Hi everyone,
I've been having computer trouble for about 2 months now, and I'm really starting to lose my patience, and am trying here one last time before taking the computer to external maintenance.
It started with random reboots I didn't pay originally enough attention to. I don't recall making any significant hardware changes in a long time or messing with drivers for that matter. What I did when I realised something was going on, was opening the computer for the first time, ever, and cleaning the massive piles of dust inside. Nope, changed nothing.
After this, I started to explore possible causes in the Internet. I located turning off automatic reboots and started to see IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL errors. Not promising. That led to more exploring, and I found myself trying many things.
Downloading updated display drivers (ATI Catalyst Control Center) and various smaller updates from the manufacturer's site. Running memtest over night with no errors. Scandisk and Defrag went through as well. I tried the pagefile renewing trick but it didn't do a difference.
Some details on the original stop messages: There seemed to be hardly any pattern. I might get them while browsing a random site, watching a video, heck, even when the computer was idle! I ruled overheating out because it could happen right after the computer had started up. As said, there was hardly any pattern - The messages itself were totally random. Usually IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL with random numbers (usually starting with 0x000000D1 or 0x0000000A). Sometimes DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. Sometimes something about error in nonpaged area. Sometimes just a stop message without any additional text. There were driver references, but how is it possible to find any culprits when you get errors pointing separately to atapi.sys, win32k.sys, portcls.sys, fetnd5bv.sys, alcxwdm.sys, usbport.sys(occasionally when tranferring music into an mp3 player - might be the least random error, although it appeared only occasionally as well) --- Surely everything can't be faulty. At this point, I gave up and reinstalled Windows.
Everything *seemed* to go well. Zero crashes during the installation. I got one hangup at the DirectX installation, but can't say if it related to earlier problems. Also, I couldn't install Norman Virus Control - For some reason, the installation didn't create all necessary files, and I had to find a free alternative (currently using AntiVir + Sunbelt Kerio Firewall...
). Other than that, it looked good. Of course, until I got the first stop message. The sad thing is, I don't know if it's hardware-related or if I had repeated the software mistake with the new installation. I'm guessing hardware myself based on the randomness of the errors, but can't really say for sure. It's been downhill since that and I'm getting just as much stop messages as before the reinstall (Also some lockdowns, for what it's worth). I may need to restart 2-4 times in a row before I even get into Windows!
Right now, I'm wondering what to do next. Another reinstall and slower approach? Just taking it to maintenance like I've been planning? The system information thing in ATI Catalyst Center tells that Smart Link 56K modem is sharing IRQ 16 with Radeon 9600. Could that be related to something? There's a recurring mention of Smart Link about an illegal "state 0" in the event viewer. Another recurring error is a "ATI WDM Specialized MVD Codec couldn't be started" thing. Again, I'm not sure what importance it has. I'm still getting random crashes occasionally under any kind of conditions, but there are a few less random things now, too. I recall being able to run dxdiag earlier without problems, but now it tells that there was an error with DirectPlay on last check, and suggests skipping. Saying no results always in a stop message about slntamr.sys. And doing soft things like playing Solitaire seems to be safe at the moment...
I've got an (impressive? saddening to me...) number of 236+ post-reinstall minidumps in the Windows directory, and am attaching the 19(!) ones from today here just in case they're worth something.
I'm not really sure where to find some of the specs from, not being very experienced with hardware things - If they're necessary, I'll ask someone for help <_<
If there's something else I should add, please tell. And once more, I hope that this leads to something.
I've been having computer trouble for about 2 months now, and I'm really starting to lose my patience, and am trying here one last time before taking the computer to external maintenance.
It started with random reboots I didn't pay originally enough attention to. I don't recall making any significant hardware changes in a long time or messing with drivers for that matter. What I did when I realised something was going on, was opening the computer for the first time, ever, and cleaning the massive piles of dust inside. Nope, changed nothing.
After this, I started to explore possible causes in the Internet. I located turning off automatic reboots and started to see IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL errors. Not promising. That led to more exploring, and I found myself trying many things.
Downloading updated display drivers (ATI Catalyst Control Center) and various smaller updates from the manufacturer's site. Running memtest over night with no errors. Scandisk and Defrag went through as well. I tried the pagefile renewing trick but it didn't do a difference.
Some details on the original stop messages: There seemed to be hardly any pattern. I might get them while browsing a random site, watching a video, heck, even when the computer was idle! I ruled overheating out because it could happen right after the computer had started up. As said, there was hardly any pattern - The messages itself were totally random. Usually IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL with random numbers (usually starting with 0x000000D1 or 0x0000000A). Sometimes DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL. Sometimes something about error in nonpaged area. Sometimes just a stop message without any additional text. There were driver references, but how is it possible to find any culprits when you get errors pointing separately to atapi.sys, win32k.sys, portcls.sys, fetnd5bv.sys, alcxwdm.sys, usbport.sys(occasionally when tranferring music into an mp3 player - might be the least random error, although it appeared only occasionally as well) --- Surely everything can't be faulty. At this point, I gave up and reinstalled Windows.
Everything *seemed* to go well. Zero crashes during the installation. I got one hangup at the DirectX installation, but can't say if it related to earlier problems. Also, I couldn't install Norman Virus Control - For some reason, the installation didn't create all necessary files, and I had to find a free alternative (currently using AntiVir + Sunbelt Kerio Firewall...
). Other than that, it looked good. Of course, until I got the first stop message. The sad thing is, I don't know if it's hardware-related or if I had repeated the software mistake with the new installation. I'm guessing hardware myself based on the randomness of the errors, but can't really say for sure. It's been downhill since that and I'm getting just as much stop messages as before the reinstall (Also some lockdowns, for what it's worth). I may need to restart 2-4 times in a row before I even get into Windows!Right now, I'm wondering what to do next. Another reinstall and slower approach? Just taking it to maintenance like I've been planning? The system information thing in ATI Catalyst Center tells that Smart Link 56K modem is sharing IRQ 16 with Radeon 9600. Could that be related to something? There's a recurring mention of Smart Link about an illegal "state 0" in the event viewer. Another recurring error is a "ATI WDM Specialized MVD Codec couldn't be started" thing. Again, I'm not sure what importance it has. I'm still getting random crashes occasionally under any kind of conditions, but there are a few less random things now, too. I recall being able to run dxdiag earlier without problems, but now it tells that there was an error with DirectPlay on last check, and suggests skipping. Saying no results always in a stop message about slntamr.sys. And doing soft things like playing Solitaire seems to be safe at the moment...
I've got an (impressive? saddening to me...) number of 236+ post-reinstall minidumps in the Windows directory, and am attaching the 19(!) ones from today here just in case they're worth something.
I'm not really sure where to find some of the specs from, not being very experienced with hardware things - If they're necessary, I'll ask someone for help <_<
If there's something else I should add, please tell. And once more, I hope that this leads to something.
