Blue Screen and other Crashes

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I just installed XP Pro on an Acer Extensa 5420 and I'm having problems. It randomly will freeze up, blue screen, and then restart. I was browsing around and came across this in the event viewer.

There are 4 errors in there that look like this:
The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x100000ea (0x867e16d8, 0x899b3588, 0xbacebcbc, 0x00000001). A dump was saved in: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini022109-04.dmp.

The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x100000ea (0x853a7538, 0x89988ec0, 0xbacebcbc, 0x00000001). A dump was saved in: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini022109-03.dmp.

The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x100000ea (0x89a40020, 0x898fb368, 0xbacf3cbc, 0x00000001). A dump was saved in: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini022109-02.dmp.

EDIT: Trying to figure out how to post minidumps... one sec. =D
The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x100000ea (0x8669a848, 0x865cfad0, 0xbacf3cbc, 0x00000001). A dump was saved in: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini022109-01.dmp.

I manually downloaded all the drivers and installed them so if it's a driver, I have no idea which one it would be. Please help.

EDIT: Trying to figure out how to post minidumps, one sec. =D
 
While your trying how to figure out how to attach your minidumps (give us your 5 most recent files, not folder< in one Zip file) here is your error:

0x000000EA: THREAD_STUCK_IN_DEVICE_DRIVER
A device driver problem has caused the system to pause indefinitely (hang). Typically, this is caused by a display driver waiting for the video hardware to enter an idle state. This might indicate a hardware problem with the video adapter, or a faulty video driver.
 
Sorry for not posting them, I've crashed a couple times since posting.

I made it so that my comp doesn't auto reboot and I'm getting an "atidvag" error when I bluescreen if that helps at all. I imagine this is from a bad ATI graphics driver??? When I downloaded and installed the drivers for the computer I just found this list of drivers and installed the ATI one that they had up there. I honestly don't know what kind of graphics card is in here. I was looking up specs for the comp and some said 2400 XT and others said 1250 so... yeah, I'm gonna see what else I can find. In the mean time, minidumps.
 

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No need to apologize. Your zipping and attachment was perfect.

All five errors were 0xEA and they all pointed to the same driver ati2dvag.dll which as you guessed is an ATI driver. Do the two following steps.

A. Check to see that your video card is firmly set (don't force it) in its slot.

B. Update your video card drivers. Go to ATI's (owned by AMD) website and search for the latest drivers for your card. This will only work if you know the make and model of your video card. Then...

1. Download Driver Cleaner Pro (free version) to your desktop screen and install.

2. Download the latest diver(s) for your video card but don't install them.

3. Uninstall your video card drivers and reboot your PC into Safe Mode. Run Driver Cleaner Pro. If it doesn't find any video card drivers that is quite okay.

4. Reboot and install new video card drivers.

* Let us know if this brings stability.
 
Okay, so I downloaded some new drivers, or at least what I thought were new drivers and I got this error from ATI when I rebooted after installing:

The Catalyst Control Center is not supported by the driver version of your enabled graphics adapter. Please update your ATI graphics Driver, or enable your ATI adapter using the Displays Manager.

Does this just mean I downloaded and installed the wrong driver or do I have to update my Catalyst Control Center (Whatever that is... haha) or what?

btw, thank you for the help and patience. I know you tech guys have got to be some of the most patient people on the planet to deal with people that know so little. haha
 
Okay, we're going to approach this from a different angle.

First, make sure you've got .Net Framework 2.0 installed. Also, make sure your XP is at least updated to Service Pack 2.

Go back to ATI and download everything relevant to your ATI card but don't install.

Then go to Acer's website, find you model and install their latest drivers, et. al. for your laptop. Your issue may be due to the fact that Acer's chipset drivers, etc. need to be updated.

Reboot into normal mode. Uninstall anything ATI and reboot into Safe Mode and let Driver Cleaner Pro do its work.

Reboot and install the latest ATI drivers. Are you still getting the same error warning about your graphics accelerator driver?
 
K, getting the .net framework 2.0 now.

Also, what exactly does Driver Cleaner do? I ran it for ATI and it said it removed a bunch of files and registries. I'm assuming that's normal... haha Do I want to run it just for ATI or for other things as well? I'm using v1.5 Build 14

btw, I haven't had any crashes for an hour or so after uninstalling and reinstalling another driver but I'm going to run all the stuff you said jsut to be sure.

Again, thank you SO much.

EDIT: Oh, and I have SP 2 and all the windows updates installed.

Double EDIT: I just saw that I have SP 3 ready to install in my updates thing in the bottom right. I'm not going to install it to avoid complicating things further but if I should please let me know.

Triple Edit: To your last point, I was messing up a little on the ATI site because I couldn't find the drivers. They were under intergrated/chipset not under Video or Mobile. I found the right driver and installed that and I did not get the error.
 
What Driver Cleaner Pro does is to make sure all pertinent drivers are truly cleaned out even after you do an uninstall. Left over drivers will cause conflicts because they try to "work" even though the software they have belonged to has been removed. This happens alot with antivirus software especially in Norton/Symantec's case.

Just a few weekas ago someone posted here with video conflicts. No matter how many times he uninstalled and reinstalled he was getting crashes. When he used DCP it found several drivers that stubbornly "hung on." Once he used it all things became stable. He asked me, "Is it really that simple?" I said yes often it is. :)

Your own experience has shown this to be true.

One other thing: If your drivers are stable and your system is stable remember this rule -- If it isn't broke don't fix it. If your drivers are working that is a good thing and let them be. Why a driver suddenly becomes corrupted other than a virus, torjan, etc., still remains a mystery. Though outdated software is a big culprit.
 
I seem to be running smoothly. If I run into problems again I'll come back and post but one thing I did notice was when I ran DCP, it removed the ATIdvag thing that was showing up on my blue screen.

Thank you for all your help. You techies keep the world moving smoothly. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. =D
 
You are welcome and I am glad it is working for you. To be honest, I'm not a techie. I am just doing what I can from what I have learned. If you want to see the techies look for the designation TS Special Forces and Evangelists, though a number are still Maniacs or Gurus. It all depends on how much they post and not on what they know.

Good luck.
 
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