My home computer has recently been giving me BSOD's and rebooting randomly. I fear that some piece of hardware is starting to fail. I don't know how to test individual pieces. Is there some software or a piece of hardware I can use to test the different components? Or would using a 3rd party service be best?

If it helps, I'm running XP Pro on:
Soyo P4X400 mobo
2.53 P4
ATi Radeon 9700 Pro
2x 512MB Crucial DDR2100 RAM
4x HDDs.
Creative Audigy 1
2x generic USB 2.0 PCI cards
generic PCI 10/100 NIC
DVD reader
CD-RW
Floppy


I haven't changed the hardware for months, and my problems have just started a couple days ago.

Thanks!

Is your machine running really slow and sluggish then blue screen?

first, look at your HDD Light, is it constantly on? if it is, it could be one of your harddrives failing - had this happen to me a couple of weeks ago. I disconnected one hdd at a time, found the bad one (thank god it wasn't my OS drive) and all is fine now.

yes, there's a piece of hardware for testing available, it's avalable to every human being (that isn't handicaped there). It's called arms and hands

Just if nvyseal's idea isn't it, try removing a piece of hardware each time (It's not RAM, that's for sure, then you wouldn't be able to boot) if none helps, try fixing a[nother] VGA card and see if that helps.

Good luck testing!

Good suggestion, but that doesn't seem to be it. Sometimes it just reboots right after it boots into Windows. Othertimes I'll just be navigating my HDD or surfing the web and it'll BSOD.

Next time it BSOD's I'll write down the issue and I'll post that.

What's difficult is the coputer can be running for a day or so before it crashes, and othertimes it's just a few minutes. Testing all of my hardware by pulling out a piece at a time could take weeks, or a couple hours. I don't really want to live without 3/4 of my data and no soundcard just to find out it was the RAM or something. I'm hoping to find a faster, more efficient solution.

It can't be the RAM, because it was the RAM, you'd not be able to boot into windows.
and hardware testing isn't that hard, just get a benchmark program, remove each hardware, reboot and start the benchmark... benchmarking always makes a crash if it is a hardware problem

memory can cause all sorts of problems,try swapping out the memory and leave only 1 stick in and see how it goes,if it fails then thats a bad stick and if it works good with another than that bad stick is history,you could also dl an app called memtest86 and test your memory that way but for best results test with one stick.i bet it's the memory thats gone whacko.also is the system overheating?is your psu got plenty of juice?

possibly PS? you're running 4 HDDs and that's a large amount of power for boot ups. shouldnt cause BSODs though. check ram. do a memtest86 ^ if you can or pull out a stick and test. try the HHDs too

Here are the easiest steps to take:

You have 4 hard drives. Unplug the 3 that are not in use, unless you're raiding. And start your troubleshooting there.

If possible, get your hands on Sisoft Sandra or Everest Home - look through them to see if your hard drives SMART is ok. Be sure to enable SMART through your BIOS. 99% of the time, SMART is correct - sometimes the drive will fail smart but still be fine for some time - but SMART is, as it suggest, correct at predicting hard drive failures.

Whenever there's a hard drive problem, almost every time the message I've seen is Kernel In Page Error, or something similar to that. Also, it may not actually be a failing hard drive, cables can also cause these errors but a ruined cable can ruin a hard drive if you're not careful. If you insist on using the drives and 1 cable is bad, it can slowly deteriorate the drive that's on it....(think the kind of issues with unplugging a 'live' hard drive; ie: a hard drive that's powered on and in use). So, I mentioned removing the drives that weren't being used because even at startup, your PC could be accessing files from a drive that is on a faulty cable, or is faulty itself. By removing some of your drives - you're narrowing down what drive/cable the problems could be with.

My first instinct is memory, since random rebooting is a classic symptom of memory issues. Most other issues will just give you a BSOD and then a reboot, but a memory problem will cause your PC to clean reboot completely in a random sequence. The reason BSODs lead to reboots is literally because if the computer is left running while the hardware is disconnecting/connecting/disconnecting/ overheating etc. obviously it will ruin your equipment permanently.

If you're able to remove all 3 drives and you're still getting problems then you start to remove more equipment. I have seen video cards cause blue screens, but not reboots. Furthermore, think about getting some new cables to rule them out as a problem, or switch with the ones on your optical devices. It's easier if you're using SATA drives, but you didn't specify.

So, in retrospect:

Preperation: ENABLE SMART in your BIOS. Make sure that all your drives PASS SMART at least at POST.

Assuming they PASS SMART at boot

1a. disable 3 drives if possible (by disable I mean unplug the power to them)
1b. switch around the hard drive cables on your boot drive (if you have problems AFTER you disable the 3 drives)

2a. obtain sandra or everest home and look at your drive, make sure it's passing all SMART values
2b. play with your RAM - you have 2 512 sticks and it's highly unlikely that both would fail. Remove one stick for a while, if you get problems, switch it with the other, if you still get problems - it's more than likely not your RAM.

3. as other people mentioned, go through removing devices from least important, to important. Eg. TV card, modem, network card.

Just so you know, all hardware can cause problems, but it's rare that they'll cause random rebooting. When a faulty device is accessed, you'll generally get a BSOD, which will lead to a reboot (by default), but a clean reboot is caused by a faulty CPU or RAM.

GL and let us know what the problem is when you find it.

You didn't mention the wattage of your power supply, however a BSOD isn't usually a sign of not enough power....although random reboots are. Here's what I usually do although it's not a complete list since my steps would change if I could see/experience the issue:

1.) Write down the Stop Code and any other useful information displayed on the BSOD. Try Google and see if you can turn anything up, if not post it and we'll take a look, that info is actually useful!

2.) Check the Event Log, located in Administrative Tools, see what the errors are for System and Application. Do they seem to happen right before every reboot? If you see a lot of errors, post a few here and I'll take a look.

3.) Run some diagnostics! Run memtest86, a free and very accurate memory diagnostic tool. You can download an ISO at www.memtest86.com. If your RAM fails, you know what the problem is. Also, go the the support site for the manufacturer of your hard drives, download and run the diagnostic tools there (full test, not the quick test, so you're sure).

4.) Check your case temps, usually you can do this through a menu in your PC's BIOS, make sure they seem reasonable after running for a while. If you don't know what reasonable is, post them and we'll have a look.

5.) Check for processes that shouldn't be running and run a full virus/malware scan. If you don't have virus protection (shame on you!) you can use one of the free online engines such as Trend Micro's House Call.

6.) Run the System File Checker, I don't usually find that this works, but your results may vary. To do this you'll need a Windows CD, then put it in and open a command prompt and type: sfc /scannow

If all that fails, try a format and reinstall of Windows and see if perhaps something just wasn't right, this can happen if you cleaned up some nasty virus or spyware but it did damage that wasn't corrected upon removal.

Great suggestions! I'll give it all a try and let you guys know what's up.

why are you running 4 hd's?too me thats too many,2 at most but 1 is the easiest to manage,if you got anything less than a 480 then that could be it.could you try an xp repair?that might fix it.

i'm running 4 drives...1 300, 1 200 1 120, all sata and 1 120 eide. but they run fine.

4 drives isn't really all that unusual now, with storage prices what they are I've seen plenty of desktops running 4 internal drives. In fact, I have 3 drives in my system now, I'd put in another but I'm at the limit my system will hold.

Personally I've had awful luck running an Install repair, it seems like the only thing it does is waste my time. I think you'll have better luck posting any event log errors and the Stop error from your BSOD, we'll have a look and should be able to pin point the problem. Those stop messages look cryptic but with a little googling you can figure out what they mean.

I was getting a lot of BSODs (winxp home), "Page fault in non-paged area" and the like, and I have found that the thing that helped me was DEFRAGGING.

I delete everything I can, temp files, Internet Temp, emails, old programs. Whatever can be deleted. Empty recyle bin. You don't want to defrag garbage, and more empty space on a HD is a good thing.

Defrag, then do it again. Now, do it OFTEN, at least once a week.

I do not have BSOD anymore. Can't remember the last one.

That first defrag took FOREVER. Now, they only take a few hours.

hehehe thats what i like about vista. instead of bluescreening on you, it stops running from the HDD and tells you that your hard drive is screwed

It doesn't stop running the hard drive. I had vista on my laptop, which has had a failing SMART for about 7 months. You can even disable that thing. It gets really annoying after 30 minutes or so...LOL But after you disable it, even before you do you're cool - you can keep running Vista.

I tried the MemTest86 program and it came back with errors. So I guess one of my sticks of RAM is bad (or both). I haven't had time to take it apart to test each yet.

Since I will need to buy new RAM what brand should I buy? I'm not looking for anything fancy, just reliable. I'd be looking for 184pin DDR. I've got Crucial in my machine right now.

Thanks!

I personally prefer kingston

Crucial has a lifetime warranty so make sure you set up an RMA with them.
I'd suggest Corsair ValueRAM. I use that and I'm getting 2.5-3-3-6 out of em. I've had Kingston and Crucial and if stick of them didn't fail one after the other, I couldn't get good speeds from em'. The only RAM I've never had issues with are Corsair and OCZ. But OCZ is more expensive.
Corsair is like 80 bux for 2x512. Then when your Crucial replace Crucial comes you'll have 2GB! Weeeeeee!

1) it does when u have 1.5gb ram. It couldnt load any new things from the hard drive at all, but explorer, dwm, and lots of other things which were already in the memory still worked. I know for a fact that XP had the possibility to do this too if you forced the core of the OS onto your ram

2) got a new PSU, fixed my drive issue. surprising what a bad PSU does to your PC

I've always been partial to Corsair myself, good value and it overclocks well.

I ahve only ever used Kingston and Rosewill. I have had my Rosewill go bad before. But i havent had trouble with my Kingston, but taht could just be a matter of time.