PC Gurus HELP ME! Crash Log Software Needed?

[Rossco]

Hello,

I feel like I constantly have troubles with my PCs.

For about the last year, my PC will randomly crash and restart. It can happen anytime, if the PC is idle and not being used or when I'm rendering 3D uni work maxing out the CPU. Mostly though, it just happens out the blue with no warning.

Is there anything that can monitor whats happening when it crashes so I can go back and look at it after it restarts?

It seems to have got worse lately and my uni work is relly struggling now as I can't just sit down and work all day without interruption like I should be.

Please give me some ideas what to do short of buying a new PC.

[abigsmurf]

you need to buy a new pc!!!!



xp by default will restart rather than display a blue screen

1. Go to Start -> Control Panel -> System
2. Go to Advanced
3. Under the Startup and Recovery section, click Settings...
4. Under System Failure un-check "Automatically restart"

You should now get a nice shiny blue screen instead of it restarting. If you don't, chances are it's a problem with your PSU or your CPU getting dangerously hot (pretty much everything else will give a blue screen.

Post details of the blue screen you get (dll's mentioned, the stopcode)

[Hohum]

I'd start off by running Memtest:

http://www.memtest.org/

Create a disc using the tools provided, and boot from it when starting your PC. If you don't get any errors at all after a while (say 1-2 hours), then faulty RAM can be ruled out I reckon. Anyway, yeah - just try that for now, and if it turns up nothing then other potential tests/solutions can be suggested for you.

[demon9k]

Sounds like a memory thing but as mentioned above it could be a number of things. I'd do what Hohum suggested first.

[Rossco]

Cheers guys I'll try the memtest. It will highlight if there are errors then? I hope it does highlight something and I can just buy new RAM and be done with it.

[Hohum]

It'll list any errors in red at the bottom of the screen - if the RAM's fine, then you will see no errors whatsoever (even a single error counts as a fail).

[Rossco]

Just ran it for two hours and no errors at all. Damnit!

[Hohum]

OK, so now I'd check your hard drive - within Windows goto Control Panel/Admin tools/Event Viewer, and see if there are any errors related to hard disc or storage controllers. That's usually the quickest way (for me at least), although you can also download diagnostic tools from your hard disc manufacturer's website if you wish.

[Rossco]

Didn't realise you'd replied, thanks mate I will try that next!

[abigsmurf]

If you've enabled blue screens and it's still just randomly rebooting rather than locking up or bluescreening, I'd say it's almost certainly PSU issues because most other things just cause system halts and/or are accompanied by frenzied beeping.

Speedfan will give you your temps if you want to eliminate overheating as the cause. It'll also give you the voltages, if you're significantly undervolt that would point to the PSU failing. However speedfan is hopelessly inaccurate for voltage on some motherboards.

[Rossco]

OK, so now I'd check your hard drive - within Windows goto Control Panel/Admin tools/Event Viewer, and see if there are any errors related to hard disc or storage controllers. That's usually the quickest way (for me at least), although you can also download diagnostic tools from your hard disc manufacturer's website if you wish.

Don't really know what I'm looking for with this but in the system log for today when I turned my PC on, a message says:

The previous system shutdown at 23:26:38 on 17/11/2009 was unexpected.

Which was when I last had it on and it crashed then as usual.

And checking the log for that time says:

Reset to device, \Device\RaidPort1, was issued.

What does that mean? I clicked the online help for that log but it didn't return any finds.

It says the source is nvstor64, the event ID is 129 if that helps anyone understand?

[abigsmurf]

There's a bug with the nforce drivers in Vista. Make sure you update them. If that doesn't work:

Open Device Manager, open properties for the nForce SATA storage
controller, click port 1 tab and DISABLE Native Command Queuing

[Jei]

Out of curiosity do you have a Quadcore Phenom Processor?

I've had a couple do this and its down to cool and quiet being enabled. Turned cool and quiet off in the bios and they've been perfect since.

[Rossco]

I have a Q600. Never heard the Phenom name or of Cool and Quiet so don't think it is?

I'm updating my motherboard and graphics card drivers again which I have done before anyway.

Then I will try disabling NCQ, thanks.

[Rossco]

On Friday, instead of trying all the above, I done something else. I had a feeling that it was one of the hard drives so unplugged my SATA drive I use for storing all my music, films etc. I had the PC on for about 12 hours that day and it didn't crash once. I don't think it's ever been on that long without crashing since this all started. So we may have pinpointed the problem. If that is it though, what would be the actual cause? Is the drive gubbed and need replacing?