Windows OS fail?

Every few days or weeks, Windows just freaks out. Sometimes it comes up with an error "Windows has just recovered from a serious error", the screen being in 16 colour etc, keyboard and mouse not working. I reboot like it tells me to, and then windows claims one of the directories (\system32\something) is missing. I can't get into windows.

Other time, I listen to an MP3 or something, anything memory intensive such as sound editing/recording, and the system freezes, the sound getting stuck. Yesterday, the MP3 went all crackly, the monitor lost signal and I couldn't use the PC. I restarted it, and it complained while in windows that system files were being overwritten with unrecognized versions and I should insert the OS disc. So I did. Then I restarted, and then I couldn't login because of license errors or something. I rebooted again, and then the PC rebooted itself whenever it got to the login screen.

This happens quite alot. I've been told it could be my RAM chips are dodgy, but I ran Memtest for roughly 45 mins/1hr and no errors were found.

What could it be?

 

hard drive

 

Have you had a look in the Event Log? It might have some clues in there. Does it let you back in eventually without you having to reinstall or anything?

 

M first instinct too. Especially the crackly mp3 thing...

 

Hmm. It could be. Once, it was playing a 3GB video that I had made, and stuttered and stopped. Restarted the machine and the drive ID was gobbledegook. Gave it it's own IDE channel and it's been fine ever since.

I've not had any problems with the drive apart from that. How can I tell if it's the HDD? Wouldn't RAM cause problems like that too?

Hex: No. I have to format the thing

 

could also be a dodgy power supply ... if stuff like ram and hdd arent getting clean power, it will appear that said components are failing.

i always troubleshoot in this order (just from personal experience)

1: psu

2: ram

3: ide cables

4: hdd (if practical)

5: cards

6: mobo (again, if practical)

7: software

8: OS

i like to work from simple > complex ... cause i really hate formatting and resetting a pc, just to discover that a ram stick was half out or a nic went tits-up.

 

Switch around #3 and #1, and that's my troubleshooting order as well.

Just for gits and shiggles, when's the last time you scandisk/defragged M3G4?

 

Quite a while back, whenever I ran diskeeper, after a while, explorer would crash and bring diskeeper with it

 

Happenned twice again this week.

Just used ASR to sort it, but it's very frustrating. Was watching a streaming video, sound crackled, monitor lost signal.

I reset the machine. Managed to log in this time. Came back to machine after lunch to see error dialog "Windows has just recovered from a critical error". Reset the machine because it wouldn't respond

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM"

 

hmmm, this seems helpfull to me too, i got errors with mine too...im thinking PSU now..i might test it later

 

The PSU is the culprit more often then you would think. I'de say more but I feel like I'm going to die right now... Man I don't feel good... Uggg...

 

Really?

Mine's a QTEC 550W PSU... what's yours?

I do sometimes hear the intake fans speed slow down, speed up etc. Sounds weird...

 

mines a hyper power 420W psu... im just gona try another psu in my system and if it works then ill just replace the psu, if not i dunno

 

Maybe I should try the 300W PSU in my mums PC

 

I found another problem

I came back home from some celebration thing, and I had left the PC on. When I turned the monitor on, it was at lowest resolution, lowest colour depth etc, and there was an error box telling me the PC had recovered from a serious failiure of somesort

Usually it would have hanged here, and then started the "reboot at login screen" thing, but it hasn't. Instead, it works properly, but the system stutters alot - while logging on the mouse stutters all the time and in some cases freezes in its place until the desktop is displayed. MP3's stutter occasionally etc. It's never done this before, and according to windows there is always around 256+ MB of RAM free. But the effects are similar to those when there's hardly any RAM available.

I've been talking to my friend and he reckon's its faulty RAM.

 

A good clean Format and reinstall is in order I think

but thats just me I like to clean my system completely every couple months

 

i had a problem with explorer keep crashing and other programs would go into this wierd font anyway, in the end it was coz i droped my 80gig drive on the floor i think that what caused the problem so now i limted down to just 30gigs. and everything works fine

 

M3G4, seeing as it hasn't completely died this time have you had a look in the Event Log? It may give you a clue to what the "serious error" was that it recovered from?

Thumperup: M3G4'a been reformatting and installing all along. There appears to be some hardware issue that makes this happen regularly.

Anything you have spares of, try 'em. If you have a spare HDD try that for a bit. See what happens. Same with RAM and PSU.

 

It packed up again today, had to format

I didn't get a chance to check the event log DAMNIT!!!

I'm gonna get new RAM and HDD anyway, so I'll have a fiddle when I get them.

 

Grrrr I hate it when it does that. That's why I made work fork out for ERD Commander. There is a trial version available:

http://www.winternals.com/products/repairandrecovery/erdcommander2002.asp

It is invaluable in my work tool-kit. I use it all the time to get data off dead hard-drives and stuff.