Does my computer just miss me or what?

[Arclight]

Restore points are handy if you make one manually, make the changes that might cause trouble, and then restore to just before the changes if there's trouble.

Since I don't make manual points, it's never been of use to me.

Think "last known good config" only helps on failed boot; every time the system starts succesfully, that becomes the "last known good config". Don't think it will do you much good in this case.



Something I thought about is some CPU powersaving option in the BIOS. Maybe the down-volting makes it unstable, leading to a crash eventually. Bit of a longshot though.

[longam]

See if its registering any errors in the event logs.

[SteamWake]

Umm try a different screensaver?

[Spike88]

Maybe when you're walking away from it, you some how interfere with the electricity going to it. You should just sit in front of it and read a book and see if it does it still.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by Spike88

Maybe when you're walking away from it, you some how interfere with the electricity going to it. You should just sit in front of it and read a book and see if it does it still.

Yes, that's got to be it. It's my electrifying presence. My computer haz a sad when deprived of it!

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by SteamWake

Umm try a different screensaver?

I don't use one, never have.

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by longam

See if its registering any errors in the event logs.

Where would I find those? I've tried looking at the files that Windows sends in the error report, but that's just gobbledy-gook to me. Nothing jumps out as a potential problem in all the places I know to look for specific info.

I think right now the option of just staying right there but letting it go idle to see if I can catch it crashing is looking pretty good. Provided the changes I made last night didn't solve the driver issue that seems to be causing the problem.

If it does crash again I'll try to get a look at the BSoD to see if that pinpoints anything.

[longam]

Originally Posted by frau kaleun

Where would I find those?

Right click on My Computer and select manage.

[Reece]

I hate screensavers and don't use them, so it's not like one is kicking in during idle time and crashing the system.

What I meant was if you use a large screen saver this will keep the computer busy during the "idle" time and it may not crash, was just for an experiment!

[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by longam

Right click on My Computer and select manage.

I foundz 'em when I went in to disable the automatic restart.

What I meant was if you use a large screen saver this will keep the computer busy during the "idle" time and it may not crash, was just for an experiment!

Ah. Gotcha.

Well, anyway, I was able to pinpoint exactly what was causing the crash - I turned it on when I got home and sat here and filed my nails waiting to see what would happen. As soon as the Norton automatic backup started - boom. Nothing came up on the blue screen that gave me a specific file or error info to look into though. I rebooted and ran the backup manually - boom. Same thing. Disabled the auto backup feature and left for 2 1/2 hours, letting every other idle background task go on as usual - no problems. Still up and running when I came home.

I still don't know if it's a Norton problem per se - which seems doubtful, since I've used that feature on two computers running the same O/S and basically the same programs and configs and whatnot without any problem up til now. I rather suspect that a file got corrupted or deleted somewhere, or else something changed that made the Norton backup conflict with something else. I do use the Windows backup program to back up my entire C drive to one external drive, but that's scheduled to run only once a month I think and shouldn't have been interfering with the Norton backup over the past couple of days.

I reinstalled the Norton product to see if it will still cause the same error after a clean install - if so I'll just disable the backup feature (which I don't really need anyway, it was one of those things I was just letting go on because it was there and configured and saved a smaller set of files to an alternate external drive. Mostly just a "backup" backup of crucial data files. If I try it and still get a system failure I'll disable it again and pursue the issue with Norton just to make sure it's not caused by something that might give me other problems.

Thanks for all the help and advice, as always!

[Tweety]

Your welcome frau kaleun.

I'm glad your narrowed down the problem.

Tweety

[Reece]

Good to hear you found the problem, btw, I use and love Norton Ghost!!