Serious PC problems

Chuffy

Hi, I'm having loads of problems with my PC.
These range from random restarts to failing to boot - the PC goes through the boot sequence, but when the display changes to show the correct resolution, it just stops with the back light on. I have to restart the PC. When I press restart, the PC goes to the screen to allow you to chose safe mode etc, but the keyboard doesn't appear to work so you have to wait until it has counted down from 30 before it starts the normal boot sequence. It frequntly does this 4 - 5 times before it starts normally.
I also get lot's of blue screen of death (s?).
Some don't appear to have any message, but I've had the following recently:
irql_not_less_or_equal
page_fault_in_non_paged_area
ati2dvag.dll

My drivers are all up to date, as are the MS updates. I've done a clean install incase it was a virus etc, but I still keep suffering the same problems.
I've tried googling, but there are too many responses out there.
I suspect I've got a hardware conflict with windows (XP Home) and my graphics card, however I've installed the latest drivers so am now losing the will etc...


Any help is greatly appreciated.

Little_John

Your BSOD errors, what are they saying the problem is with? your post indicates ati2dvag.dll part of an ATi graphics card so if all your BSOD's are rpointing at that then your mystery is solved. latest drivers arn't always the best. I would uninstally our graphics drivers and try to use an older varified driver just to rule out the problem.

Check your graphics card fan is working as an overheating graphics card can casue all sorts of problems. but I suspect it is a driver problem. maybe if you hav an onboad graphics card you could remove the ATi card to test the theory

Chuffy

Thanks Little John, there is an onboard graphics, I was going to try that at some point, but wanted to see what others thought.
The problem seemed to occur following some windows updates, rather than ATI driver updates. Any idea where I can get older drivers from? The one one's I'm using are from the ATI site.

Regarding the BSOD errors, I only noted the main error, I stopped writing down the 0's etc as I read they relate to the machine not the problem.

startrekker

Memory perhaps download memtester and check it out HERE

albertross_2

I've had this one

irql_not_less_or_equal

and it was caused by copying a user profile from one PC to another.. which is nothing like what the official Microsoft definition is. (It affected all users btw, they all BSOD'd afterwards, not just the user who's profile I copied).

Chuffy

I've downloaded memtester but it's this file format: memtester-2.93.1.tar.tar
What on earth is a .tar file? It's not recognised by windows.

Albertross, the user profile has not been copied, the problem started spontaneuosly and the PC seems to have degraded over time.

albertross_2

tar is like a zip file, unix standard for compressing archives.

I know that it is unlikely that your problem is related to copying a profile, but just threw it into the melting pot, because it can be caused by a corrupt profile, and the official Microsoft definition (and the 1000's internet references) can lead you down the wrong path.

Little_John

a .tar file is just a compressed file just like a zip and rar file get yourself winrar from rarlabs it will upen a tar file.

I think your going in the wrong direction the BSOD was refering to the graphics files giving a clue to where to look first. enable the onboard graphics and remove your ati card and just see if it makes a difference. That is the easiest thing to try first, no need to mess with the drivers to do that, if it works then you know the problem is drivers.

The rule of thumb is that if you still have problems in safemode then it isnt a driver issue as very few drivers are loaded for safemode.

ormus

the quickest way to deal with these sorts of serious issues is do a complete format and fresh install.
thats why you should backup, all your data frequently.

Chuffy

Ormus, that's what I did and I still have the problem. That's why I think it's related to windows and drivers - but then what do I know?
If I knew what the problem I wouln't be posting this...

ormus

sorry mate, i missed the clean install bit.
very strange, a corrupt OS disk? did you load anything else from any other media before it started playing up again?

try another clean install, this time without the graphics card installed. just use the onboard graphics to start with.
if thats ok then add just one device at a time and test the system for errors.

same with application SW and plugins.