Windows XP Home Started Crashing, any ideas?

[Davdog]

I was running the gui on this box for about a week when it started rebooting for no particular reason that i could tell.

Pertinent info:
amd athlon 1800+
512 mg ram
Windows XP
this box serves as the internet gateway to another computer over a phone line network and is hooked to a gateway router
System has been running just fine 24/7 for the SETI Client For about a year ( I Just busted 10k units today !!! Now I can swith all boxes to folding!! )
This box is my 'main machine' There are 3 other boxes (1 win98, 1 XP Pro, one linux) in the house with no problems running the folding client.
The box went from SETI to Folding, worked ok for a week, then started crashing hard, When i swtiched back to SETI, no more problems....
no new programs, no other flaky behavior
only happened when I was away for extended periods so i cant see what happens before the crash

any ideas how to trouble shoot this?

Dave

[Scoofy12]

you may be bluescreeing. if so, try this to start: in your system properties (rightclick my computer, click properties) on the advanced tab, under "startup and recovery" down in the "system failure" pane....
uncheck the box that says "randomly reboot"

no, just kidding :)
actually it says "automatically restart."
this will keep the nice calming blue screen on your monitor so you can see what it tells you, it may mention a driver, which is what usually is the culprit.

[Davdog]

I went ahead and made the changes to my configuration and fired up the folding. Of course nothing has happened so far, not like I want to crash or anything!

I'll keep you all posted

Dave

[Davdog]

I had to put one box back to SETI. The box started crashing again. The blue screen said " IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL" then further down it said, "STOP 0X0000000A (0XFF086f86, )X00000007,X00000001,0X806C9147)"

That last part of the code with the 806C9147 sounds like a NIC type chip, but thats pure speculation on my part...

Do any of you have any ideas???

Dave

[IronBits]

Too hot... ?
You have a hardware conflict someplace...
Turn off unused Serial/parallel ports to give it some breathing room.
If they are crunchers, I turn off all USB, Serial and Parallel ports.

[Davdog]

I dont think so... when SETI is running at 100% 24/7 I havent had any worries......

[bwkaz]

Try a search at MSKB (search.microsoft.com) for "stop 0x0000000a" and/or "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL". They may have some things to try.

Otherwise, where was this happening? Somewhere on that screen should have been the module that was running at the time, if that's your video driver or something, then try updating it.

[Paratima]

Along those same lines, something I tell people regularly (since learning the hard way) is make sure your BIOS is up-to-date.

DF puts a real strain on your muthaboard & having the latest drivers for all them little widgets can make the difference. ;)

[IronBits]

"IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL"
Means Interrupt problems. Whether a card has gone bonkers and sends spurious requests, or, does not like to share and IRQ.
Need to remove cards, to see which one it is. One at a time, till the problem goes away. The last card you pull will be the culprit.
I assumed Dave was just nodding it wasn't heat related and is working at R&Ring the cards, and disabling all interupts he can in the BIOS... Older cards do not like to share interupts.
IF, not other changes than just the client... DF is notorious in finding borderline bad ram. SETI uses the L2 cache alot and has a very small memory foot print, DF does not and uses alot of memory. If it has two sticks, then maybe the motherboard memory controller or 2nd ram slot is bad, or marginal... try moving them around. This is a hardware game in chasing this one down, and can consume many hours of trial and error and card swapping to nail it down... Sometimes moving cards around helps.

[vaughan]

Heat. My XP2000 runs at 58°C on Seti 3.0.7 and 65°C doing df using dfGUIv2.1
When the hsf gets clogged with dust the temp reaches the point where the computer just re-boots. Sometimes there is a stupid message about report the problem to Micro$oft but they never reply so there is no point in wasting bandwidth with them.
Install a better cooling system and df will run OK.