PC keeps crashing - BSODs

Twopints

Help! My son's Packard Bell computer has been re-starting itself randomly and sometime will start only in safe mode, sometimes requires Windows repair and now will not get much beyond loading files in safe mode.

Tonight it has also thrown a BSOD - ACPI Driver Internal - I assume this is not good.

Is there anything I can do to get it working again and to prevent further problems?

:beer:

victor2

Packard Bell.... Chocolate Teapot.... Sorry, but there is a similarity!
The ACPI driver provides a link to the computer's BIOS from the operating system.
There may be a hardware fault, or it could just be a damaged file. Do you have any sort of recovery disk for the system and can you use it without losing too much? If so, that could be the simplest approach.
If it will occasionally boot, maybe you can copy any important data off onto a CD, DVD or USB stick first.

Twopints

victor2 wrote: »

Packard Bell.... Chocolate Teapot.... Sorry, but there is a similarity!
The ACPI driver provides a link to the computer's BIOS from the operating system.
There may be a hardware fault, or it could just be a damaged file. Do you have any sort of recovery disk for the system and can you use it without losing too much? If so, that could be the simplest approach.
If it will occasionally boot, maybe you can copy any important data off onto a CD, DVD or USB stick first.

Not aware of any separate recovery disk but I can do either a Partial or Full restore if I can get to the the right screen. To do this previously I have had to press F11 after the initial Packard Bell start up screen. Due to having already had to go this route (a couple of weeks back when the problem started) all files have been backed up to external hard drive so not at risk of losing stuff.

It WAS previously booting occasionally but now either hangs or goes to the BSOD.

What sort of hardware fault is likely?

victor2

Presumably it has a recovery partition on the hard drive then.
Is there also an option to set the BIOS to it's default values if you hit the function key when booting to edit the setup? Not sure which key (if any) that might be, but it might flash up on the screen briefly.
Could be an intermittent fault on the motherboard or BIOS if it's booting at random, but the hardware is working enough to give you the BSOD, so maybe it isn't anything too serious.

Twopints

victor2 wrote: »

Presumably it has a recovery partition on the hard drive then.
Is there also an option to set the BIOS to it's default values if you hit the function key when booting to edit the setup? Not sure which key (if any) that might be, but it might flash up on the screen briefly.
Could be an intermittent fault on the motherboard or BIOS if it's booting at random, but the hardware is working enough to give you the BSOD, so maybe it isn't anything too serious.

Yep, that's right a recovery partition. And it has just worked (the PC that is)! I am currently on his machine having gone through "Startup Repair". Is there anything I should run or do to try to diagnose the problem?

victor2

The best thing you can do is just use it and see if the problem comes back. You could leave it to do a full scan using your anti-virus software of choice, just to make it work for a bit.

Twopints

OK, thanks , I will give that a try. :beer:

JJ_Egan

Can be a specific driver issue often the ACPI driver requires install before windows install .

A workaround can be to turn the ACPI off in the BIOS and it may boot if not reset to on .

jje

Twopints

JJ_Egan wrote: »

Can be a specific driver issue often the ACPI driver requires install before windows install .

A workaround can be to turn the ACPI off in the BIOS and it may boot if not reset to on .

jje

Er, OK - so I go into BIOS and find ACPI somewhere and set it to "off"?

I will try, but after running OK for a few hours yesterday I am now getting even more BSOD's:

PROCESS1_INITIALIZATION_FAILED
PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

The last one also referred to "Win32k.sys - Address 8C5B8CD4 base at 8C400000, DateStamp 4549aea2

There were others that had no specific error message.

It's not looking good....

Twopints

I have now successfuly booted, and have run the Windows Memory Diagnostics which found no problems.

Have checked drivers and they all appear to be up to date.

Not sure what to do next...

ETA: Chkdsk also all OK

It seems to work OK when I log on using my ID but crashes when my son goes in on his ID

victor2

There are some articles from Microsoft relating to one of your error messages at http://search.microsoft.com/search/results.aspx?st=b&na=88&View=en-us&qu=PROCESS1_INITIALIZATION_FAILED. They seem to mostly suggest hardware faults, so maybe you are getting notice of something like an impending hard drive failure. If your system is back to an "as shipped" state now, that would support this theory too. If you're comfortable going inside the system box, you could just try reseating the hard drive and any boards installed in the motherboard.