I despise computer problems

Factual Questions
1

I am cursed by the computer Gods. I am not allowed to have a nice working desktop for more than a few months at a time, it seems.

Little backstory:

Back in August, I added a new HD and used Soyo’s software to ghost the current HD. When it was done, I switched the drives so the new one was master, but it didn’t boot from that drive. I gues the disk management stuff still had the old one as C drive so it kept booting from it. But before I had a chance to fix my problems, all Hell broke loose.

My computer cannot be on for more than a few minutes without crashing. Blue screen crashing. If I go into Safe Mode, I can apparnatly stay there until I do something intensive (like try to run ad-aware or anti-virus.) This being the case, I suspect it’s hardware related…but hw could adding a hard drive cause these problems? I even disconnected the new HD on the off chance it was causing problems but still had much errors and crashes. the hardware angle has more evidence going for it when I tried to reinstall Windows from scratch on the new HD, and still crashed.

I tried to run a memory checking, but t seems my floppy drive is also dead, because despite it being all plugged in where it should be, the mobo will NOT boot from the floppy, the bastard (and I can’t put memchecker onto a CD because neither my laptop nor work computer have CD burners.)

I removed the 256 MB stick (I also have a 512 stick) but still got crashes. I don’t want to try just the 256 stick, as that seems like not enough memory. Can I use my other 512 stick that’s at a lower clock frequency? The current memory is PC3200 and the older memory is PC2100.

I suspect the power supply might also be a problem, but the only other one I have is a crappy 400W one that is probably bad itself. Also, it’s hard to put in my PC, because the cords are too short to fit. I could support it outside the PC on a box, but that seems a little dangerous.

FTR, here are a couple of the errors I got:

STOP: 0x0000008E (0XC0000005, 0X8056599F, 0XF677796C, 0X00000000)
(Occured after trying to run ad-aware in safe mode)

PAGE_FAULT_IN-NON_PAGED_AREA

STOP: 0X00000050 (0XF6CAA5EB, 0X00000000, 0X805683E5, 0X00000000)
(occured right after logging in during normal startup)

2

Overheating CPU or motherboard chipsets can cause this sort of thing, but I would try to eliminate RAM faults first - which means you’re going to have to avail yourself of a bootable copy of memTest86 or similar, by hook or by crook.

3

…and of course the overheating (if that’s what it is) might not have been a critical problem before the hard drive was added - they can output quite a bit of heat.

4

I doubt it’s overheating. I ahve a very good heatsink (Thermalright SI-97) and a god fan, and the case side is off, and the temps are always low in the BIOS. Granted, that’s not under load, but I expect that if they were to go so high as to cause shut down when loaded, that the unlaoded temps would still be higher than 40 C (it stays below 40C the entire time.)

And as much as I would love to get a copy of memtest86, I don’t see how I can. I’d rather not spend money on ordering a CD with it on it (do they even sell CD’s with mentest?) or spend money on a new floppy drive, especially if maybe it’s not the floppy drive that’s not working ( I mean, hell, if the mobo is shot, then all these problems can be linked back to that…and a fried mobo (unless 100% dead) is damn ahrd to diagnose.)

5

Where do you live? I wonder if some friendly Doper would burn a copy and mail it to you? (If you live near me, I’ll do it, but I don’t think you do…)

6

Windows XP will run on a minimum of 64MB, albeit dog-assed slowly. I would try it with the 256MB, just to see if it is a bad memory module.

Did this occur after Windows XP had completed setup, or during the setup process? I found this explanation of your error message, but it seems to apply to the setup process only. But it does indicate it may be a bad memory issue.

7

The errors I lsited I received IN Windows, not during the setup, though I have gotten errors while trying to install it on the new HD (I running Windows off the old HD currently.)

I managed to download and burn a CD image of Memtest in safe mode. I burned at the slowest speed to make sure it wasn’t too intensive, and I was able to do it with no crashes. It’s currently running and examining the 512 stick (I figure since it crashed with the 256 stick not in there, no real reason to test it, right?)

It’s 77% done, and still no errors. If it’s not the memory, what might the problem be? Motherboard? Power supply? I have a spare mobo I can use, but I dread having to do it. For one, swapping out mobos in very labor intensive and takes a long time, and then I have to do at least a repair install of XP to get the right drivers. At least if it’s a power supply issue, I can buy a new one and swap it out fairly easily.

8

What model Soyo board, CPU and Video card.

9

Windows crashes when critical timing is off, especialy memory. Often DOS or Bootable repair programs will function on the same computer that fails with Windows. The floppy may be off or set to boot after the hard drive. The floppy might have the cable loose or reversed. The power connector could be bad or loose, try another if you have a second available.

10

When I said Soyo before, I meant Seagate, the manufactorer of the hard drive. Sorry. I have an Abit NF7 V2 mobo, a Geforce FX 5900 XT vid card, and an Athlon XP 3200 CPU, not overclocked at all.

Apparantly, my drivers for the vid card went away, I don’t know why. However, every time I tried to reinstall tham, I got an error from the install program saying the drivers were bad and to redownload them. Needless to say, I would redownload directly from nVidia’s site and they would still say they were bad. This was in both safe mode and normal mode (well, I got the errors the few times it wouldn’t outright crash when trying to install them.) The same thing happens with the board drivers (nForce 2 chipset, I think.)

11

When I said Soyo before, I meant Seagate, the manufactorer of the hard drive. Sorry. I have an Abit NF7 V2 mobo, a Geforce FX 5900 XT vid card, and an Athlon XP 3200 CPU, not overclocked at all.

Apparantly, my drivers for the vid card went away, I don’t know why. However, every time I tried to reinstall tham, I got an error from the install program saying the drivers were bad and to redownload them. Needless to say, I would redownload directly from nVidia’s site and they would still say they were bad. This was in both safe mode and normal mode (well, I got the errors the few times it wouldn’t outright crash when trying to install them.) The same thing happens with the board drivers (nForce 2 chipset, I think.)

12

In “System” “Hardware” “Display” You can edit the current drivers and use the “Choose drivers manually” “Show all drivers” Pick the “Generic VGA driver” and finish the install driver dialog. Exit Windows and shut off the power for a half minute. Restart the system. The computer will start in regular mode if this was a video problem. Your system is now running in VGA display mode which is a microsoft software driver that runs the advanced cards when the video card hardware won’t work. Now if the system runs in regular mode you can use the “System” “Hardware” and view all the other devices that are installed, and check for a yellow exclaimation mark by any hardware. That device is not working correctly. No marks mean you don’t have a current conflict. You should not have devices installed under “Other”. Devices under “Other” are installed incorrectly because Windows didn’t know where to put it.

13

I had a very similar issue, and it was a broken ram chip. As advised before I found that out by using memtest86. It may be a royal pain in the ass to get a floppy drive to run the test, but it really is the best answer at this time. (unless you just want to buy more memory and plug it in)

14

OK, the memtest did two full passes, and no errors. It seems to be video card related. Ekther the driver or card itself. Inside windows, it seems like it’s the driver, but why did I get a crash a few times during a new install? Could have been a fluke, though.

Anyways, I got the following errors at startup:

“The application or DLL c:\windows\system32\Nview32 is not a valid windows image. Please check against installation disc.”

And then the same message for NvCpl.dll.

Also the two messages:

error loading c:windows\system32\NcCpl.dll
%1 not a vlid win32 application

and,
error loading c:\windows\system32
vmctray.dll
specified module could not be found

So I went to uninstall the drivers, and at the device screen under the device manager, it said in the message box:

cannot locate device driver, may be missing or corrupt.

SO I uninstalled it, rebooted, and didn’t get those four error messages at startup, but the add new hardware wizard could not locater a driver for the card (as expected.)

I tried to install drivers from the exe file I previously downloaded, but got the same error message I kept getting, despite multiple downloads of it:

“Contents of this file cannot be unpacked. The executable you are attempting to run has been corrupted. Please obtain another copy of the file, verify its integrity, and try again.”

The HELL is going on?! Why is a file I got from nVidia’s website bad?!

15

Try doing what I had posted last time.

16

I have an NF7 that likes to crash under load sometimes.

Check the northbridge fan, see if it’s stuck. Mine is, but I haven’t found a replacement yet.

17

I sorta did. Before uninstalling old driver, there was a yellow exclaimation point in the hardware, but it still knew what it was (it was listed under video adapters as a GeForce FX 5900.)

It tried to automatically install the generic VGA driver, I think. Anyway, I’ll go try that manual thing right now…OK, listed under the device manager it is now OTHER and is a yellow question mark. There is no ‘manual install’ thing of which you speak. I can search for drivers (I did, it found none) or choose a location. I can’t choose one, because I don’t know where to look, and the nVidia ones might be gone anyway.

I will try once more to download the drivers and install them, but not till tomorrow since it’s late and I have to go to bed.

18

OK, didn’t have to redownload. I couldn’t unpack the new file, but the old setup files were still there already installed, so i reran setup and installed the nvidia drivers. Rebooting now…and windows is running a file system check, for some reason. :confused:

Apparantly there were some corrupt attribute records it had to delete, whatever that means. Now chkdisk is veryifing the indexes…ok, it did some stuff and fixed crap while I was brushing my teeth and rebooted. Hopefully none of my files or anything are gone or bad. Well, none of the important ones, anyway (like system files or my porn. Dear GOD not my porn. :stuck_out_tongue: )

At the login screen…at SUPER low resolution…logging in…logged in ok, let’s set this resolution back to normal and see if I can do something resource intensive that before always resulted in a crash (I predict a crash, since I don’t see how bad display drivers would cause a crash when the CPU and RAM are the only things being stressed.)

Looks promising so far, has gotten further than it ever did before, but not getting my hopes up!
The vinal verdict is: FIXED!

Holy God, I think it might be working! Why a display driver caused those errors I’ll never know…or maybe it was the combination of the 256 stick being bad (I never tested it and it is still out of the system) AND bad video drivers. We might never know. Regardless, I’m glad it’s working again, so I can finally play City of Villians! Hooray!

19

Make sure you have the latest directX drivers too or a newer nVidia driver could have problems.

Save a restore point using the system restore utility. Do it before it crashes from a bad program like maybe the shareware.

Check all your hard drives and fix them.

  1. In the RUN box type in cmd.exe and execute the program for a comand prompt window.
  2. at the command prompt type chkdsk C: /X and press <Enter>
    It will say it can’t check the disk. Do you wish to check it when the computer restarts. Y/N
  3. Type in y and press <Enter>
  4. Do the same command for each drive changing the C: to the correct letter. It will not ask to check at reboot if it currently can perform that command.
  5. Type Exit and press <Enter?
  6. The cmd window should have closed now.
  7. Shut down and turn off the power. This will save a working copy of your desktop for the desktop recovery in case of improper shut down.
  8. Start the computer and the drives will finish their repairs.