Really Strange Hardware/Software Problems

C

CryptoCracker

Hello All,

My Dell Dimension 4700 Running Windows XP MCE 2005 has been acting really strange. Over the course of the years, it has had it's share of freezes and BSOD's, but I assumed this was just normal. More lately, however, my USB network adapter sometimes will stop working no matter where I plug it in until reboot. Also, About a month ago when the computer crashed, I tried to reboot but it sat there, 'bricked'. I waited several hours and it finally started powering on again. This has happened a few times, but today it twice has hit a bluescreen, and when I reboot it gets stuck at a really weird, glitched screen that says "INtel Grantsdale-G pci Accelerated sly4 BuILD number: 3329 pc Bev 04/13/2004 DeCompILATION OR DisAseEMBLY PROHiBiteD CoPyright (C) 20 (glitched symbols) Intel Corr-(glitched symbols) all Rights ResErved". The message has some symbols or letters that change and/or switch from upper case to lower case about 10 times a second flickery-like. Now that I have had it unplugged I rebooted and logged in... And BSOD. Any Ideas? OS? HDD? RAM? Processor? MoBo? Anything? Everything! Thanks!
 
Set pc to create minidump Courtesy of Jose Ibarra

Right click My Computer, Properties, Advanced, Startup and Recovery Settings.

In the System failure section:

Put a check mark in the "Write an event to the system log" box
Put a check mark in the "Send an administrative alert" box
Uncheck the "Automatically restart" box

In the Write debugging information section, choose:

Small memory dump (64 KB)

Set the Small dump directory to:

%SystemRoot%\Minidump (if there is no Minidump folder, it will be created when needed)

Click OK, OK to save the settings.

Restart your computer and then wait for the next restart/crash.

Here is a BSOD example showing information you need to provide:

bsod_structure.png


Send the information highlighted in green
Send the entire *** STOP message line since there are clues in the 4 parameters.

Skip the boring text unless it looks important to you. We know what a BSOD looks like, we need to know what your BSOD looks like.

If there is a file name listed under the STOP message, be sure to include that too.

========================

No bsod or crashes are normal, you should run checkdisk and if any kb's are posted in
bad blocks, your drive is failing, you are probably infected also, what is your antivirus??

do you have any other scanners installed??

are you fully updated??
 
Yep that figures. I've suspected the drive was going bad from time to time, but it didn't turn up but a couple bad sectors in chkdisk a few months ago. It is obnoxiously loud like rocks in a blender, but it has been like that for a long time. Its a crappy machine, really; but it was top of the line 10 years ago. I have plenty of other PC's, this is just part of a collection. I'll do what you said and get back to you at the next BSOD. may be a few days depending on when I get time. Sorry, and thanks!
 
It worked fine in safe mode, probably should replace HD and reinstall os. but before I do that since I'd rather not, how exactly do I open a minidump file? Notepad?
 
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