I know this is a gun crowd but there's also some friggin computer geniuses among you guys.



Here's the prob:
Upgraded to XP about a month ago and it's been trouble ever since.
The biggest is my pute shuts down about 4 or 5 times a day, all by itself! I get the dreaded big blue screen with an Overflow memory error and a 100 second countdown. Machine then resets itself and I'm up again for a few hours (or minutes)

My machine also occasionally will not allow me to log on to my ISP. This problem is also new. MODEM dials fine, seems to connect, and then I get "ISP" not found. A system restart cures this, for a while.

I don’t seem to remember if this occurs when I’m off line as I’m usually online. Oh yeah, Big blue seems to raise it’s ugly head more often (though not exclusively) when both  my browser and outlook are open.

Specs are: ACER 739TVL, 850 P3, ZOOM V92. Software (which is where I suspect the problem lies) in the background is Zone Alarm (free ware), IE 6.0 with all current updates and Outlook 2000, Black Ice and McCafee's.  Dial up is Earthlink.

7 times out of 10, the Blue Screen Of Death (BSOD) is caused by hardware.

As The_beer_slayer said, check to see if your system and components are on XP's Hardware Compatablity List (HCL).

You state that you can be up for a few hours, then bang, BSOD. First thing I would check is to see if your fan for the CPU is still working. You maybe having an overheat problem.

Second, I would be looking at the memory. You may have a bad stick of ram.

You said that you Upgraded... did you wipe your system before installing XP? Or did you leave your old O/S on the system and then install XP on top? If you did the latter... backup all your personal data (Bookmarks/Favorites, Documents, data files, etc) ASAP! You might want to try a "fresh" install of your system. M$ tends to have problems when upgrading over an existing O/S (history proves this one).

One can interpret the BSOD screen and the following memory dumps. It generally lets you know what code is running and which piece of code had problems. But the important information is the first 2 lines on the BSOD. Take time and copy it down, then go to [url]support.microsoft.com[/url] and start digging around their knowledge base for the error (in whole or part). Be sure you are not the first one to run in to the error (unless you are me, which I tend to report new errors to M$).

Thanks guys.

I contacted ACER to see if they have any compatibility info for XP.

The MS web site shows no test data for XP. The only test data is for NT, which is what I was running.

Guzzler, I did do a clean load. I may just FORMAT C: if this thing keeps pissing me off.

I'll take your advice and start copying the BSOD message. Is it the very top of the screen? I should have it memorized by now!!

Thanks again.
Paul

Three years of tech support at the nations #1 computer manufacturer contradicts this.  I'd say 9 out of 10 are NOT hardware.  A lot are caused by hosed drivers, or some incompatibilities with some resident software. If Guzzler's statment were true, the major manufacturers would go broke replacing defective hardware.

The most fragile part of a computer is the software.  You would not believe the number of customers I get who get errors and such, and think that replacing some part of their computer will magically make it work right.

My advice to PDM would be to update his system BIOS and try formatting the drive and installing XP from scratch.  I'd do this first, if that doesn't work, get the manufacturer's diagnostics.  Since the machine was running fine before, I doubt installing XP damaged any of his hardware.

XP is running fine for me on my box at home.  It will work fine if you know how to get into it and take out a lot of the overhead it puts in.  I wouldn't try to run it on anything slower than a PIII 500, or without at least 256MB of RAM.  I had done an upgrade from W2K which had problems, so I reinstalled from a clean format, and it's been running fine for several months.  

AR15FENCER,

Yes I do agree that most of the issues of an operating system are due to bad drivers and crappy software. I will not deny that.

But... with the described symptoms, it pushed me towards a hardware issue. Which oddly enough is a great cause of weird erractic behaviour of systems. Especially when you start working with the NT kernel based systems and BSOD's.

NT kernel based systems tend to use more of the hardware than older M$ O/S's. Which then bring up flaky hardware, especially RAM or an accessory card (SCS, Sound, Video Capture, etc).

Now, don't get me wrong. I have diagnosed several programs that have been the cause of BSOD's (don't every mix "Remotely Possible" and "PC Anywhere" running in host mode BTW).

Without seeing the acutal error message or memory dump, or knowing exactly what was going on prior to the BSOD it is somewhat difficult to diagnose.

It is realatively easy to create a DOS boot disk, and run some diagnostic/burn-in software to eleminate hardware issues.

Oh, by the way... I do have well over 18 years in the PC/IT field, 9 with the NT based O/S (just to toot [b]my[/b] horn). But I am the first to admit that I don't know everything, humility is learned the hard way. You will get there someday. Oh, and please don't tell me you worked for Compaq.

I just got a brand new Dell running XP. I have used it every day now for about 3 weeks and it has'nt missed a beat. So far though I have not added any aftermarket stuff, except for some HP software for a digital cam.

I happen to be in Earthlink XDSL, I can escalate your issue to a Dial up helpdesk guy who might be able to help....if you want me to do that, then please send me an email tommorow between 6am-230pm Arizona time.

[email protected]

oh heck no.  My company was still PROFITABLE!

Given the little information, we'd need to see what the BSOD says, of course.  However, given that all he did was upgrade to XP (whether he did a format and clean install, or an upgrade), and is now having problems, when he was not with his previous OS makes me lean more toward software/driver/OS problems.  I don't discount the idea that running diags and updating the BIOS are something he should do, but my money is on a software problem.  ;)

I couldn't have asked for better timing. I was in the middle of scribing a witty retort thanking everyone for all the help and WHAM.....BSOD!

Here is what appeared to be the error line:

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

Does thsi clue anyone in as to what's up?

Thanks in advance!

pdm, that's probably a driver error. I had that error in in Win2000 Pro and solved it with an updated video driver.

Woooo Hoooo!!! Crediblity just went through the ROOF!!!

PDM,

From Microsoft's Q article (Q315252) AR15FENCER wins the prize tonight. You have a possible driver issue.

[b]Bug Check 0x0A IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL[/b] , which is defined as 0x0A, indicates that the driver accessed paged memory at DISPATCH_LEVEL or higher.

I.e. means you have a bad driver. Most likely. But... there is the possibility that the driver [i]is[/i] working properly, but the hardware is flaky (sorry AR15FENCER, had to throw that in).

So now comes the fun part... figureing out which driver is causing the issues. Try going to Microsoft's system update and seeing if there are any newer drivers for your system. If they don't then it is up to you to go out to ACER's web site and see if they have newer drivers for your system. Sometimes they come in a single install package, or individual packages. If you have the patients, do each one individually (just to find out which one), or just blast them in all at once. Riskier though.

I had nothing but problems when I installed xp untill I updated ALL my hardware drivers, and I just built my computer in July of this year.
Since the updates, xp hasn't missed a beat. Much more stable than 98SE.
After using xp for more than two months, I wouldn't take 98SE if it was my only choice and they gave it to me.