Personal computing discussed

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anotherengineer
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Location: Northern, ON Canada, Yes I know, Up in the sticks

Re: mystery crashes when idle

Wed Oct 03, 2012 11:46 am

hmmm tricky

Could be UPS, surge/power bar, also if he has older wiring it could possibly lack a ground or be poorly grounded.

Check BIOS versions on the mobo also.

You can also (if you disable BSOD auto restart) you can take down the code that is on the blue screen to trouble shoot
Life doesn't change after marriage, it changes after children!
 
Arclight
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Re: mystery crashes when idle

Wed Oct 03, 2012 12:10 pm

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html

Use that and post more info about the bsod. Might wanna try to take the machine to a place where you know the current is good (possibly use an UPS) for a few days. Test with another video card as well (that is known to be stable). It could take some time and best way to do it is to test individual things one by one.
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Disclaimer: All answers and suggestions are provided by an enthusiastic amateur and are therefore without warranty either explicit or implicit. Basically you use my suggestions at your own risk.
 
TwoEars
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Joined: Thu Sep 27, 2012 7:57 am

Re: mystery crashes when idle

Thu Oct 04, 2012 10:55 pm

Has he cleaned out the dust and put it in a well ventilated area?

Dust is the stability killer, it clogs up heat-sinks, causes connection errors etc etc.

Take the case outside and give it a proper blow job - lol.

I like to troubleshoot the basics first - dust, psu, ventilation, ram.

It's the equivalent of checking that there's fuel in the fuel tank and oil in the engine - seems simple and yet people run out of fuel and oil every day.

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