[xj92wang]

I bought an Emachine T1840 six month ago.

I downloaded most of Microsoft security update. It was running pretty well at begining. But since last month it keeps crash ( reboot the XP) with no reason, just reboot (I mean restart without shutdown) my machine whenever it wants.

I downloaded Wster Digital harddist checking tool, it reported my hard disk is all right.

I reinstalled XP home from emachine's recovery CD, problem still.

I installed XP Professional, problem still.


I start wonder this maybe a hardware problem,
Today I plan to install Linux on this machine.

Any one here has some suggestion?

 

[ourhouse]

heat issue?
is the house noticably hotter?

 

[xj92wang]

Temperature in my house is keeping around 18C, and crashs sometimes happend right after I start the XP. But anyway I will pay my attention on my CPU fan to see if the fan caused the problem.


Thanks, ourhouse, for your quick response.
I am a new guy in this site, the quick response in this site is really impressive. I will definitely come to this site a lot.

 

[Jedi_Master]

Howdy xj92wang...

[tsg=welcome][/tsg]

Try turning off Automatically Reboot...right click on My Computer - Properties - Advanced tab - Settings button under Startup and recovery - and uncheck Automatically Reboot, the next time it crashes it might give you a BSOD with an error code...

Alternately you could check in the Event Viewer for any errors...

 

[ourhouse]

also one time i had a problem similiar to this and it was actually my video card ATI drivers causing random reboots. I disabled the driver and it seemed to work. after i just got new drivers from the site and tada. Make sure you are using the latest video drivers and not the one that xp plug and play auto installs.

 

[Triple6]

If you used the Recovery CD's then all the drivers should work fine, hence its a hardware problem.

You may want to check the temps and the fans. Open up the case to see if all the fans are spinning. You can check the temps in teh BIOS setup, DEL or F2 when the computer first boots up. You can also download SpeedFan and see what temps it reports: http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

Also you can test the RAM: http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

 

[ourhouse]

Originally posted by Triple6:
If you used the Recovery CD's then all the drivers should work fine, hence its a hardware problem.

while this is true in theory, there are patches that manufacturers put out after recovery CD's are created.

 

[Triple6]

Indeed, but then the computer would have never have worked from new if it required patches.

 

[nelliebell4]

I'm having the exact same problem with an emachines 466 running 98se. If you find a solution please post it. I also replaced power supply and no help

 

[ourhouse]

the only reason why i mention it is because personally when I installed my ATI 9500 card it worked fine with xp plug and play drivers for a long time. then random reboots. disable and uninstall driver, then reboot and xp would install the drivers again. same problem. uninstall and install ATI drivers from the site and good. so by uninstalling the xp plug and play and letting it reinstall should of been working in theory, but it didnt.
one thing i learned from my experience is that I can't apply logic to computer problems.

 

[xj92wang]

Thanks guys

According to your suggestions, I will :
1) disable XP "Automatically Reboot" and record all error code on blue screen
2) try to update the latest driver of my hardware. (video definitely, and chipset audio maybe)
3) I will try to install Linux on my machine also to see if problem happens on different platform.

And I will let your guys know the result.

 

[Jedi_Master]

Sounds like a plan...

If you don't want to wait for the BSOD ( still uncheck Automatically Reboot though ), you can right click on My Computer - Manage - Event Viewer - and check both "Application" and "System" for any errors...

 

[ourhouse]

also if you dont feel like finding new drivers for video card, just disable the driver and use the standard vga driver and see if it still reboots.

this should at least tell you if its a driver issue or not. at least for video.

 

[xj92wang]

Hi, everyone

This time when I try to boot into XP , it even eon't allow me pass login screen, keep reboot. So I couldn't switch off auto reboot, (I tried VGA mode, safe mode , actually all mode, no lucky).

I did cauch one blue during during those 10 times reboot, it report 0x0000008E error, which I cannot find on Microsoft site what that means.

Then I installed Redhat 9 , "kernal panic" error, I regret I didn't copy down all info at that screen, I only remember stack trace is from stext() function.

install Mandrake linux, no help

So I guess it's a hardware prob?

 

[Wet Chicken]

Have you verified that it's not a heat issue?

Have you scanned for viruses. Could be something as simple as a boot virus or even spyware that corrupted some drivers.

I had a similar problem once and finally had to go into msconfig and unclick everything, and then trace down which one was causing the kernal problems.

 

[xj92wang]

I think I know the problem finally.

I tried to find a same memory chip (PC2100) and plug into my PC, seems problem solved. I plug back the old one , and rebooting problem again. Swithed several times, make me sure that the A-data DDR266 512M in emachine caused the problem.

It's very rare because memory usaully very stable, that's why I put soo much time on checking harddisk, change DMA setting ... Anyway, it's better that any other hardware problem, it's relatively easy and cheap to replace.

 

[Wet Chicken]

Glad you were able to trace down the source of your problem. If the unit is under warranty then contact them and have them send you a new one