*Random System Restarts* (Win XP)

[Oni Kage]

'Ello all, I know this topic has been rehashed countless times but none have satisfied any resolutions. Regardless I am starting another thread in the hopes that we as a community can finally discearn exactly what is happening to us... I am reffering to my fellow "Random Rebooters" of course. :D My system will reboot at random intervals for seemingly random reasons. I can be using explorer, 3D Studio Max, listening to a CD, or even playing a game for hours and nothing happens, at other times only for minutes, or rarely, if I even so much as open a program it will crash the system. I have turned off that absolutley inane "Startup and Recovery / System failure / Automatically restart". But even with this feature off the system still restarts at random, on the rare occasion I get a blue screen with a stop message it is often a 0X000000C2 or a 0X0000008E. Alright, with that said... I have done everthing neccesary to have a clean and primed machine... formated and partitioned (countless times) as follows...

Drive 1:
20gb - Windows ( C: )
05gb - Page File ( D: )
97gb - Software ( E: )

Drive 2:
114gb - Software ( F: )

I have had absolutley no problems what-so-ever untill recently... any thoughts?
All drivers and bios images are up-to-date.

System specs listed below...

AMD Athlon XP +2200
Soyo KT400 Dragon Ultra Platinum (Via KT400)
512mb Samsung 3200 DDR 400
Antec True Control 550watt PSU
2 x 120gb Maxtor HD
Sony DRU-510A (DVD+/-RW +/-R)
PNY GeForce FX 5900 Ultra
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Platinum
Windows XP Pro - SP1

[Dani]

I've noticed thsi problem a lot when related to Nvidia cards in combination with AMD Athlon XP processors and Windows XP. When I switched to an Intel, the problems miraculously went away, even when everying else was left the same (same video card, programs installed, etc). Weird, eh?

[Oni Kage]

Quite the costly resolution... hmm... I always was suspicious of a evil union between Microsoft and Intel, now it seems we have proof! ;)

[Oni Kage]

Well after multiple reformats, rebuilds, reconfigurations and much frustration I've managed to narrow down the problem... I can accuratley state that it is a device error... caused by, perhaps a driver, perhaps not... here hopefully someone can help decipher these arcane *** STOP: codes better then I...

*** STOP: 0X0000008E (0XC0000005, 0XBF8AED22, 0XA9C5144C, 0X00000000)

*** win32k.sys - Address BF8AED22 base at BF800000 DateStamp 3b7de698

I have been able to recreate this exact *** STOP: code multiple times... all of course except for the date stamp ;)

Wish me luck...

[Oni Kage]

Well after 5 reformat / reinstalls, 3 pots of coffee, 2 sleepless nights, and a couple of Smiths & Morrissey albums later I have figured it out... AMD is super picky about (new) hardware. Especially during the installation of an OS (WIN XP), those of you with similiar hardware specs as myself (listed above) pay heed!!! You *MUST* only install your graphics card during OS installation... afterwards your free to install anything else you could possibly wish to slap in your system. But when your laying down the new OS it is highly advisable to only have your graphics card, mouse, keyboard, and moniter installed... and thats all! Anything else you may wish to connnect should wait so you may avoid the nutty IRQ issues that arise with AMD procs. Please excuse me if I haven't explained this all that elloquently, but please understand I have had very little sleep. :!: If required / requested I will write a short run down of everything that I went through in the hopes it will help all of you out there who suffer from the same ailments.

SLEEP_NOT_EQUAL_OR_LESS

*** STOP: IxMU2T2L33PN0W

[obe1k]

Hi Oni Kage, I have had a similar problem with installing my OS. I have an Athlon 1.2, and whenever I try to do a clean install of XP Pro, it freezes at the 'checking hardware' stage... BUT if I remove my Geforce 3 video card, and replace it with my old TNT2 card, it installs perfectly! Then I have to go and change out the video cards once the OS is installed.
I might try your idea of removing everything except the video card next time and see what happens..

cheers

[aeinstein]

thanks for the info Obi Kage & obe1k - i'm partial to Ath chips & will keep ur trials & resolutions in mind

[Tekmaven]

Have you guys tried flashing your BIOS's with a newer revision? Just sounds like a funky motherboard chipset incompatibility that could be fixed in a BIOS Revision.

I've always had a problem buying an AMD machine. I mean, what is an AMD processor? A processor ment to run like an Intel processor. When stuff is "ment" to run like other stuff, then there will always be problems. Go try fitting a square cartridge into a round peg (well, Apollo 13 did, but thats NASA, lol).

[samoht442]

I wish someone would of told me about this before I baught a SOYO and an AMD.

Soyo K7V Dragon Plus!
Athalon 1.4
512MB Kingston DDR2100
ATI Radeon 128MB Pro
Sound Blaster Live! Mp3+
Aoepn Network Card
Antec 300watt Case

See the similarity in our systems. SAME random STOP errors. I noticed they occur a lot when exiting programs. I believe it could be AMD and SOYO problems with Windows XP. I'm going to look around for a P4 Set up and see if it acutally does fix it. (I'll take advantage of the return policy!) I get the same STOP 0x0000008E messages and sometimes STOP messages regarding the Win32k.sys file. This might actually have to do with my budget set up. I'm glad I'm finally getting some answers on this nightmare glitch.

Thanks.

[Dani]

Well after 5 reformat / reinstalls, 3 pots of coffee, 2 sleepless nights, and a couple of Smiths & Morrissey albums later I have figured it out... AMD is super picky about (new) hardware. Especially during the installation of an OS (WIN XP), those of you with similiar hardware specs as myself (listed above) pay heed!!! You *MUST* only install your graphics card during OS installation... afterwards your free to install anything else you could possibly wish to slap in your system.

I had an NVidia Geforce 3 card in my Athlon XP. I upgraded to a Geforce 4 Ti and started having these problems. I thought it was the video card! A reformat didn't even work :( When I later got a P4, solution solved.

Years ago I had the same problem with an ATI Rage 128. I forget how I solved it.

[feigned]

I've always had a problem buying an AMD machine. I mean, what is an AMD processor? A processor ment to run like an Intel processor. When stuff is "ment" to run like other stuff, then there will always be problems.

Processors don't all run propietary Intel code, you know. Nothing is "ment" to run anything else. AMD chips don't emulate x86 code, they RUN it (actually x87, that's neither here nor there).

They both share and swap ideas, whether that's something you wish to believe or not is up to you.

Just don't ever make it sound like AMD is the little brother of Intel. That's not the case, and this is how rumors are started. It's like saying a Ford is meant to run like a Dodge, or an orange is supposed to taste like kiwi.

On a base level, Fords and Dodges make vehicles, oranges and kiwis are fruit. That's as far as the similarities go, however. Same basic function, different results. Do you see what I'm trying to say?

[Sean]

I have windows xp pro and it keeps randomly restarting when i play games like diablo, halo, counterstrike, medal of honor.... pretty much anything. I re-installed xp pro and it worked fine for a while, but then it started doing it again after about 3 weeks. this makes me think that its not hardware because if it were then it would have restarted immediatly after i re-installed it

[sleepingbear03]

i am not repling to this but i just reinstalled everything on my computer and only during game play my puter will restart it self PLEASE HELP ME

[Jra2003]

I used to have this problem and if I remember clearly it is a very easy fix in XP. Open Sytem Properties(window key and pause/break at same time is the fastest way to) then click the Advanced tab, then click the settings button under start up and recovery, then uncheck 'Automatically Restart' under system failure. This should prevent the randomness of the restarts

[cisgms]

I have a Celeron processor and I have been having the same problem whenever I run something with decent level graphics, I have already turned off the Automatic restart thing, any ideas?

[DMR]

cisgms,

We ask that members not tag their questions on to a thread already started by another member. When multiple questions start getting asked within a single thread it can quickly get confusing to follow which answers relate to which question. This is known as "thread hijacking", and it isn't really fair to the original thread-starter, as it take the focus away from his/her question.

Please start your own thread and post your question there.

Thanks.

[JR85023]

I have a Celeron processor and I have been having the same problem whenever I run something with decent level graphics, I have already turned off the Automatic restart thing, any ideas?

Update your video card "Buy a shiny new one like the new NVIDIA 6800" or lower your graphics resolutions.

http://www.nvidia.com/page/geforce_6800.html