[MadDog9292]

Hey guys I'm running Windows Vista Home Premium 32 bit on a HP Model m9040n with an Intel Core2 Quad CPU Q6600 @ 2.40 GHz, 3.0 GB Ram, and a nVidia GeForce 8400 GS. I've had it for about a year to two years and I've blown it out regularly with an air compressor. (Method: Compress air once and then let out condensation to minimise moisture in the air in the tank, then compress again and blow out the system.)

I don't know if that helps. I'm always careful not to put the nozzle too close to the parts and I hold the fans still while I blow them as to not wear out the bearings. I haven't really had any problems up until now. I recently formatted because I had a lot of junk on my computer and I wanted a fresh start since I formatted all the other computers in my home. Anyway, I tried to give as much information as I could about my system.

My computer performed fine before the format, but recently after when I have a certain website open (Gaia online), a video message calling service (oovoo Video messenger), and notepad. It often crashes to a blue screen, a restart, or the screen just crashes and the mouse doesn't move at all. I hope you guys can help me out. I've tried different things like uninstalling oovoo and reinstalling it, cleaning out temp files with ccleaner and ncleaner, defragging, virus scanning with avira, spyware scanning with malwarebytes and adaware and spybots s&d, defragging, etc.

It's getting quite frustrating as it didn't start happening until after the format. I'm thinking I'm going to have to format again or something. Also, it doesn't have to be the combonation of oovoo, gaia, and notepad all the time, after a couple hours of use even if those things aren't even open my computer crashes the same. Thanks for any help and if there can be no help thank you for your time.

- Macon

[hulkinator]

You edited to fix grammar/punctuation... you sound like me

Anyways... it would help us if you post the exact error when you get a blue screen. The numbers there really do mean something; we can use them to figure out if it is related to a bad driver, memory, or whatever.

[Rollin' Rog]

Did they begin immediately after the format? If not, did you try a "system restore" to a point before they began? When checking for restore points, make sure you have checked the option to display more than 5 dates. A restore can be undone if not helpful.

Let's have a look at the minidumps, if you don't see any, make sure you are not using a cache cleaner such as CCleaner or anything similar which deletes them. Disable that and force a couple of new BSODs before checking again.

I can run a debugging utility on the dump files if you do this:

1 > create a new folder on the desktop and call it "dumpcheck" or whatever you like
2 > navigate to c:\windows\minidump and copy the last few minidump files to that folder. *this assumes 'c' is your boot drive, if it is not, subsitute accordingly
3 > close the folder and right click on it and select Send to Compressed (zipped) Folder.
4 > use the "manage attachments" in the "advanced" reply window to upload that zip file here as an attachment.

This might point us to a non Microsoft driver causing the error, if one exists for it.

[MadDog9292]

Allright, Allthough the BSOD only happened once, and most of the crashes are just the screencap style crashes. I'll try to make it happen again. I can't get the minidumps from before because as I said I'm used to properly cleaning and defragging with 4 different utilities each, everytime I turn on my pc D: .

I'll be back with BSOD's babeh. Thank you both for your help. I also don't have any system restores because I always delete the shadow copies and start a new sys restore after I make sure everything runs correctly. Maybe this time I slipped. Oh well it hasn't been long since my last format - I still have all my usual programs and drivers on my flash drive.

If need be I can just format again.

UPDATE!: I figured out how to force a BSOD with regedit by adding a string and using a hotkey. I'm going to force it five times and then upload it here. Woowooo

Another update: The error it would create would be a manually created bsod, So that doesn't work. I dont' know what else to do. The BSOD happened once before and I can't make it happen again.

[Rollin' Rog]

I'm not sure what you mean here >>

most of the crashes are just the screencap style crashes

You mean screen freezes?

These are usually display driver, memory resource or overheating issues.

Look for a pattern such as heavy CPU usage or time related crashes for heat problems. You can also monitor with something like Speedfan and look for temp rises of more than 30-35c from a cold boot, or 70c+ for any processor.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download337.html

If these can be forced in any predictable way, "clean boot" troubleshooting can be helpful in checking for software conflicts >> http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135 << written for Vista but apples equally to XP


How much memory is installed in the computer -- and how much are you using under circumstances when these problems occur?

With the Task Manager "Performance" tab open, report figure for

Total: (under Physical Memory) this is your total installed ram -- "physical" memory
CPU Usage variable over all processor usage.
Memory variable with current use, expressed as a percent of total at the bottom

Page File -- under the "System" column

>> Also go to the Control Panel > Performance Information and Tools.

What is your "Windows Experience Index"? Run a fresh test of this.What property showed the lowest score?

Open the "Advanced Tools". Do you see anything here flagged as problem performance issues?

[MadDog9292]

So sorry about the delay. A lot of family drama going on. I appreciate you guys helping so much. Anyway I just formatted again, because there wasn't much on my computer since the last format. Now that I think about it the crashes only happen during oovoo being open. Even before when I said it wasn't - I remembered it was. I blew out all the dust again with the method I posted above and temps are still below 70C.

The GFX card is around 70C all the time. It's been that way for a year to two years now. I just redownloaded Counter Strike Source on steam - Put everything except anti aliasing on high. 1440 x 900 res, it got 50.11 FPS at the end of the stress test. 11 FPS with anti aliasing on 16x and filtering on the highest. No crashes at all. The computer runs great and for memory, as I posted before I have 3.0 GB of ddr2 RAM I believe it is. Let me see the ram and cpu usage...Ah, I use about 1 - 1 and 1/2 gigabytes of ram during oovoo, notepad, and gaia. Annnd about 20 - 30% of my total CPU, Windows full graphics quality. Aeroglass and all.

Update: The performance score is 3.5. Its always been 3.5 ever since I got the computer. The lowest subscore is the Nvidia 8400 GS. The rest are all above 4.

Processor: 5.9

Memory: 5.4

Graphics: 3.5

Gaming graphics: 4.3

Primary hard disk: 5.6

I'll try the clean boot soon!

Update: So me and my friend Josh think that after formatting an outdated grahpcis driver was installed by windows update. I've been having that problem for about half a year. I am pretty dumb. I'm going to update the driver from nvidias site and see if that fixes it. I should've realized that after the format. Oh well. I didn't configure my pc the way I wanted it before. Now I can I'll update on whether the graphics update works helps or not.

UPDATE: Allright that was it. The very first format uninstalled the driver I had gotten from the nvidia website. Oovoo has been updating a lot. I guess the two didnt' mix. Thanks for all the help guys - I feel really foolish for making something harder than it is without thinking about basic stuff first. Thanks again. So uh...Update your drivers people. Lolz

[Rollin' Rog]

Great, hope it holds up for you, if it does, just mark the thread "Solved" when you are confident.

If you still encounter problems, and they are gaming related, I would try running under a lower Screen Resolution and Color depth, and reduce some of the detail settings in the game.