What are the various causes for Windows XP to reboot or crash (on it's own!)?!?
I haven't been around to actually witness it in the process of doing so but it ALWAYS does so without fail. This would be a major problem if I was downloading or installing a program. So, I cannot remain in my Windows OS without it inevitably crashing (and rebooting).
What are possible reasons? I would like to get to the bottom of this because it is really annoying. I hope that I can receive more than one reply about this. Is there any Windows XP forums that would be a possible alternative if I can't get this answered here? My OS is not usable with the constant crashes.
What are the various causes for Windows XP to reboot or crash (on it's own!)?!?
Usually BSODs. More specifically, this is usually RAM related or due to a driver conflict / issue.
If you want to see what's causing it, do the following:
Right-click 'My Computer'
Click 'Properties'
Click the 'Advanced' tab
Click 'Settings' under Startup and Recovery Under 'System Failure' un-check the box labeled 'Automatically Restart'
Also, make sure 'Write an event to the system log' is checked
Apply the settings and exit.
Next time you crash, you should see a blue screen with an error code. (Something like 000000xE C20000x8 etc. etc.) Write that down and google it.
You can also open your event viewer, go to the system log, and search for Event ID '1001' and that should contain information about the crash. If, however, you don't have any of these errors or never seen a blue screen w/ 'Automatically Restart' unchecked, then this is most likely a power failure somewhere in the PC. (Probably the PSU)
If you have 2 sticks of RAM, try just running one. Also possible it could be the PSU, try a different one. If it's been quite a while since you installed XP, could do a clean install, i.e., full format. Windows accumulates an incredible number of files overtime, e.g., uninstalling a program will not uninstall all the files that can cause the conflicts rgeist554 refers to.
You can try CCleaner ( http://www.ccleaner.com/download ) It's a fantastic little tool that will remove old, useless temporary files. If you've never cleaned before, it will probably remove 1GB+ of useless junk at least.
