XP System Automatically Reboots

Hopefully someone will have an answer, or suggestion to the problem I am experiencing. I am using XP, 1.6 mhz, and my modem connection is with Road Runner cable.

Whenever I am connected to the internet, I can anticipate that every 45 minutes, to an hour, sometimes in a lesser period of time, my system will reboot. It does not discriminate when it reboots - I can be shile I am in the process of doing something on the internet, or, I can be connected, but working with one of my many programs, such as photoshop, paint shop pro, or creating a document in MS Office. Without any forewarning, the system automatically reboots. If I disconnect the modem, and am using any of the many programs on my system, it never reboots. But, if I reconnect the modem, I can rest assured that sometime within the next few minutes, or at least within an hour, the system will reboot. As you can imagine, this recurring rebooting is extremely frustating.

Hopefully one of you more expertise folk can give me a clue as to how I can prevent this recurrence, or at least, what is causing this. I thank y'all in advance,


orchided

 

Start by going to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Event Manager and look in the three areas listed and see if you see errors logged at the times you were dumped. When you locate one of them, double click it and try to get some info as to what caused the error.

Next you may want to right click the "My Computer" icon and select Properties > Advanced > then click the "Settings" button in the "Start up and Recovery" area near the bottom of the listings.

In that field you will see a box labeled, "Automatic Restart ". Untag that box and OK out of there.

That may allow you to get an error screen when you get dumped rather than restarting. If so, try to get some details from the error screen that will help track the problem down.

It sounds almost like every time the modem crashes, the system crashes.

 

Zephyr, thanks loads for your fast response. Here is what I did per your suggestions, and what happened:

1) I went to Control Panel, etc., and in Event Manager I was found the three logs e.g., Applications, Security and System. In the system log I found, for sure, the reboot events. These led me to the Windows directory > Minidump > Mini051902-03.dmp. This was the last reboot, which occured last night just before I shut down my system. I went to the file, and double clicked on it and found that there was no program to open .dmp files. So, I opted to open it with Notepad. When opened the data was not readable, just a bunch of little boxes and other non readable symbols. I looked further in the Minidump subdirectory and found the myriad of reboot events which had occured over the past few days.

2) I then went to "My Computer" and did as you suggested. I have untagged the "automatic restart" option. I will leave my system on-line for the remainder of the day, and see if this works. I would imagine that after looking in the System logs, above, that there were an average of 8-9 reboots logged each day, and each with a separate .dmp unreadable file.

You are a blessing to those of us, although having been with "pooters" for years, but have not mastered the intricacies as you, and others who have been of help to this 73 year old. Thanks again, and GOD Bless. I will let you know manana of the results of having opted out of the "automatic restart" test for the remainder of this day.

orchided

 

orchided,
You may want to go to your Modems Web site and look for a later driver for your Modem and XP, if you think it maybe Modem related.
As for the Mini dumps, I suggest you do a search for *.dmp and delete all the dump files you find as they will consume HD space and won't be deleted from your system. They are perfectly safe to delete. I ticked the box that switches of all memory dumps as they are of little use to us end users.

Paul

 

orchided - unless your problem is solved, someone might be able to help if you provided details from the system event log errors that occur just before and just after a crash/reboot.

There should be an EVENT ID, Source, and a detailed description. If you can post those, there are a number of resources that may give a good idea of what is happening.

To save some typing, you could copy the event log entry and paste it here.

 

I have the same problem with rebooting, bu im connected thru my ADSL /NAT. My comp just suddenly reboots and somtimes it takes 10 mins and other times a couple of hours.

 

ered - and is there anything suggestive in any of your event logs?

 

Your CPU might be overheating.

 

I get different blue screens every time .... i will check the over heating

 

Newt, please forgive me. I have been down with my old heart problems, and not able to respond to you post of May, 2002, on this topic.

After getting back on my feet, and going back to the "pooter ", I noted that my system is still rebooting at the most unknown, and unfortunate times. You has asked that I post as an attachment the log files, and I shall attempt to do so now.

Wow, it says attachments are not permitted. So how do I show you my log info?

Event Type: Information
Event Source: IomegaAccess
Event Category: None
Event ID: 108
Date: 8/26/2002
Time: 10:35:21 AM
User: N/A
Computer: ED-XPP
Description:
Message: Set Security on E:\ Zip 250 Atapi

Event Type: Information
Event Source: IomegaAccess
Event Category: None
Event ID: 105
Date: 8/26/2002
Time: 10:35:19 AM
User: N/A
Computer: ED-XPP
Description:
The service was started.

Event Type: Information
Event Source: EAPOL
Event Category: None
Event ID: 2001
Date: 8/26/2002
Time: 10:35:18 AM
User: N/A
Computer: ED-XPP
Description:
EAPOL service was started successfully

Wow! I think it worked! Don't know if above is helpful, but if not, tell me what to do, and I will do it. Here is some more stuff:

Newt, with the above, I hope that you, or some of your expert friends can help me out in trying to stop this rebooting.

C-Ya, and GOD Bless,

orchided

 

Tell ya what. Save each one of your log files and email them (the saved copies) to me at newt.vail@pmusa.com and put in a link to this thread in the email. I'll take a good look at em and see if anything jumps out at me.

 

Newt, I emailed you several copies of logs; however, I failed to link to this thread (primarily 'cause I didn't know how to make a link to this thread ). Something else I noted this morning, after the system rebooted three times is the following which appears in the Application Log each time:

Event Type: Information
Event Source: IomegaAccess
Event Category: None
Event ID: 108
Date: 8/30/2002
Time: 6:48:21 AM
User: N/A
Computer: ED-XPP
Description:
Message: Set Security on E:\ Zip 250 Atapi

Event Type: Information
Event Source: IomegaAccess
Event Category: None
Event ID: 108
Date: 8/30/2002
Time: 7:29:26 AM
User: N/A
Computer: ED-XPP
Description:
Message: Set Security on E:\ Zip 250 Atapi

Event Type: Information
Event Source: IomegaAccess
Event Category: None
Event ID: 108
Date: 8/30/2002
Time: 9:47:55 AM
User: N/A
Computer: ED-XPP
Description:
Message: Set Security on E:\ Zip 250 Atapi

I do have an E: drive which is my Iomega Zip (250) drive. Is this telling me to apply some degree of security on the drive? If so, how in blazes would I do that?

It seems that every time that I am at some crucial point, the durn system reboots - and I'm hoping it doesn't do it before I send this on!

orchided

 

Ed,

The zip drive may not be the problem but you can easily find out by going to Device manager and selecting to disable it in your present configuration. Reboot and see what happens.

Uninstalling and reinstalling the zip drive might also be a good thing to try.

Like you, I'm naive about setting any security protection since I have never been asked to do that by the system. That shouldn't be necessary under normal circumstances.

It would be helpful to know if the Event Log entry was generated before or after the reboot and whether or not it is always generated upon reboot. It just may be one of those little "mean nothing" messages that you always get when booting.

Another thing to try is booting to "Safe Mode" and seeing if the problem exists there. That could tell you if it might be related to software rather than hardware.

 

I don't think that my Zip drive is the problem; however, this is what I see with each reboot that occurs, in the System Log in Event Viewer:
___________________________________________________

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Disk
Event Category: None
Event ID: 34
Date: 9/3/2002
Time: 7:01:50 AM
User: N/A
Computer: ED-XPP
Description:
The driver disabled the write cache on device \Device\Harddisk1\DR1.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 0f 00 04 00 01 00 62 00 ......b.
0008: 00 00 00 00 22 00 04 80 .... "..€
0010: 01 00 00 00 10 00 00 c0 .......À
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ........
0028: 00 00 00 00 ....
____________________________________________________

Each of the reboots, now numbering 5 to 6 each day, show the above in the SystemLog. Unfortunately, I do not know how to go about correcting the warning shown in the description above e.g., The driver disabled the write cache on device \Device\Harddisk1\DR1.

Hopefully someone can tell me what I can do to resolve this problem.

orchided

 

Yup. This one is caused by the zip drive. Take a look at Q324916 Event ID 32 and 34 Warnings May Be Logged When You Use an Iomega Zip 250 Drive in Windows XP.

But they ain't what's causing your crashes.

 

Newt, and you other helpful folks out there, here is the latest.

On Saturday the system rebooted 7 times. In the Event Viewer, specifically the System Log, I have copied the content of the statement which starts with each reboot. Does this make mean anything to one, or all, of you? The same occurred on Sunday (11 times), at random times, when nothing specific was happening. Many times when I wasn't even at the computer. What is this thing: "bugcheck "? I also note that sometimes the numbers which follow differ.

Your help is greatly needed.

orchided

 

I would not have hurt had I showed you what I was talking about, now would it - but for 73 years of age, remembering is a problem too! Here goes:

Event ID: 1001
Date: 9/7/2002
Time: 8:57:53 PM
User: N/A
Computer: ED-XPP
Description:
The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x000000c5 (0x00000060, 0x00000002, 0x00000001, 0x8052f200).

Event ID: 1001
Date: 9/7/2002
Time: 7:18:42 PM
User: N/A
Computer: ED-XPP
Description:
The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x000000c5 (0x00000004, 0x00000002, 0x00000001, 0x8052f202).

Event ID: 1001
Date: 9/7/2002
Time: 4:36:49 PM
User: N/A
Computer: ED-XPP
Description:
The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x000000c5 (0x00000000, 0x00000002, 0x00000001, 0x8052f200).

Event ID: 1001
Date: 9/7/2002
Time: 3:34:24 PM
User: N/A
Computer: ED-XPP
Description:
The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x000000c5 (0x00000000, 0x00000002, 0x00000001, 0x8052f200).

Event ID: 1001
Date: 9/7/2002
Time: 1:19:25 PM
User: N/A
Computer: ED-XPP
Description:
The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x000000c5 (0x00000000, 0x00000002, 0x00000001, 0x8052f200).

Event ID: 1001
Date: 9/7/2002
Time: 12:41:28 PM
User: N/A
Computer: ED-XPP
Description:
The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x00000024 (0x001902f9, 0xf5783598, 0xf5783298, 0x804dfdd9).

Event ID: 1001
Date: 9/7/2002
Time: 9:35:41 AM
User: N/A
Computer: ED-XPP
Description:
The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x000000c5 (0x00000000, 0x00000002, 0x00000001, 0x8052f200).

Ed

 

Bugcheck indicates some sort of fatal error that forces the PC into a special diagnostic mode called "debug" and writes the results to a file.

Not a file in English though. In programmer gibberish.

At this point, you need to work with Microsoft Tech Support and let them figure out what is happening.

There is an article Q314103 that tells you the information the M$ folks will need and how to get it before you call them.

 

Thanks Newt - I have just printed out the M$ link you provided. After reading thoroughly, I'll go to those folks for guidance. Again, I thank you immensely for ALL of your help.

orchided

 

I don't see any mention of whether you have checked your CPU for overheating. I recommend you do that just in case.