Guess the cause of crashing

You guessed it good people of OCforums, its time for another round of GUESS THE CAUSE. Somethings wrong (either the hdd or ram) because I had to boot off the winders cd and run a check disk scan and allow it to fix corrupt system files twice the past week. This afternoon I turned it off and went to get a drink, came back, and noticed it restarted. I thought it was a glitch, so I let it boot and seemed to start ok. I got to my desktop, then BOOM! instant restart. Tried this three times, even resetting the bios. I dont think its a hardware problem, since Ubuntu runs fine. Any ideas? (Ill like to only reinstall as a last resort. Dont have enough free space on other drives to backup stuff.)

Is Ubuntu on a separate disk, or another partition on the same disk?

Here's my list of things to check:
IDE or SATA cable
ram check with memtest
overclock too high, try backing off a touch
pci or pci-e bus not locked set pci to 33.33mhz and pci-e bus to 100mhz(not applicable if you aren't overclocking)
Complete virus scan download the trial version of Kaspersky and see if it comes up with anything.
Failing hd Are you always coming up with bad sectors? it may be time to backup and replace the drive.

Hmmm, is your ubuntu a live disk or have you installed it?

I installed ubuntu on the same drive, so that rules out the cable.
I had this thing running completely on stock everything the past few months, the only time in that period I went into the bios was this afternoon to reset it to defaults just in case.
I have both Avira and AVG installed, but that wouldn't help. Can't stay on long enough to scan (havent tried safe mode yet.)
Like I said, Ill run a memtest scan all day tomorrow.
If it does turn out to be the hdd, Ill just add it to the list of parts to order off of newegg for current project, but I ran the hdtune test and the fix it utilities 6 hdd test, both came back clean.

I doubt this is the cause, but you really shouldn't run 2 Antivirus products at the same time. I'd uninstall AVG(lower detection rate) and keep Antivir.

johnz said:

I doubt this is the cause, but you really shouldn't run 2 Antivirus products at the same time. I'd uninstall AVG(lower detection rate) and keep Antivir.

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Ill see if I can get into safe mode and uninstall it.

johnz said:

I doubt this is the cause, but you really shouldn't run 2 Antivirus products at the same time. I'd uninstall AVG(lower detection rate) and keep Antivir.

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actually i would be surprised if this WASNT the cause..assuming both AV's are trying to run resident at the same time.

smokie mcpott said:

actually i would be surprised if this WASNT the cause..assuming both AV's are trying to run resident at the same time.

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Its been running that way for the past 1 1/2 months. Why just all of a sudden go all *DIEDIEDIESTABSTABRESTART* now?

If absolutely nothing has changed (no new added programs), then I would guess, as you did:

1. Hard drive is on its way out

2. Bad ram

And, if after testing those two its neither:

3. Components no longer like the overclock and have degraded over time (if they are overclocked). I had a cpu once act flaky when clocked to normal speeds and voltage, after being overclocked with higher voltage. Had to keep the voltage at the overclocked voltage just for it to work like normal.

Antivirus programs update themselves.. can't say nothing has changed. 2 antivirus programs running at the same time is bad juju.

vixro said:

Antivirus programs update themselves.. can't say nothing has changed. 2 antivirus programs running at the same time is bad juju.

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Been having a bad time with antivirus programs, don't wanna update with me. But they were the problem, uninstalled avg and works fine now. And I ran memtest for 10 hours no problem.

what about your psu ? a faulty psu can cause havoc in a pc, ex: data corruption, random restarts, etc. even on a non oc'd system, if your psu it's out of warranty, there is no harm in opening the psu case and look for buldge or leaking caps. AND BEFORE DOING THIS UNPLUG YOUR PSU FROM THE WALL AND LET IT REST FOR AT LEST 1 HOUR. (to discharge caps).

jrafael said:

what about your psu ? a faulty psu can cause havoc in a pc, ex: data corruption, random restarts, etc. even on a non oc'd system, if your psu it's out of warranty, there is no harm in opening the psu case and look for buldge or leaking caps. AND BEFORE DOING THIS UNPLUG YOUR PSU FROM THE WALL AND LET IT REST FOR AT LEST 1 HOUR. (to discharge caps).

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Nope, not the psu. Only a few months old and all the voltages are stable. It seems to be working now.

vixro said:

Antivirus programs update themselves.. can't say nothing has changed. 2 antivirus programs running at the same time is bad juju.

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I have had AV go bonkers after a regular update. They adapt them as threats change and sometimes it can cause conflicts with other programs. Having two engines working at once is just nutty. Think about how much I/O is happening while both are working.


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As usual, check the event viewer and see if any reports show there. Since, I think you know a bit. I am just gonna say. Use eventvwr.msc in the prompt. You should catch on what to do and if something is showing. Just use the clipboard if you need to paste. Usually sir google can help diag any codes out. Then if it gets close enough, you can start the proccess of narrowing down/fixing it. It may very well not shwo anything though. It is always worth the peek at first to see if something pops up or gives a hint at the fault. Even if just to see which one was faulting out and what it was faulting.

If you need more input what to do. Well hit me up. As always, I am glad to help out. I read it seems to be working. You can still check the viewer to see if all is ok. Plus see what was acting crazy and making your interweb ride crash into fences.

hmm....sounds v strange....sorry i cant give any advice lol....would if i could.

For future reference, goto System Properties, Advanced tab, Startup & Recovery. Uncheck Restart on Error. Then you'll get a BSOD that might help with troubleshooting the crash.

That 'feature' really bugs me. heheh

JLK03F150 said:

For future reference, goto System Properties, Advanced tab, Startup & Recovery. Uncheck Restart on Error. Then you'll get a BSOD that might help with troubleshooting the crash.

That 'feature' really bugs me. heheh

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Good idea, since after I unistalled avg I did get one of those "winders has recovered from a serious error" things. Submitted it, Microsoft.com opened up, and like it usually is for me it offered no detail whatsoever.