For some reason, and it seems to happen when i hit alt-tab, i get a blue screen of death. i know you need some information (i’ll write down what it says next time it comes up) so lemme know what you need and i shall provide. i thought it happened when i alt tabbed out of age of empires 3, but it did it once just regularly.
yes, i’m running windows xp.
be gentle with me. i’m computer illiterate and computers hate me right back. this is the first time that this particular machine decided to be a wimp.
worst case scenario, i think that reformatting the machine is a viable option, but i’d rather not do such things if i can help it.
bonus question: after i run defrags, i’ve got a bunch of files that can’t be moved as well as a bunch of red slivers of stuff at the right side of that bar thingy (yes, all technical terms, i know). any way to force-squish all them red slivers to the left and make em all blue?
Step 1: Don’t do anything except be observant. Blue screens can still happen on healthy machines and it doesn’t necessarily indicate a global problem. Just wait to see if it happens again and make note of any commonalities.
The Defragmenter - don’t worry about that it isn’t an issue worth worrying about. The difference in the defrag percentage would be negligible even if you could “force” it to move those last few bytes. Performance wouldn’t be impacted in a noticeable way.
You could download a third-party defragmenter at www.download.com if you are obsessed and can’t sleep over this.
If you think the game may be the problem look for a ‘readme’ file in the games folder. In the readme file, look for a section called something like Known Problems or Known Issues. It may explicitly state that alt-tabbing is known to cause problems. I’ve run across a couple of games that specifically mention problems with alt-tabbing out of them.
It isn’t as much fun as jumping into a new game, but I’d strongly recommend reading those readme files before playing any new game. It can save you major headaches. They can contain known issues with hardware / software, updates to manuals that didn’t make it in before printing and other goodies.
"a problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer. if this is the first time you’ve seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. if this screen appears again, follow (spot where computer first restart) these steps: run a system diagnostic utility supplied by your hardware manufacturer. in particular, run a memory check, and check for faulty or mismatched memory. try changing video adapters. disable or remove and newly installed hardware and drivers. disable or…(computer restarts)
well, like i said, reformatting is a viable option, but would it fix this? i’ve got nothing that merits HAVING to save. i hear there are programs online that you can download and it erases every little scrap of information on your computer. i think i’d like that very much right about now.
…and it restarts when i’m talking to this cute redheaded chick that lives a building over on campus. does this computer not want me to get laid or something!!!
XP is usually fixable and I recommend that you try fixing it before a format and reinstall. A reinstall will cause you serious time and headaches. You won’t believe me until you do it yourself. Little problems may take hours to days to fix. Not recommended.
Follow these steps one at a time and in order. Don’t move to the next one until you completely finish the one before it.
Post what applications you are running. Alt-Tab is switching to something in a way that is not good. Is it an old DOS program? What are all of them?
Hit control-alt-delete to see what processes are running. Post a list to see if any of them are suspect.
Use the reapir and recovery utility on the Windows XP CD to try to fix Windows. DO NOT do this first as it seems to be an application problem rather than a Windows specific problem.
You won’t have to resort to any any tricks to reformat the drive. The Windows CD can do it and it will never try to “recover” old information. The hard-core data wipes are for people getting rid of their hard-drives.
this looks like a lot of garbage to have running to me. i’ve seen varying amounts of crap running in the background, and i’d like less of it. no, i don’t have a lot of icons in the system tray on the lower right hand of the screen. the ones that aren’t necessary (or i haven’t deemed necessary) i blocked using their preferences menu or the microsoft anti spyware thingy to do so.
how bad is the reinstall? i’ve done it before (not on this computer). if that’s the worst hassle, then i’m down with that. like i said, i’ve got nothing ultra important to protect.
obviously, we’ll try and fix it the good old fashioned way, but would reformatting do it?
could it be the aol instant messenger thingy beta version? i started it after typing out this lost (and post). it hasn’t bluescreened me, but that wouldn’t be related, would it?
I suggest that you stop obsessing with wanting to reformat. That isn’t necessarily going to help, after all - this could easily be a hardware issue. Note that among the things Windows suggested is the possibility of bad RAM. That’s not something you can fix by reinstalling Windows. If this is a bad RAM chip or some other hardware issue, running a diagnostic program is a good idea to get more information.
Did you see what it said above and below that part – things like error codes?
For example, this blue screen gave an ‘DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL’ error at the top, and a stop code and filename at the bottom. Both of those can be very useful in determining if it’s a hardware or driver problem. (And if it’s hardware, reformatting will not help.)
i know, i know…it’s not that i’m necessarily obsessing about it (even though you couldn’t tell by how many times i’ve mentioned it). i just want to make it clear that it’s a viable option. and i’m pretty sure that most of you people figured it out rather quickly.
yeah, i’ve got written down all i got. there was a timer at the bottom of the screen…actually, i think it was a “memory dump” it my memory serves me right. when it hit a certain number (couldn’t tell you what it was, i was trying to write down the other stuff), it reset the computer. what i’ve got down already is after two instances of said blue screen happening.
Luckily, bad memory’s not that hard to check for. This page has a cd image you can download that makes memory checking a snap. Just download the image, burn it to a cd and then boot your computer with that disk–if you’ve burnt the cd correctly, it’ll automatically download a memory checking utility that runs itself. Let it run a while, if you see lots of red flags, you have bad memory. Fairly painless process.
Start Dr. Watson (Start -> Run -> type “drwatson.exe” (without the quotes) -> OK.), which is the standard debugger on Windows, but Windows XP doesn’t start it automatically.
The next time you get a BSOD there should be something written to the Dr. Watson log (on Windows XP this is stored in the directory: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\Dr Watson and should be called drwtsn32.log
After the BSOD post the Dr. Watson log here. Also, you could checki if you already have that file there and maybe post it here.
watson says there are no problems detected. i haven’t had a blue screen in a while, so i can’t provide any of the important information…that’s why i copied and pasted the microsoft report website, hoping it’d have some helpful numbers with it. apparently not.
i don’t have an “application data” subfolder under “all users”. i searched for a “drwtsn32.log” file (without quotation marks) and it doesn’t exist.
why does that sound odd to not have all that junk?
If you’re not afraid of computer innards, try removing and re-inserting the RAM sticks. It’s possible that one of those hundreds of contacts has a speck of dust in it, or that the memory has crept up out of the socket just enough to be an occasional problem. With enough on-off heat and cool cycles, connectors and chips can move.
Do the same with your video card and whatever other cards you may have. Most video cards have a little latch button at the “inside” end of the socket that you need to press so the card can come out.
While you’re in there, blow out the dust bunnies. Don’t go poking a vacuum cleaner in there.
Hopefully, this will have been enough to clear up what appears to be a random memory problem.
You also might want to check that you’e got current drivers for your video card.
Oh, about 98% of the stuff running on your PC is just the stuff XP needs to run - system processes, antivirus, and the like.
okay, more information from the almighty blue screen after another bad alt-tab trip:
…(continued from last blue screen post) remove and newly installed software and drivers. if you need to use safe mode ro remove or disable…
(and then the numbers and crap at the bottom.)
