Freezing and Reboots... IE8?

[Darklighter]

Greetings...

I have just finished a complete reinstall of WindowsXP SP3 on a new HDD on my system. Prior to this reinstall I noticed random freezing/lock-ups and spontaneous reboots would randomly occur... and it mostly seemed to be in Internet Explorer (ver. 8). I have finished my reinstall, with all updates, and it is happening again. On the new install it has only happened to me in IE8 (on the old install I think it happened a couple of times outside of IE8), and I was wondering if anyone else had the same issue? Is it possible that this could be hardware related? I have good components, which I have tested with 3DMark06 and 05 (repeatedly), and MEMTest (single pass). I have also done alot of CPU intensive stuff like Nero encoding, archive manipulation (7-Zip), etc., with no issue. I know I should try a whole bunch of other stuff, but I have tried another CPU (same issue occurred), and this just "started" happening recently (like around the same time I installed IE8). Other than that my hardware has remained unchanged for the last 7-8 months. I am a gamer, and rarely have issues while gaming.

My System:
ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe (latest BIOS)
Athlon X2 6400+ (not OCed)
Xigmatek HDT-S1283 HSF
4GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR2-800
XFX 260GTX XXX Edition
Soundblaster X-Fi Xtreme Music
Silverstone Decathalon 850W PSU
Silverstone TJ-05 Case (21" tall, LOTS of cooling)
WindowsXP SP3 fully updated (clean install)
IE8 (fully updated, clean install)
AVG Free (updated)

Services optimized "Safe" via Black Viper
MSCONFIG streamlined to essentials

I am a 20+ year computer vet, but with a busy life and 10-year old daughter... so any time-saving help would be very appreciated. I do have another RAM kit I will try if the problem persists, but I'd rather keep the Tracer kit (Mmmm... lights).

One last thing, I am looking for help here, not peronal preference suggestions (like "IE sucks... use Firefox!")... I like the software I have, and I have been using it without fail for years (well, up to IE8 that is). Thanks in advance for any help!

[cmillar6]

First thing I would do is go into startup and recovery options and disable automatically restart on system failure. If the reboots are a consequence of a blue sceen this will allow you to see it and try to figure out what is going on.

[Darklighter]

Thanks for replying.

The Auto-restart is disabled... there is no BSoD, and the Event Logs show nothing.

[pam123]

If you try another browser and have the same thing happen then you'll know it's not software and that your on board Ethernet may be on the way out.

You could then check for any chipset updates or get a head start on finding a new motherboard if worse comes to worse.

[Statica]

Do you have any 3rd party toolbars or add-ons running with IE? If so disable them and see if it helps.

[cmillar6]

if there is no BSOD I wold lean towards hardware. Do you have a spare power supply to test with? Are your temperatures ok? Freezing and reboots are frequently cause by a bad power supply or cpu overheating.

[Darklighter]

Thanks again for the replies!

pam123> I was hoping to avaoid installing another browser... but I may have to try that. As for the chipset, I have the latest drivers. If the MoBo itself was bad, wouldn't my games and benchmarks be crashing too? Wouldn't I be getting blue screens?

Statica> I only use the Google Toolbar, which may be causeing the problem if it's a newer version that auto-updated... but I have used the Google toolbar since it's creation without issues (before now). I will try disabling though... thanks.

cmillar6> No spare PSU that could run my rig... but the one I have is top notch... and wouldn't games and benchmarks (which really tax the system) be crashing too then? BTW, temps are good... I have awesome cooling.

[cmillar6]

are you saying your rig has never frozen and rebooted outside of IE8 ?

I am not a huge fan of Firefox, Chrome or Opera either but I would install one of them alongside IE8 and use it for the weekend for testing purposes.

[Statica]

Google Toolbar has been documented to cause freezes & crashes with IE8 (tons of sources documenting it). Unfortunately, couldnt find a fix. Hopefully that is the reason for your crashes.

[pam123]

pam123> I was hoping to avaoid installing another browser... but I may have to try that. As for the chipset, I have the latest drivers. If the MoBo itself was bad, wouldn't my games and benchmarks be crashing too? Wouldn't I be getting blue screens?

Unfortunately no, that would make life far too simple.

Motherboards can fail piecemeal, first the usb can get wonky, or the ethernet, and then things start to snowball.
I also note that your original post mentioned re-starts outside of IE8.

For now removing the Google Toolbar, as Statica suggested, or trying another browser will give you a better handle on what's going on.

[glc]

Personally, I'd uninstall IE8 and revert to IE7.

[Darklighter]

UPDATE: I managed to get hold of another RAM Kit to try... so far no issues/problems! I hope Crucial has a decent RMA policy. I will give a final update after the weekend... that should tell me if the RAM was the problem or not. Thanks.

PS: When I tried Crysis today (first time in a while) it was freezing in the menus... since it's very RAM intensive, I took a chance that was the problem. Weird how none of my other games had issues (Fallout 3, NWN2, R6V2, C&C RA3, etc.) and no BSoDs.

[Darklighter]

Played around all weekend, no issues.... looks like the RAM was the culprit. When I contacted Crucial they replied that the RAM I have has a voltage issue, and they will replace it with the new updated version through RMA.

Thanks for the help, everyone!

[cmillar6]

odd that your memtest scan came up clean

[Darklighter]

Yup... I only did one pass however, and the last test I did was a few months ago. I've dealt with other RAM issues before, but they were never this "subtle".