everything will be seemingly ok, and then it'll just restart on its own

sometimes i'll get the blue screen

sometimes it'll say something like "beginning physical memory dump"

9/4/2007 3:22:15 PM

some sort of hardware error.

Most likely culprits: heat (add fans, reseat heatsink on processor), hard drive failure (get a new one), or RAM going bad (get new one(s))

9/4/2007 3:24:35 PM

what i figured

don't think it's heat, though...i've even completely opened the case, and it still does it


any way to test which component(s) are bad, or is it just a matter of throwing parts at it until it works?


it's weird...sometimes it won't do it for a couple of days, and sometimes it'll do it several times in an hour (and with similar useage...just internet browsing and maybe playing music)

9/4/2007 3:28:31 PM

if you've got more than one stick of RAM, try taking one out at a time until you can get it to stop crashing.

Taking the case off doesn't always help matters (depending on your fan setup). Sometimes it can actually make things hotter (esp if you've got fans blowing air INTO the case). If your heatsink is improperly seated on your processor, it will pretty much overheat no matter what. That's probably the first thing I'd do: re-seat the processor.

Try downloading Prime95, it crunches prime numbers but it's a good program to test your RAM. If you can run that w/no crashes for a few hours, your RAM is not the problem.

9/4/2007 3:32:13 PM

^if you can run prime95 for a couple hours it also eliminates heat as a factor, lol

9/4/2007 3:39:08 PM

well yea... i guess it pretty much eliminates everything else too. Doh

9/4/2007 3:43:45 PM

Eh, I'd check the power supply before any of those other things. Of all the parts in your PC, it's the one that is most likely to just spontaneously crap out, and cause a once perfectly functioning PC to start acting up like you're describing. Besides that, make sure none of your fan vents are clogged with dust.

9/4/2007 3:43:54 PM

^ I second the PS. The fan in mine died and things went to shit. I probably could have just replaced the fan but I figured that there may have been some damage from heat so I replaced the whole thing with a quality one and everything was back to normal.

9/4/2007 3:48:01 PM

desktop or laptop?

9/4/2007 4:42:36 PM

desktop

9/4/2007 6:00:08 PM

any more input?

9/11/2007 6:18:22 PM

Quote :

"don't think it's heat, though...i've even completely opened the case, and it still does it"

you should know that that is worse than closed and assembled with the fans running

you wont have any flow over the components to cool them if the case is wide open

9/11/2007 6:32:41 PM

download a memtest boot cd and run it overnight

9/11/2007 6:40:04 PM

^^ yeah, i thought about that, but i didn't know which would be better.

empirically, it doesn't seem to have any effect either way.


^ok

9/11/2007 6:53:22 PM

Get memtest to test your ram
To test your hdd either see if your bios has a test, or get active smart(shareware last I checked)

9/11/2007 6:55:26 PM

disable auto-restart...when the blue screen of death comes up, write down which file it is (.dll?) that's causing it to crash

9/11/2007 7:14:06 PM

Mines started to do the same but its a thinkpad r40 (old), and it sometimes tends to reboot whenever I type a process into the google bar on IE. Of the 4 years I've had it the past month has been the worst for restarting. The fan isn't always on but does run about half the time, cleaned out the fins, nothings changed. Should I just try the same suggestions as to theduke?

9/11/2007 7:15:10 PM

^^what he said. Right click on My Computer->Properties->Advanced Tab->Settings under Startup and Recovery->uncheck automatic restart

9/11/2007 7:29:08 PM

hmm, auto-restart was already disabled

Quote :

"when the blue screen of death comes up, write down which file it is (.dll?) that's causing it to crash"

will do

9/11/2007 7:42:15 PM

STOP: 0x0000008E (0xC000001D, 0xB60F1855, 0xF70E1C34, 0x00000000)


beginning physical memory dump...

[Edited on September 11, 2007 at 11:08 PM. Reason : asdfad]

9/11/2007 11:08:30 PM

If you notice other strange things happening (e.g. songs skipping or irregular program shutdowns) it might be that your motherboard has gone bad or has a short somewhere - I had something similar happen to a friends computer

I would start with the cheapest part and work your way down

1. Power Supply
2. Memory
3. Motherboard
4. Hard Drive

Check out newegg.com as they have a 30 day return policy (minus restocking fees) or get the parts from Best Buy

Try a part out, if it doesn't fix it return it and move on

Good luck, I know from experience this can be frustrating as hell

9/11/2007 11:32:28 PM

oh yeah, it also does weird program shutdowns even more than the average window-based PC

and i've been having this problem with wireless internet, too (works fine for a while, then is a total asspain for a few days, for no apparent reason at all. other two computers in the house don't seem to have same problem).





i'm tempted to just transfer all of my music, pictures, etc to an external hard drive, pull the hard drives out my PC, beat them with a hammer, drop them in the Puget Sound next time I go SCUBA diving, and sell the rest of it on Craigslist for whatever anyone will pay...then just buy a ready-made laptop (or maybe another desktop) and call it a day.

this computer originally started as one that I built probably 6 years ago or so (using parts I pirated from my then-outdated Compaq P2)...not a single component (to include the case) remains out of that original build.

At about 2 years old, the wireless card and the chip fan are the newest components, followed by the video card which is probably about 2.5-3 years old...the DVD drive is about 3 years old. the chip, motherboard, RAM, and all of the fans are about 3.5 years old. CD drive, RAID controller, USB/Firewire hub, floppy drive, sound card, case, power supply, and whatever else I'm forgetting are all even older and were installed at various times.

9/12/2007 12:59:32 AM

Quote :

"pull the hard drives out my PC, beat them with a hammer, drop them in the Puget Sound next time I go SCUBA diving,"

thermite is the way to go

9/12/2007 1:02:06 AM

Do downloads ever fail?

Are file transfers slow?

If file transfer are not slow, and downloads do fail, it sounds like bad RAM.

If file transfers are slow, then it could be a bad HD.

It could also be a SW conflict too, but this isn't likely if the computer spontaneously started doing this.

9/12/2007 1:14:27 AM

i was having a similar problem a couple of months ago and i started messing around with different things and went into the bios and noticed that the automatic timings for my RAM were not what was printed on the RAM from the factory, so i decided to manually set them for the factory settings and i haven't had a crash since. i thought that was really odd that the bios picked automatic timings that were making the computer crash.

9/12/2007 5:58:49 PM

Quote :

"disable auto-restart...when the blue screen of death comes up, write down which file it is (.dll?) that's causing it to crash"

ok, here you go. it's been:


win32k.sys (a couple of times)

savrt.sys

kmixer.sys

adm8830.sys



and it also always says stuff similar to:

Quote :

"STOP: 0x0000008E (0xC000001D, 0xB60F1855, 0xF70E1C34, 0x00000000) beginning physical memory dump..."

9/26/2007 1:52:59 AM

So, you have or haven't completed a full memory and hard disk scan?

Fwiw, I'm placing bets on bad memory.

9/26/2007 2:39:35 AM

8E stop errors are classic memory errors

1) run a memtest on your memory
2) make sure your timings and voltage are set to the manufacturer's spec, not just the default
3) just to make sure, download speedfan and check your temps
4) give update

try some of these things and then report back. i'd like to rule out heat and hdd since he hasn't had heat issues in 2+ years and 8E errors are not typically caused by failing hdd's, while possible, it's not likely. he would also typically hear clicks or experience more immediate failure if it was hdd based. i'm not sure it's psu or motherboard related either, my other inclination is that if it's a failing psu, you would have fried a part or chances are shorted another part as a result of immediate power failure, and you aren't experiencing any power failure. the ONLY way it could be a psu issue is if the power draw is on the borderline of what the psu can handle, which if you haven't changed anything in 2+ years, this doesn't seem logical.

memory is obviously the logical part to analyze first, drivers second.

if you can post the minidump file it would help... there "could" be a chance it's drivers as well

[Edited on September 26, 2007 at 11:26 AM. Reason : .]

9/26/2007 11:12:05 AM

the energy from your ego is providing an overload in the electrical circuitry of the motherboard through mutual inductance.

9/26/2007 11:31:09 AM

not all things were covered, just ruling out the others, no ego here, just offering my opinion based on previous experience. while numerous people have stated memory, i'm merely pointing out why.

as of now there's nothing to go from except the description and stop error. it "could" be a number of things, no update yet from theDuke.... a minidump would probably help the most here.

[Edited on September 26, 2007 at 12:15 PM. Reason : .]

9/26/2007 12:13:18 PM

I was not talking about you; I was merely offering Duke a reason for his computer problems ^

9/26/2007 4:17:00 PM