Tough Problem

[GhaLeoN]

A couple of days ago I had a stange problem regarding the installation of the new VIA 4in1 drivers...

I got the following error, which you can see on the attached screenshot.

So, I firgured maybe I was getting this b/c I 'tweaked' XP a little bit, removing some of the services that different websites deemed useless. I enable them all back to defualt, yet still get the same error. So, harkening back to the good ole win98 days, I reboot, and try again. bam, it works. This is very unsettling, since I have all but convinced myself that XP ended the days of a reboot magically fixing problems.

A day passes, and VIA releases a new set of 4in1 drivers. Once again, I try to install, and get the same error. Yet again, I reboot, and it installs fine.

THEN : in the process of typing this out, I attempt to type out this post and take a screenshot, but while pasting it in paint I get a BSOD?!?!

Can anyone tell me wtf is going on here? I looked in the event viewer to see what was happening at the time of the crash, and it seems that norton was up to something.... Ive attached a screen of the event viewer as well.

any input?

 

[Lonman]

Do a system restore to before the trouble began. If problems persist... give us the stop code of the bsod so we can look it up.

 

[GhaLeoN]

sorry to not be clear on this: my computer has been running great, theres just been this recent problem of the setup.exe not being able to run for some reason, and the BSOD while trying to copy and paste a screenshot of my desktop.

Im fairly sure the BSOD was caused by norton somehow, as I just tried to run speeddisk beforehand, yet cancelled it to do something else.

also : how do I find out the 'stop code' of the BSOD?

 

[Lonman]

Let me see if our definitions of a bsod are the same>>> Suddenly the computer LEAPS out of windows and the screen is solid blue... it either then reboots or it displays some messages telling you why windows just died (if it's stopped here you then need to reboot). It's on that blue screen that you get your best clues to the problem.

Go to Control Panel> System> 'advanced' tab> startup and recovery 'settings' button> under 'system failure' untick the option to 'restart automatically.' What this will do is allow you to view the contents of the bsod before it reboots.

 

[GhaLeoN]

yes, that is the infamous BSOD im referring to. I already had 'auto restart' unticked before the BSOD hit, but I didn't read the message detials, only that I had to reboot in order to fix the problem.

Is there a way to see what the screen said?

 

[Lonman]

probably, but i don't know how... I write it down when it happens myself. Be sure to write down the 'Stop: 0x000...' and if it names a driver (not always) write that down too. Don't worry about the other numbers in (brakets) behind the initial 0x... code, those are pretty variable and change from box to box.

 

[GhaLeoN]

alrighty

ill make sure to do that next time

like i said, the comp has been running great

Ive only got 2 BSOD's in my 6 months running XP... and once was from a crappy set of beta nvidia drivers