Random Crashes

[MIKEJONES]

Bought a new tower PC from Novatech, loaded legal copy of XP, then loaded HP printer, joystick, legal copies of Works, Paintshop pro etc.

This is used as a "business" machine so is offline, no connection to the internet.

Start composing a letter, after random time, seconds, minutes, crashes. I was advised to check the Event Viewer, also to stop the m/c restarting by modding System Failure.

I was getting IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL Cat 102 Eid 1003
One recommendation was to MSCONFIG, DISABLE ALL and reboot.
Tried that, still crashes but with page_fault_in_non_paged_area instead.

I can be typing for say 60 seconds, then it crashes, reboot and continue. Because of having to retype I save every couple of lines, and it seems to keep going without crashing.

But it always crashes first time I try doing anything after a minute or so.

Any ideas please ?

Thanks

[PMM]

Could be a number of things but a quick Google and I like the look of the following link... http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:8TVk7OdqeCcJ:forum.soft32.com/windows/event-ID-1003-category-102-crashes-ftopict316071.html+Cat+102+Id+1003&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl=uk&client=firefox-a

other stuff seems to say printer drivers & DCHP and I think there pot shot luck posts TBH.

[X40Nick]

Hi,

Some of these crashes are just too random for a cause - I just re-install Windows and then somehow the problem just goes away!

[MIKEJONES]

Thanks for that, i did google to find a solution and that's where I found about the solution mentioned, but I will try this new one. I also reinastalled but will try again.

Thanks for your help.

[system7]

Mike, if you've tried reinstall, you are possibly looking at a hardware fault here.

What is the model of computer?

Are you familiar with downloading and burning a Ubuntu 8.10 Linux disk and running memtest86+ from it to check your RAM?

Is your CPU heatsink firmly attached and all wires tight? Remember to unplug power and keep one hand on case if delving inside to avoid sparks causing damage.