Intermittent STOP 0x000000EA & 0x0000007E errors

[delphini]

I have an older Dell Dimension 8400 desktop. As far as I can see, it works fine except that once in a while the display screen goes entirely black (cpu still running) and when I boot it up again it reports the 0x000000EA error, then works ok for a while before the next crash. Following the advice on the microsoft website, I downloaded the latest driver for the ATI Radeon X300, but the same thing happened after a few days.

Then a switched off all graphics card acceleration but instead got a blue screen STOP 0x0000007E error after a few days. Manually rebooted and it was fine again.

Have been considering changing my graphics card (since it is ~5 years old but is PCI-e x16 anyway). Just wondering if it would be a wise decision?

Thanks in advance for any help & advice!

 

[Archean]

Do you have onboard vga? If so switch to it, if system remains stable it would mean your display is the problem causing component. This being such an old system, I would rather suggest you to save money for a new computer instead of buying even a mid-range current generation card.

In case, you don't have any onboard vga, you are better off buying a rather cheap entry level card which get you through till you are ready to replace this system.

Also, post your minidumps may be they can provide clues to what may be causing these issues, you can find them in C:\windows\minidump

 

[delphini]

Hi, attached are some of the latest dumps.
I don't have an onboard VGA, am also certainly considering just changing the whole comp.
It's just for my folks who use it for light browsing, so the basic card might do too.
Would be nice know what exactly is wrong though.

Thanks a lot!

 

[Archean]

One of the dumps cited your ATI driver as being the cause of the crash, whereas the other one simply cited 'hardware' with 0x7F & 0x7E codes.

Try uninstalling your display drivers, then reboot, and download Driver Sweeper from Techspot download section and run it to clean your system of any remaining bits of this driver. Go to AMD/ATI site download latest available WHQL drivers for your card and install these drivers, and see whether that fix the issue.

Also do post minidumps in case you have more crashes. Regards