Random Restart

[themonster]

I had not had this problem for roughly a year (since last spring) until yesterday when it started again.

My computer will just be running (AMD Athlon 2200+, 512 MB RAM, Windows XP Professional) and then randomly crash and restart. Just before it restarts, a blue screen flashes and then disappears before I can read it as the system reboots.

When Windows restarts, the following error report is there:
C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini041804-01.dmp
C:\DOCUME~1\TERREN~1\LOCALS~1\Temp\WER19.tmp.dir00\sysdata.xml

BCCode : 10000050 BCP1 : D83C3CF1 BCP2 : 00000000 BCP3 : D83C3CF1
BCP4 : 00000000 OSVer : 5_1_2600 SP : 1_0 Product : 256_1

Last year when it happened, I sent the system back to ABS, and they replaced the video card. This seemed to fix the problem, but here is the warm weather again, and the problem back with it. Could the increase in temperature be causing the system to run a little too hot, and then crash? I also installed RAM heatsinks at that time.

Also, it may be worth noting that I have an ATI TV Tuner card installed. I have not successfully used in for about a year or so because its software causes my system to crash every time. This type of tuner card is not listed on the Microsoft site as compatible with XP. Furthermore, its presence inside the tower creates that less of a space for air to circulate.

The system rebooted once yesterday and once today (I came home a few minutes ago to find that it had rebooted).

My next course of action is going to be to turn the system off and let it cool down, open it up, clean out the dust, remove the tuner card, and then turn it back on to make sure that all fans are operating.

Any help would be appreciated.

[ThePoor]

what I would do it, repartition the HDD, format it and re-installed everything..

[Red]

I would check the power supply.

A long time ago I had an old Compaq that would just lock up or shutdown at seemingly random times. After hours of troubleshooting it, I finally figured out that it was the PSU - a faulty one could cause the kinds of problems you are describing.

Good luck!

[ghost2003]

Doubt its the PSU since it shows a error. Maybe its bad ram, if you have 2 stick try running with 1 at a time. Also run scandisk.

[Hi Ho]

It could be the RAM I had the same problem with mine so I took one stick out and it stopped. I still haven't replaced the stick though. I need to do that.

[Markoman01027]

Welcome to PCMECH themonster!

How many sticks of RAM do you have? Start the system with 1 RAM stick and see if the problem develops. If it still occurs, then power down the system & try another stick of RAM to see if the problem occurs.

What is the brand, model, and wattage of the power supply that you are currently using? Do you have any other power supplies to test the system with to determine if it is the power supply that is causing the problems

[themonster]

Thanks for the responses and the welcome.

The reason that I question the power supply theory is because the system restarts with a "serious error" message. Would a faulty power supply cause a system error?

By right-clicking My Computer and selecting Properties, I disabled the automatic reboot option. Someone suggested this so that the error report will be specific rather than generic.

[ghost2003]

It never happened to me so I might be wrong but I dont think a bad psu would make a error, it would be more like unpluging you compouter, think.

[TechSupport420]

when I was having this problem with my windowsXP box I thought it would most likely be my RAM. However it wasn't, mine had the same symptoms and turned out to be the ethernet card, I moved it to another PCI slot and it hasn't hicupped yet. So try your PCI cards

[Hi Ho]

You can still see an error when it's the PSU. I had a cheapo one before and it was causing random restarts (before the RAM).

[themonster]

I am waiting for the error to happen again. Since the restart is disabled, I expect an error message to come up. When and if it does, I'll post and see what everyone thinks. Thanks again.

[Hi Ho]

When it does it will be the BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) but it doesn't mean your computer is dead. Copy the error message down.

[glc]

The first thing you need to do is turn off the "restart on error" in XP so you can actually read the bluescreen. The first few lines will contain your clues for troubleshooting the source of the error.

Control panel, system, advanced, startup and recovery options.