Problem! UBS!

[Shake]

My wife calls me upstairs yesterday saying that the computer keeps resetting. She thinks maybe she did something, but all she was doing was opening a spreadsheet she'd created some time ago.

I'm getting the UBS (ugly blue screen) but it flashes up so quickly, I can't even begin to read what it's saying. I can tell that it doesn't always say exactly the same thing though, because sometimes the text is shorter. I'm running WinXP Home on an IBM machine (nearly 3 years old). Sometimes it'll let me log into my profile, other times it reboots after I click my name. Once, I got in and was able to mess around a little bit, even started an AV check, but then it kicked me out and restarted. Last week, I couldn't get it to restart at all, and now this. Also, when I go in, the display looks all fucked up and I can't change the display settings. The one time I had some minimal success, I'd gone into the control panel=>System>Device manager and updated the video driver, which seemed to help until I went to try to change the screen resolution, at which point it rebooted yet again. I finally got frustrated, and was tired anyway, and just killed the power. Haven't turned it back on yet.

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions? I hadn't downloaded any programs or messed with anything recently, at least not since an earlier reboot. Is there anyway to capture what's on the UBS? I'm half tempted to get the video camera out to record it, then play it back on slow speed.

[viscousmemories]

Sounds like bad hardware to me, specifically bad RAM. I'd take it to a professional though.

[livius drusus]

Everytime I've seen a persistent blue screens hardware failures were involved. vm's advice to have the RAM checked out is a good one. Any chance you have some RAM lying around? Even if it's old and small, it might be worthwhile to switch out your current chips and see if you can boot up.

:bsod:

[Shake]

No, but that seems to make sense. I went into the setup and tried doing a memory test and it started hanging up ... well, I wasn't sure if it was really working or not. Guess I'll be looking into getting some new RAM then. :argh:

Oh yeah, thanks, guys!

[Corona688]

The precise contents of the UBS probably aren't too important. The only people who can really tell you what it means are at microsoft, and they're not the ones answering the phones.

[JoeP]

I've never heard it called "UBS" before - always BSOD ("bee-sod") for Blue Screen of Death.

I hear this "test your RAM" advice too often, but in this case, I'd go with it. If it's not that, a failing hard drive caused BSODs on a colleague's machine recently (not bad sectors, really failing & needing replacement).

[John Carter]

The first thing I would do is try a system restore, if you have it enabled. First, see if you can boot in safe mode. If you can get there, then restore the system to the latest restore point that predates your problem.

If that doesn't work, then I'd do what liv and vm suggested.

[cappuccino]

The display problems Shake had with the computer make me suspect that his video drivers may have gone bad. That'll cause the BSOD problem and system distruption. I'd suggest that you do a Safe Mode boot and search for your video card's latest drivers online and download them, then install them and reboot the computer.

If that doesn't work, then I'd look at posisble RAM and HD issues.

[Sock Puppet]

Yeah, I'd try a System Restore first. It might just be corrupted registry files.

[seebs]

Try safe mode and system restore.

One other thing: If there is crucial data on the machine, FIRST take the drive out, put it in something else, and copy the files. FIRST.

[Shake]

Yeah, I went home yesterday and mucked around with the monitor/video adapter drivers and then rebooted (manually this time, I might add), and things seem to have cleared up.

Earlier though, I got this message saying to go to www.fixms.com and download the program there which would find and fix any registry problems I might have. Only, here's the problem, they won't fix anything until you register. And you can now register for the reduced price of $39.95. No thanks, I said.

I do have to try to fix the reboot problem now though. Oh, that being that when I select Start>Shutdown>Restart or Shut Down, it doesn't do anything. I can do the 'Switch User' option, though. Someone said there's a file which is part of SP2 which can fix that, but I want to see if I can do it without SP2.

[livius drusus]

That message is shady. How are you fixed for anti-spyware gear?

[Shake]

I've got Spybot S&D which I update frequently, although I've had some trouble with the latest detection rules. It keeps saying 'bad checksum'. I run it weekly, more or less.

Oh, I also tried to run Stinger (http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/) the other day, but it told me I have an old version. I guess I should update that, too. IIRC, after running Stinger though, one needs to uninstall/reinstall any other existing AV programs. I gotta double-check that.

[livius drusus]

I hate to say it, but Microsoft's Anti-Spyware (http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx) beta is the best of its kind I've seen. It doesn't kill tracking cookies (greedy capitalists, donchaknow), but it's outstanding for everything else. It's definitely worth a try.