Win XP Crashes - A Chronic Problem

I installed Windows XP Pro on our three home computers last October. We have had virtually no trouble with two of the three machines. The third machine ran trouble free for almost four weeks. Then suddenly, without apparent provication, it began to suffer from a chronic instability that corrupts files. Sometimes the registry becomes corrupted and sometimes chkdsk finds so many cross linked files the data on the hard drive is essentially useless. Sometimes the machine will run fine for a few weeks and then nothing more provacative than rebooting triggers the problem. The problem occurred again yesterday when I rebooted after doing a routine clone backup. It was then I found both drives contained corrupted files.

I have been forced into cloning (via Ghost) my harddrive every day or so. Yesterday Ghost refused to restore my hard drive from the removable backup drive. Ghost's disk integrity check reported both the my main hard drive and the cloned backup drive corrupted, seemeingly with identical problems. There is a very extreme level of frustration here!

I doubt it is a software conflict because a few times the crashes occurred shortly after reinstalling XP (always a clean install) and before I had a chance to reinstall any application software. With the help of Microsoft pay per incident support, I discovered that my Adaptec 2910 SCSI card was not XP compatible. I replaced it with an Adaptec 2930 but that only decreased the frequency of the crashes. I also replaced my motherboard and CPU (twice), memory, modem, NIC, video capture card, sound card, power supply, and hard drive (twice). The only piece of hardware I have not replaced is a Hercules Prophet II Geforce MX although I cannot imagine a card as popular as the Geforce series is a problem. The two floppy drives, CD writer, and DVD drives have not been replaced.

I have searched the user forums and have found a small scattering of similar complaints. However, none of the postings indicate any cause or solution. Any insight into this problem would certainly be appreciated.

Are you reformatting and reinstalling after such drastic hardware changes? In order to remove all traces of hardware you suspect not fully compatible, do a good 'ol format c: and start from scratch. That way you can rest assured that all old registry references and dll's are gone and not causing problems.

Also, get the latest nvidia detonators for your GF2mx for XP. There are probably updated drivers that are more stable with XP. Also, check for the latest XP drivers for your new Adaptec card. Alot of drivers for XP were rushed out, so its a good idea to get the latest versions in which fixes were made to any driver bugs.

Reformat and acquire the latest drivers and that should help out.

Mike

I reformat for each new install and I am using NTFS.

I spoke with Adaptec and they stated that the 2930 is "fully compatible" with XP and the best drivers are the ones that are native to XP.

I downloaded and flashed the latest bios for my GeForce II MX. I also am using the latest Nvidia drivers. I was using the latest Hercules drivers but I thought I would see if usining the ones direct from Nvidia would help, it didn't.

Mike, thanks for the help. BTW, who is that beautiful lady?

Thats Aki from the Final Fantasy movie...and yup, she's all computer generated.

Back to your problem, it looks like you've don't just about everything you can. The problem must lie in a piece of hardware causing a conflict.

If I were you, I'd start removing variables. I'd start fresh (again, I know ) and do a format and reinstall.

But, only run your harddrive, video card, and dvd drive. Nothing else, unless you need your NIC card to run. But, if you don't need it, try going without it for a few weeks.

Hopefully you're hdd isn't scsi, so you can run without the Adaptec card. If not, maybe you have an ide drive you can put on.

Anyway, if it runs stable with the bare minimum of hardware attached for a few weeks, then go ahead and add another piece and then another, etc., until you lose stability.

It could be a long process, but it should help you pinpoint the peice of hardware thats causing a problem.

Also, and maybe before doing the above, try and check things like your IRQ's for conflicts. Maybe you're adaptec card requires its own IRQ and its currently sharing which is causing problems.

If you are running a scsi harddrive and you keep getting corrupted data on your harddrive, then I'd really suspect the Adaptec card is cuasing your problems.

Mike

have you checked your RAM???????????????????????

I originally had a single Mushkin 256M stick on a Asus P3V4X mobo. I replaced it with a new Mushkin stick. I then replaced the P3V4X with an Abit ST6 and a new CPU. I now am using Samsung RDRAM on an Abit TH7II mobo. Takiwa, thanks for asking but I doubt this is the problem.