out but it's frustrating as hell!


The computer is running hot now. About 100 degrees F.


Please help!

 

100 degrees F isn't running hot. That's on the lower side of normal if anything.

Go to Start, Run and type in sysdm.cpl then OK.

In the Advanced tab, and under Startup and Recovery, click Settings.

Uncheck Automatically Restart under System Failure then OK.


That doesn't fix anything, but it will stop it from rebooting when it encounters a problem, and hopefully display an error message.

You can also check the Event Log for details of this error. (Start, run and type in eventvwr.msc)

 

a crash during a game could mean faulty drivers, faulty directx install, or overheated video card....

 

Ok I did what you said and when it crashed it didn't restart but a blue screen with information about the error popped up and I had to restart to get out of it. This is bascially what it said:

STOP: 0X0000008E (0XC0000005, 0XBF81439A, 0XA4559C44 0X00000000)

WIN32K.SYS - ADDRESS BF81439A BASE BF800000, DATESTAMP 43446A58

BEGINNING DUMP OF PHYSICAL MEMORY
PHYSICAL MEMORY DUMP COMPLETE

Do you guys have ANY clue what that means? It all looks greek to me...

I hope you can help!

 

You can debug memory dumps if that's what you want to do. Adrynalyne has written a how-to HERE.

Also, make sure you are using the latest video card and motherboard drivers, as well as the latest DirectX (latest is 9.0c).

Go to Start, Run and type in dxdiag then OK and check for any errors, and check Device Manager also for errors.

 

Ok I tried to do all that but I got so lost in the memory debug and it's just soooooooo confusing and greek to me .... normally it's not but it is this time.

Now when it crashes it has this error:

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

Is there anybody who knows what this means and how to fix the computer ...please don't send confusing instructions ...the thread given to me earlier confused the hell outta me.

But Please help!! I'm dying in Frustration!!! GRRRR!

 

The instructions in the "How To" are pretty straight forward. It's not going to get much simpler than that.


If you want to try something else, make sure you are using the latest compatible drivers for your hardware, and check Device Manager for any errors.

If you aren't sure what your hardware is, use something like Everest.