OT: Device Driver Errors

[Captain Kwok]

Greetings!

I'm running WinXP Pro on a Pentium 4 2.4Ghz data machine with 512Mb of RAM and plenty of HD space.

I've been having random reboots (2-3 daily) due to a device driver error for the Last 8 months. I'm really quite tired of it!

Of course, WinXP can never reveal which driver it is, just that I've had a crash due to a device driver error.

I've kept all the drivers for my video card (ATI Radeon 9000 64Mb) and sound card (sound card, AC-97 C-media) updated as much as possible.

The drivers for the sound card are not digitally signed for XP, and there was one time it actually reported a device driver error as caused by the sound driver - but only ever once.

There are no showing conflicts in my device manager or stuff of that sort.

Is there any way that I can determine which is my problem driver? Can it be another device? I do have a DVD and CD-RW drives as well.

Please help!

[Ed Kolis]

Uninstall them one by one until the problem goes away?

[Atrocities]

You get one or two free tech support calls to Microsoft. If not, tell them the problem occured after the Last update and you need there help to figure it out. They might wave the cost.

Good luck, and please keep us informed.

[Electrum]

2 things

1/ go to your control panel. Under administrative tools you to event viewer. This is a log of error Messages. Look for big red "X's.

2/ Go to control panel / system / Advanced tab. Under Startup and recovery, go into settings. Under system failure, un-check the automaticly restart box. It should stop thr rebooting, though not the problem. It sould give you a cahance to see what the problem is.

[Electrum]

Originally posted by Captain Kwok:
I'd already disabled the automatic restart - but that system event viewer was kind of interesting. But I've been unable to correlate the error reports with any of the devices.

I ran a scan and identified 9 digitally unsigned drivers and researched each one. 1 belongs to the motherboard, 2 to c-dilla (software protection copyright stuff, but not present from the beginning), 1 from the dvd, 1 for safedisc launcher (another copy protection thing), 2 from my Norton a/v, and 1 from my soundcard.

I'm going to see if I can find some updated signed drivers...I know already for some of them I won't be able to though.

You for the Motherboard drivers first. also check if there is an updated BIOS. I would quess your problems there. If not, I would try disabling (or removing, if you can) the Norton. Most AV programs are very intrusive, but it seems NAV is more than others. It will work fine for many, but, sometimes.....
It would be helpful if I knew the specific equipment you computer has (MB, CPU, etc.)
How long have you had XP Pro installed?
Do you do a lot of adding/ removing of software?
Have you run any anti spyware programs lately (Spybot, Ad-aware)? sometimes a little program in the background wreaks havoc.

[Captain Kwok]

Yeah, that's what I'm going to do when I get the chance tonight is get an updated bios driver.

The motherboard is Asus (can't recall the model right now, will note it on next startup). I've given the rest of the pertinent specs in my first post.

I installed WinXP fresh on the computer when it was new, and also Norton. There are reports of a norton driver causing problems, although my symptons haven't quite matched up to what I read.

I don't think it's connected to software remnants, since it has been present since the earliest days, when the system was more or less "clean" and the error occurs very randomally...

I do run ad-aware on a regular basis.

[Phoenix-D]

There is a specific model of ASUS motherboard that is notorious for having issues..I'll see if I can find which model for you.

[Atrocities]

Another off the wall thing might be that your Asus MB's AGP port might be failing.

You should also consider calling the tech number for your Graphics Card. Most have a long time warrentee and perphas they can help solve the problem.

[Captain Kwok]

I have an ASUS P4SX8 motherboard.

[Atrocities]

Dude I feel for you. With how ASUS has been cutting quality lately even there best Boards are failing.