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Computer Drama... /cry
blankelnino
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Ok so,
Every now and then when I boot my PC right after the Windows XP loading Screen I get a Blue screen error and the computer reboots. The problem is that the blue screen disappears before I have a chance to write down the error code so that I can track down the problem. Any suggestions?
Interesting aside, if the error happens, i boot the machine in to safe mode then restart and it boots up normally... weird.
Every now and then when I boot my PC right after the Windows XP loading Screen I get a Blue screen error and the computer reboots. The problem is that the blue screen disappears before I have a chance to write down the error code so that I can track down the problem. Any suggestions?
Interesting aside, if the error happens, i boot the machine in to safe mode then restart and it boots up normally... weird.
blankelnino on
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Posts
I think...
Did you recently install new hardware? update drivers?
Hmmn, you sound like a Joseph Heller fan...
He'd have to be able to boot in order to set his screen resolution/frequency. Plus, I think the BSOD falls back to a text mode screen. I want to say that it chooses a "least common denominator" resolution and frequency text mode that's guaranteed to be available, so chances are you can't set it at all. Ah, yeah, Wikipedia sez:
What you want to do is turn off automatic reboot. Which, admittedly, is still a Catch-22 situation, but if you can still boot into Safe Mode, you can:
Then you should be able to read your next BSOD moment at your leisure.
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Perhaps. The good news is that your problem is deterministic and it happens right at boot time, so it should be easy to do some science experiments to narrow down the cause.
Something's gone wrong here and it depends on what it is. You want to find this out carefully, because let's say you reformat and reinstall, and now you're OK, but the problem was really that your HDD went flaky. Now you've wasted a bunch of time and effort AND you're going to have more problems later.
My guesses at possibilities:
1. RAM went bad.
2. Hard drive is flaking out.
3. File on your HDD actually got corrupted by a freak occurrence, malware, or a software update.
4. Motherboard or other piece of hardware is acting wonky.
You can test #1 with memtest, which is always a good idea. You can also test #1 by yanking RAM one module at a time and seeing if you can boot.
You can test #2 with your drive manufacturer's test software, which is also a good idea.
#3 is harder to test. You can do a repair install on Windows, which may make things better or it may make them worse. Of course, if your hard drive has gone flaky then this may fix the problem temporarily until a bigger HDD failure bites you later, which is why I recommend running your manufacturer's drive test software.
#4 is a massive pain in the butt to test for, and it helps if there's some hint in the blue screen as to what might have gone flaky (maybe your ethernet board or something). At this point you can start systematically pulling hardware, but if it's the motherboard, that sucks.
It's not a bad suggestion, but we have no reason to believe this given what he's saying right now. It could be a lot of things which are much less catastrophic.
But yes, try to boot into safe mode. If you can do that successfully, do as darkgrue suggested and turn off auto reboot so you can see what the BSOD says.
For shits and grins you may want to try uninstalling your video drivers temporarily to see if that has any effect when you try to boot normally.