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Windows XP home crashing

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by baegis 1 view

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My son has a p3 1.4gHz pc with 256MB ram. He had a lot of problems with his computer crashing intermittently. We could not find it so I suggested he buy another hard drive and do a fresh install. He did this but he is still getting the crashes. What should he look for. He has formatted the new drive with NTFS. It is a 120Gb Maxtor drive. His graphic card is SIS AG315-64 ? motherboard not sure I need to look at it.

7 replies

by p.j.hutchison

I could be the ram, try a different memory stick. Make the the RAM matches whats required for the motherboard.
Also, check for overheating, is the case too hot to touch?

by cg it

define crash. is there a critical error system halt blue screen with a memory dump? does the computer just stop responding? If you go to control panel admin tools event viewer. look at system, security, application events for critical errors, they will be shown with a red dot with an X in the middle. let us know what you find in the event viewer and also any information from a critical stop system halt blue screen message.

by cg it

the other thing I always ask when its a "kids" computer [adults are prone to this as well] is

are you overclocking the processor or graphics card above it's stated operating parameters?

as the first answer indicated first culprit to look at is memory.

by nanoteki

It might be posssible that your system is just a bit unstable it might help to make sure you have all the critical updates through the microsoft update site http://v4.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/en/default.asp
just copy and paste the above link to your browser. I know Windows XP PRO or at least the version of XP pro I have had such an issue and it can be a problem just downloading the updates. Let me know what happens after you attempt to update your Windows version and let me know what version or operating system (example windows 98,Windows XP home or Pro).

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