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computer crash dump

Discussion in 'Fred's House of Pancakes' started by perryma, Jul 6, 2009.

  1. perryma

    perryma New Member

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    ok, put on your Geek Squad clip on ties and fire up the black and white VW. My HP computer is running Vista and I get a nice little "crash dump" every single day. How dangerous is this? The lastest thing installed is a Logitec webcam (that I haven't used yet) and outside of that I can make no connections to anything else. It is possible that I have had faceboook opened in one of the tabs every time it had crashed but I can't swear to it. Any help here?:(
     
  2. eaglesight333

    eaglesight333 Senior Member

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    I am a computer consultant/tech. But i do not know everything.

    1. having the crash dump occur everyday, is not exactly a good thing.

    2. Do you know our specs of you computer? how old is it?

    3. the crashed can be caused but any number of things. It has been awhile since I have come across a regularly occuring crash dump.

    I normally start with making sure all devices and programs are updated. Then run virus and ad-aware scans.

    There is a chance that something is corrupt with Windows, and a reinstall is needed. (make sure you back up data)

    Finally, there is a minor chance that it could be hardware related. Most likely the Hard drive. On the chance it is hardware related, make sure you back up your info, so it is not lost.

    If you were not so far away, I would offer to take a look at it. But let me know if you have tried any of this.
     
  3. RobH

    RobH Senior Member

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    I've found that System Restore is my friend. Whenever my system goes wonky, the first thing I try is to restore the system to a date before the problem started. Then I have to reinstall whatever got added after that date.

    Like today Comcast was doing their holiday weekend experiments. I fiddled with the network interface, and my email program decided that it wasn't registered. Eventually I did a system restore back to Friday, and that cured everything.
     
  4. perryma

    perryma New Member

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    I have updated everything and ran my Trend and Webroot antivirus and spyware stuff. I get nothing. I haven't a clue as to how to back up anything. I will visit Geek Squad soon.
     
  5. perryma

    perryma New Member

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    I too love system restore and it has fixed many of my blunders. This time it just won't fix the problem. Thanks anyway.
     
  6. eaglesight333

    eaglesight333 Senior Member

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    Unless you have a warrenty with Best Buy. "Do not go to Geek Squad"

    I appologize if anyone reading this does work for geek squad. But I have not heard good stories about the geek squad service.

    To back up your info, just save your data to a USB drive or CD/DVD. You can copy/clone your entire drive, but it is best to at least save all you photos, docs, etcs.
     
  7. qbee42

    qbee42 My other car is a boat

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    Something is failing on a regular basis. You can go the reload route, or try and troubleshoot the problem. If you are going to troubleshoot, start asking these questions:

    1) Does it happen at the same time every day, or when doing the same thing each day?

    2) Are there any recognizable error messages?

    3) Does anything stop working after the crash?

    4) Does it still crash after a fresh reboot?

    5) Will it crash if you leave it in safe mode?

    Tom
     
  8. jayman

    jayman Senior Member

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    The Windows Vista Ultimate machine with MSI motherboard that I built around 9 months ago, I haven't turned on in about a month. I just really don't want to deal with glitchy stuff anymore

    As long as I regularly wiped the drive - about once a month - with something like WipeDrive, and reinstalled from scratch, it worked fine at first. After doing that a couple of times, I just made an image of the drive, to make the process easier

    You have to be careful wiping the drive of a store bought machine. Some are tricky and have a hidden partition, like Acer's PQSERVICE, that if you overwrite, the recovery media will no longer work. You get an error message like "no partition error" and it halts

    If you suspect a virus, wiping the drive is a good way to ensure getting rid of the virus. But if you have a machine that is somehow locked to make reinstallation difficult, then just go to Ubuntu

    I've been running Ubuntu with Firefox and the Firestarter firewall a few years now, no issues. Life is too short to deal with glitchy crap.

    Speaking of which, I wonder if I should ever turn that Ultimate machine back on?
     
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  9. eagle33199

    eagle33199 Platinum Member

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    From what you've said, i would take a look at the Logitec Webcam... very, very often crashes with windows can be tracked down to device driver problems (In fact, that's one of the reasons Mac's are so stable - you don't have a million different manufacturers making hardware and drivers to work with their system). Try uninstalling the webcam (this should be quick and safe) and unplugging it from the computer. This should take care of any device driver issues it may have caused.

    Anything past that starts to get a little technical to diagnose. I haven't played around with Vista too much, but you should be able to get to the reports on the dumps and, if you know how to read that stuff, figure out one or more likely culprits (drivers, software, viruses, etc). But i would leave that sort of stuff to someone who knows what he/she is doing.
     
  10. eaglesight333

    eaglesight333 Senior Member

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    I havent found vista to be too glitchy. I have only had a few minor issues, but nothing to cause me to stop using it.

    Come October, Windows 7 is coming out, and early reviews from several different websites are giving it good praise.
     
  11. djasonw

    djasonw Active Member

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    I'm happy with my iMac. It is Intel based so if I ever need to go on the dark side I load up Vista. Vista runs perfectly on my iMac.
     
  12. qbee42

    qbee42 My other car is a boat

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    You don't seriously expect us to believe that, do you? I've never seen Vista run perfectly on anything. :p

    Tom
     
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  13. eagle33199

    eagle33199 Platinum Member

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    I've heard the same thing. Vista was a big project for Microsoft - they pretty much rewrote the entire OS, which to anyone who knows anything about programming means there are bound to be some problems and bugs. Windows 7, from what i've heard, doesn't really have any new features - they've just streamlined Vista and fixed some of the bugs. Overall should be a good step for users.

    Personally, i'm still running XP when i need windows.
     
  14. jayman

    jayman Senior Member

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    What I found most cute was how in a networked environment, Microsoft expected folks to invest in new routers and switches. That didn't go over too well.

    Microsoft also expected business users to dump XP Pro for Vista Whatever. Since that didn't go over too well, Microsoft made available the LLTD (Link Layer Topology Discovery) hotfix for XP machines to at least show up on Vista networked machines

    You can still get brand new machines from CDW with XP either preinstalled or as they say, "Custom Downgraded," or running Vista Business with the XP Pro "downgrade" disk included

    I've played with Windows 7. Reminds me of how Windows 98 was soon followed by Windows 98 Second Edition, to fix the most onerous problems
     
  15. DaveinOlyWA

    DaveinOlyWA 3rd Time was Solariffic!!

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    well, is this "dump" causing a loss of function?

    if so, then go to your install history and trace back to when all this started. roll back updates one at a time until you find the culprit. now all software plays well with others and i found that sometimes you simply have to run with "not so up to date" versions and as long as they dont address security issues, you will probably be fine.

    i know A LOT of people who have random issues with Vista...until my kid was born, i had a part time gig building computers and servicing them to a small "word of mouth" clientele that i have been doing for over 15 years (i actually have several 2nd generation customers now referred to me by their parents) but still do it for family and real close friends etc... i just dont drop everything and run over in the middle of the night like i did before

    what i do with them is get them to tell me what they need or want on their computer and that is what i get the thing to do. one girl who is a freshman at college right now, gets something similar to what you are probably experiencing as well but it only happens after she has been running for a while (a few days, its a laptop but she has multiple "plug in" opts so its on pretty much 24/7)

    reboots clears it up for a few more days. in her situation, its probably has to do with 3rd party internet updates and without notes i dont have specifics available right now (its like flash or java...) but we tried rolling some updates back and it cleared up the problem but also created a situation where some sites would not play videos...

    well hell, blocking her ability to text wouldn't have been as bad as that!!... so we put the updates back in and she just puts up with it.
     
  16. perryma

    perryma New Member

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    I am really beginning to think it is the logitec webcam.
     
  17. dogfriend

    dogfriend Human - Animal Hybrid

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    It wouldn't be the first time Logitec wrote a crappy driver. On the Mac side, a few years ago, they wrote a mouse driver that would randomly write nonsensical statements to a log file - people started noticing this when the log file got huge and thought there was a Mac worm - it was just some SW writers idea of a funny joke. Last time I installed anything from Logitec.
     
  18. Mike Dimmick

    Mike Dimmick Active Member

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    They did and they didn't. The main problem was that they chased their own tails for about three years, in addition pulling the developers off the project to make XP Service Pack 2 and Windows Server 2003 SP1. They had a dependency nightmare, with everyone's changes depending on someone else's changes, never stabilising, causing them to have to ditch the vast majority of what they'd written.

    They then had a crunch 18 month project to get something approximating what they'd promised out of the door. Inevitably a number of poorly thought-out changes and bugs slipped through due to not really having enough testing.

    In addition, hardware partners didn't get representative builds early enough, particularly where there were large changes (e.g. video driver model). That meant driver quality, already a pain point on Windows (something like 70% of Windows XP crashes are attributable to third-party device drivers, hardware errors another 10%, and 10% too badly corrupted to analyze - Microsoft errors were 5%), suffered badly. OEMs were also unprepared, having not managed to update their crapware to be at least marginally stable.

    The one thing that really didn't have to be rolled back was the OS kernel - that had a lot of changes between XP and Windows Vista, but it's at a level that the user won't notice. Much of it was done for Windows Server 2008, to provide better and more fair accounting for CPU time, for one.

    If buying a new Windows Vista PC, a lot of people recommend wiping the OEM install of the OS and reinstalling it, to get rid of the crapware that infests it. Microsoft make a good Windows - Dell doesn't.

    Macs make good Windows PCs, because the hardware isn't built by the lowest bidders and when the OS is installed, the in-box drivers get used (which are generally a little less functional or lower performance, but a lot more reliable).

    Windows 7 actually has a lot of new features, but they're much more incremental than last time. The main visible changes are to the taskbar, which becomes a bit more Dock-like - you can pin buttons that launch applications, and when that app is launched, the button then becomes the button for that application's windows. By default the buttons are larger and don't have attached text, but you can change it back to being more similar to the classic taskbar if you want.
     
  19. dogfriend

    dogfriend Human - Animal Hybrid

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    A Mac is arguably the best way to run Windows, because if something gets hosed on the Windows side you still have a usable Mac. Just wipe the Windows partition and start again. I have XP installed on my MacBook Pro for the few times I have to use Windows.

    Slightly OT, my GF just bought a new 15" MacBook Pro - expensive but built like a tank. It is a work of art.
     
  20. DaveinOlyWA

    DaveinOlyWA 3rd Time was Solariffic!!

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    now is the 70% errors on 3rd party drivers because the3rd parties were not advised of compatibility issues or is it because microsoft has chosen to ignore accepted standards for processing and displaying internet info??

    i can pretty much guarantee the dump issues are internet related and caused by incompatible drivers that control how the browser displays content.