Random XP Reboots/Crashes...just an Observation

[RedVR6]

Hi all...been lurking a bit in here reading all the XP info and want to give Reboot a thumbs up on his excellent, informative posts in here.

I recently did a clean install XP Professional (Full) on one of my partitions to test it out. It's dual booting with Win98, which I recently did a fresh install on as well...so I figured I would give XP a trial run before going 100%. My specs are as follows:

Duron 800 on an IWill KK266+
192MB PC100 RAM
SB LIve!
6.4G HDD
2G HDD (I need a new HDD, I know )
ATI Ragy Fury
40x CD
3Com 10/100 NIC
Adaptec SCSI card
...and a few other things.

One thing I have noticed with my verison of XP here is that I getting random crashes that bring the machine all the way down to its knees and then reboots. Seems to be happening when the machine is sitting idle for an extended period of time. I do not have much running in the background other than Zone Alarm, MS Messenger, and my UD proggie...mainly due to me testing this all out. A friend of mine also is having this issue happen once or twice a day on his XP Pro as well. Just wondering if anyone else is seeing this??

Overall, I am very happy with XP and thinking of making it my main OS while I still maintain 98 on the machine...for the time being. One more question...can I install XP and then install Win98 afterwards to maintain a dual boot? Or do I need to install Win98 first then XP?

Thanks!

[lil Jimmie]

Which 4in1 drivers are you using? And how big is the partition that you installed XP on?

And you will have to install 98 before XP.

[reboot]

Turn off hibernation, and powerdown stuff, sleep etc.
Check processor BUS speed against your RAM speed (I noticed it's only PC100).
The Duron is FSB 100mhz, but...

[RedVR6]

lil Jimmie, I did not install the VIA chipset drivers on this install of Windows...I did with Win98 though (most recent version). Does XP need them?? As for the partition...it is only a 2G partition...I have about 500K free on it when nothing is going on...(I know it should be larger )...

Reboot...The only power saving item I have running on the machine is to power the drives off when idle for 1 hour. Otherwise, I keep everything up and running...I will have to look a little deeper into this section though to make sure I do nto have anything activated that I am unaware of.

Will look in BIOS too for the Duron's FSB...Probably ought to pick up some PC133 though. Thoughts?

Thanks guys!

[lil Jimmie]

No, do not install the Via drivers the XP drivers are fine. Just wanted to eliminate this as being a possible cause.

[RedVR6]

Phew...glad I am not home!

[glc]

Don't power your drives down.

[RedVR6]

Killed the drives powering down and killed hibernation, which I was unaware that was on...Machine ran fine thru the night and has yet to go down today.

[RedVR6]

Heh...well...XP BOMBED OUT on me this morning...smoked my boot.ini file and itself. Fortunately I was able to to wiggle my way in to Win98 and backup my pertinent files. So I blew everything away and reinstalled WinXP this morning before heading to work...so I am soley XP now...let's see how this install runs...ho hum.

[RedVR6]

I have returned. I did a fresh install of XP on my C:\ so XP is my sole O/S now. Still having these crashes though. Not quite as often. It obviously does not like something that us running inside the machine. I do not have a whole lot running in the background either. Zone Alarm, United Devices, Hotsync and MS msgr...In any event, here's what comes up when I am sending an error report to MS. Can anyone translate this?



Just for the record. I did update my ATI drivers for XP today from the ATI site. Otherwise, AFAIK all drivers on this machine are recent.