Random reboot...and other things

[smorris]

First, I have a problem with my computer rebooting at random. It is conicided by a bluescreen message "error_in_nonpaged_area" error when windows tries to shutdown.

I have not installed anything of late except for updating the Yahoo messenger program. I have now uninstalled it completely...no change.

Here are the things I have tried.

I have removed ram cards and reinserted them individually, and tried different slots for each...no effect. Same problem.

I have removed the software that the windows error reporting page said was causing the problem, which was supposedly the hotburn software

I have removed the netwrok card.

I have removed all USB devices except my mouse

I have disabled all non-system startup programs

I have moved various cards around to different slots...etc. No change.

Now the windows reporting tells me that it is ia driver conflict. I knw there are hardware drivers and also types of drviers for various software programs and operations as well. However, how does one know what and where all of these are and find out which one is causing the problem?

Is there any way to selectively load each driver one by one to find out? However, as there are hundreds of them, and the computer reboots at random, how would one ever get to the bottom of this? Sometimes it reboots as XP Home (with all the updates and service pakcs installed too mind you) is loading, sometimes it goes for hours before it does it.

It will also do it if I am just in the other room and not doing anything on the computer. It will just shut off and reboot all of a sudden, with the same error and memory dump.

The last thing I can think of is maybe a bad motherboard. Thats all I can think of that is left.

It does not seem to do it in safe mode, but then again, I cant do anything in safe mode to task the system at all.

Can anyone help???

SM

[smorris]

Oh yeah...also wanted to know how to control what programs load at startup and sit in the system tray. I tried this with the msconfig utility, yet some programs that I have unchecked are still loading and I can see them in the system tray. Does mean they are running or that the icon is just there to click for convenience?

Also, now that I have used the msconfig utility, it comes up everytime at startup. What if I don't want it to do that anymore? What a pain the the ass.

Also, when I go to the area where startup programs are supposed ot be listed, under documents and settings/...etc. programs/startup...there is nothing there...yet I have all these programs starting up when I run windows.

We need legislation that makes it a federal offense, with massive fines and jail terms to have anything install on your computer without your specific express and confirmed consent, and disclosure of every single file, its location, and what purpose that file serves (remember back in the dos days when all the software manuals had their files listed and their locations? What happened?) Also, all cookies on a users computer should be readable by the user, so that the user knows every bit of information in that cookie. They are all encoded. Would you want someone storing something explosive in your garage without your knowledge? I am am sure that is illegal. Can anyone do anything about this? This would make much of the computing security and other issues a thing of the past.

Anyway...someone please help my. My computer has fallen and it cant get it up!!!!

[Digitalic]

Ok, I`ll take a crack at this to try and start things off as this is a LOADED post to say the least.

"error_in_nonpaged_area" error indicates to me that a service or application is trying to access something in system memory that is not there thereby causing a reboot. In Control panel\System\Advanced\start up and recovery, clear the check box that says "restart automatically" under "system failure".

I would also check to see if the "hotburn" software you uninstalled actually unistalled properly for starters. Check if there are any directories left after the uninstall as well as any registry settings. In device manager check that there are no yellow ! anywhere indicating a defective hardware device\driver, particularly any video or network adaptors. Make sure the video driver is upgraded and that it is the correct driver for the device you have.

This is assuming you have run updated AV\Adware software and are running clean.

Post results.

edit: post event viewer errors that coincide with reboots stating the event ID along with description.

[macko72]

http://aumha.org/win5/kbestop.php
Check your stop messages here!!!

[LocoCoyote]

What is so hard about reading your cookies? They are just text files. Is it that you don't understand what you are reading or that you can't open them to read? [I am not trying to be offensive, just trying to understand the problem].
I am not a big fan of any MS provided utility (of anything MS at all...go linux!) so let me recommend a great little shareware utility called Wintools pro! Google it.

Your issues could be coming from several areas.....spyware, virus, misconfigured software (from a bad install perhaps?) Overheating. ESD .....the list goes on. My advice is to return the computer to a known state (wipe and reinstall) and start working from there. You need to seperate if the problem is hard or software. A worthy test might be to get yourself a Knoppix CD (live linux CD) and boot from that. test your various hardware and see if the machine does it's rebooting trick.

This is the tip of this particular iceberg..sorry for not being more specific, but I can only work with what I got!