OS Crashing Problem

[reaver_51]

Ok. Heres my problem. In the last few weeks my computer has been crashing lately. It will freeze for .05 seconds, flash a really quick blue screen, and restart. It will come up with the system error message with the option to send to microsoft. I've done that. At first it said it was my graphics driver. So i updated that. Then it said it could be BIOS. I've updated that. Now it says crash could of been caused by device driver error. THANK YOU MICROSOFT SUPPORT!........ This is weird because Nothing has really changed that I can think of in the last month to try to influence this. Now the crashing has a weird pattern. It mostly crashes when I play games. Only ones that are somewhat graphicly demanding. However, it happens almost everytime I EXIT Warcraft III. This makes no sense to me. At first I wondered if the graphics card was overheating, because of the temperature rise. But then the temperature dropped again for a while, however the problem persists. I don't have a clue on how to solve this besides trying to reformatt in hope that its somekind of windows corruption. However I would not like to reformat because there are too many files i'm not willing to lose. And it would take a long time to back up. Another problem is, whenever I try to restart or shut down, my computer will do nothing. The system tray will gradually get smaller and smaller (exiting programs/processes), it will go to the shutting down screen. But it freezes there.

--Note, the computer hasn't crashed while its been idle (that i know of) But it has crashed a few times while i've been surfing, and had winamp open.

My system:
Windows XP Pro
Intel Pentium 4 3.00ghz (HT)
1022mb RAM
Nvidia GeForce FX 5900 128mb
80g WD 7200rpm

I've had my computer for about 8 Months, and its last reformat was about 2 months ago.

Well, this seems like a toughie, Could use any suggestions. Thanks.

[EzyStvy]

Control Panel->System Icon->Advanced tab->Startup & Recovery settings button->UNcheck AutoRestart

This should cause you to get a BSOD. The Stop: 0x?? error code and help you figure out what's wrong.

Introduction to Stop Errors

"Stop errors in a nutshell are errors that are serious enough to cause Windows to stop. They are similar to the blue screen errors that were present on Windows 9x, however there is no option to try and resume the session in a Windows NT Stop Error (Windows 2000 and all XP members included)."

Continued:

http://mvps.org/marksxp/WindowsXP/bsod.php



Go here to search for the error message:

http://support.microsoft.com/default...&ln=EN-US&FR=0

[reaver_51]

Alright. That helps alot. I will post back with results. I'm just hoping I don't have to buy new hardware.

[reaver_51]

Whelp, bad news. I let the blue screen come on, I wrote down the info. I tried to boot up again and it says some windows files are corrupted in windows\system. I don't know how to repair.

I did a search for it and it says that there is a video card driver conflict. To resolve it, it said to download a new driver. Which I did, however the problem still occured. Urgh

[reaver_51]

I re-read it. I think its saying that the problem occurs when I have file sharing on. Which would make sense, because thats the only thing i've really changed. Kinda weird how file sharing would conflict with a video card driver.

If there is a certain way I can overcome having to reformat please tell me. I have too many precious files on there, and I don't have enough time to back it up

[Cricket]

Are you overclocking anything? If you are/were, did you reset the system to stock speeds?

Have you tried a different video card yet?

Cricket

[Panama Red]

You can do a repair/install to get back up and running. If done correctly, you shouldn't lose any files or programs. I'd still recommend moving your hard drive to another XP computer and backing up the files first just to be safe.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm