[RESOLVED] top three reasons for crashes

[Rev]

Instability in Windows is most often caused by:

1) Poorly written hardware drivers which go rampaging through critical parts of memory, causing the inevitable. The same can be said for beta drivers or incorrectly/not completely installed drivers. Microsoft found this to be a major issue with NT 4.0, hence the new driver handling/certifcation checking under Windows 2000.

2) Poorly written applications (let's face it, how many programs out there are written by 16 year olds?) which cause similar problems to poorly written drivers.

3) Incompatibility between hardware from one or more vendors, or clashes between drivers from one or more vendors.

Brett.

[Milkman]

1. Bad RAM
2. First Aid
3. Norton System Works

[lysergic]

1. shorts between the keyboard and the seat with occisional id10t errors thrown in.

2. AOL and Netscape >4.5

3. Cheap modems (usually does not causes crashes but a wonderful income generator for the shop I work at).

[Andrei]

Computer may crash because of:
1) Bad Memory Modules (or memory speed)
2)Overclocking
3) Bad device connections
4) Processor Overheating
Under Microsoft Windows
1) IRQ conflicts
2) Bad drivers or bad driver installation
3) Incomptibility between devices and DirectX
4) TSR programs (but not always)
5) Faulty programs
6) Incompetent user
and there may be others....

Andrei
Certified Windows 2000 Desktop Administrator

[stevet]

I guess you can sum it all up by saying that the vast majority of PC problems are caused by any combination of three things:

1> Faulty Hardware - cheap components, old components, etc. When it comes to hardware you get what you pay for.

2> Faulty Softare - buggy programs, conflicts (between TSR's and the other 3 dozen programs being run), incorrectly installed programs and drivers, buggy drivers, etc.

3> Faulty Users - the biggest cause of unstable PC's are users who buy cheap hardware and load it down with buggy software.

RANTRAVE ON
PROMPT $P$G
PATH=C:\SOME;C:\USERS;C:\ARE;C:\IDIOTS

We've all run into these scenarios:

'Why would I buy that Asus motherboard when this thing they call an 'M571' only costs half as much - you seen one board you seen 'em all.'

'That Norton guy looks like he knows a lot about computers, I've gotta have that. Oh, and I've gotta have McAfee too. Gotta have my Webshots Desktop, AOL IM, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, 16 stinkin' Compaq TSR's, Napster, and every other freeware program available to mankind.'

And they run all this stuff on a 1996 P-100 with 24 MB RAM and 12 MB of free space on their compressed hard drive. Why are they surprised when it takes their Win98 (retail upgrade over Win95 retail upgrade over Win3.1) machine 10 minutes to start and 2 minutes to crash?

@RANTRAVE OFF

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Steve Taylor - Instructional Computing Tech
North Idaho College
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho

[donald_93]

os's hving to work with so many different types of hardware

faulty programs/drivers/dll's

incorrect bios settings/limited bioses aka.prefab systms

[irishme]

three reasons huh?...ok
1. tons loaded at startup with to little memory...32mb might let you boot but not much more than that.
2. shareware programs that are shareware for a reason.
3.cheap oem memory....can be fun to track down those mystery memory crashes..
4.bill gates..oops thats 4...oh well


there is a spoon its just elsewhere...

[Skip]

1. Syetems built with cheap/old components
(I hate when people come into the shop telling me how much MS sucks & how bad windows runs & i open the computer & they have a a PC Chips MB, with a cyrix proccesor,no fan, and old isa cards from thier 386, & they blame windows)

2. Any utility that claims to prevent crashing (especialy when used together with other simmilar utilitys for extra crash protection)

3. Old programs ( I like the 1989 version on 5 1/4 disks, why should i update to the new Version?)

Windows can run very stable on a well built & setup machine, and if there are crashes that are frequent it can usaly be fixed by changing some drivers or maybe a pice of hardware or updateing or removig a conflicting program, but there usaly not magicly fixed buy any utility.

[Darren Wilson]

• All Non-Intel Motherboard Chipsets and i820 chipset.
• FUU's (F****** Useless Users)
• Buggy Drivers
• Overclocked Systems
• Users running 133Mhz FSB PIII's on BX chipsets (should be under overclocked systems)
• Bad RAM
• Incorrect BIOS settings
• Branded Systems that use integrated devices (VGA, SOUND, Modem, etc)
• Software based Modems (Motorola, Ambient, Rockwell HSF,USr, etc)

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why are our jobs so interesting??????

For a different ' angle ' on life visit my NEW homepage @ The Carpers Lodge - The UK's No.1 Non-Commercial / Independant Carp Angling Website

[shawnMt]

lol stevet

Don't you love it when an old machine has 98 but the volume label on the partition is MSDOS_6 and there are 5 different versions of command.com dating back to 93...

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Cannot find REALITY.SYS. Universe halted

Paint your old laptop!

[AlienDyne]

1. Users
2. Faulty hardware/heat
3. Windows

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"Matter is passive. In spite of its power, it can't be controlled without the human mind." Sokrates

Photos Of My Work
www.geocities.com/alienhardware

[Green Iguana]

1) Users

2) Tons of crap running in the background.

3) Faulty hardware, software, drivers and
incompatibility problems.

[Sckott]

1. Mother
2. Daughter
3. Child.

-Sckott

[Hlodh]

My list:

1) and 2) are probably a tie between user errors and poorly coded drivers. Drivers do matter a lot. Just ask Nvidia.

3) Startup-and-run-in-the-background programs that are typically downloaded by users. Such things include IM programs, proprietary screen savers, and "helpful utilities." Check your startup group or Regedit into HLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Star t to get rid of them.

4) Windows' memory management scheme (there is a utility out there that can run Windows and Linux simultaneously by replacing Windows' memory management scheme with that of Linux. It actually increases the stability of Windows NT by a big margin)

5) Heat

6) Poorly installed hardware. Even some cheap mobos work OK if they are installed without bending them or screwing them in wrong.

7) General hardware failures unrelated to heat.

8) Abuse (what do you mean I can't take out my HD and shake it? My dad did it to me all the time and it didn't hurt me none.)

9) Drive compression (yep, some people still haven't learned)

10) Viruses

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I sing and play guitar, and I have A WARDROBE FULL OF FIRE!

[Jediab]

Well here is what I found.

1: Users not knowing any better. Downloading everything they can from siteslike bobsstupidsiteofuselesscrap.com, and installing it all.

2: Faulty drivers. I had some lockups that would happen, and when I updated the video drivers, it was fixed.

3: Crappy quality hardware, such as anything used in a Packard Bell.

4: Very pourly designed software. See #1

5: Users lack of knowlage about PCs. Despite what they think, computers DO have limits to what can be installed (No that 386 will not run Quake 3 sir).

6: The "Friend who knows about computers". Enough said.



[This message has been edited by jediab (edited August 16, 2000).]