Last, Best hope :/

[Femme]

Ok, this isn't really CTM specific but I just don't know where else to turn.

 

I run Windows XP. Yes, I know, say nothing, I have my reasons for doing so.

 

I keep a reasonable system, Virus scanner kept updated, latest MS update stuff and temp files cleared regularly etc etc.

 

But for a long time now I've had this thing where XP has been crashing when I run programs. Sometimes it's as soon as I run a program, sometimes it can be 20, 30 mins or more after I started running it.

 

It usually happens when I click on something or press a key (IE: It happens as I press something, not just at any old time) but that can be a different thing every time. For example, if IE is being run, sometimes it'll crash when I click on the File menu, sometimes it'll do it when I click on a link in a web-page.

 

After switching XP so that instead of just restarting on a crash, it blue-screens, I get error messages whenever it does it, but these are different almost every time it happens.

 

The most popular ones are regarding g400d.dll and win32.exe (I think .exe, could be .dll or whatever). Often however they are meaningless with stuff like "00000000EX at datestamp 00000000".

 

I sent the computer off to my local techies, who had it 2 days and told me the problem was fixed.

So I've had it back for an hour, and the problem has already surfaced twice.

 

No, it's not this new virus, since it's been doing it for months and I've installed the relevant fixes.

 

I'm kinda lost now. Anyone have any ideas?

[Jimster]

well i can guess at the ram chips

 

also make sure you bios is all setup ok, and that you run scandisk and run defrag, also disable any hard drive powerdowns.

 

so basicly dust out the ram chips, and the graphics card if you have off board. make sure that the IDE cables are dusted out and correctly inserterted.

 

-Jim

[ExplodyThingy]

http://explody.sscentral.com/images/ft030814.gif

[Jimster]

lol

[Bargeld]

sounds like hardware to me.

 

Here's my suggestions:

 

Find a program to test the RAM. Download.com has some, or if you have Norton Systemworks, theres one bundled in there (Norton Diagnostics)

 

Check out the Master/Slave settings on your HD(s) and CD drive(s) make sure the jumpers are correct (master = the drive on the end of the IDE cable, slave = the one in the middle of the cable)

 

The last thing I can think of is a resource sharing problem. Control Panel>System>Device Manager (or somewhere near there for XP) and make sure there are no conflicts. The techs should have done this already, but you never know. If theres a problem there that you can't intuitively resolve, then post some details about it and I'm sure you will find some help.

 

Keep us informed, I'm sure we can think of tons of stuff for you to try if you still haven't fixed it.

[»SOS]

And updating BIOS could work out well too.

[Femme]

Well I ran the RAM test and it was fine, equally no resource sharing conflicts.

 

Also updated all the very, very latest drivers as I was missing a couple, and updated the BIOS, but it was still doing it.

 

I had win98 on before XP, and everything was fine.

 

However, just today I've done a clean install of XP.

 

Before, I was using NTFS as the file system for XP as apposed to FAT32, I've now changed to FAT32 and (fingers crossed) there are no problems as yet... if the horrible problem returns I'll be back here even more puzzled than before

 

But thanks for the help anyway people

[Mr Ekted]

I'm sure it's not the choice of file system. Perhaps the clean install corrected a glitch from the previous one.

[Femme]

Nope, now it's doing it again.

 

This is really starting to annoy me now

[»SOS]

If you have multiple RAM sticks installed, run each of them for a day or so (depends how often it goes boom I guess). Maybe one of them is broken even if the test was OK.

[Mr Ekted]

If RAM is flawed but not destroyed, it can be used for a long time before glitching. Can you run your RAM tests in a loop for a few hours?