My PC keeps crashing

[Angrist]

I'm going to edit this thread a lot because I'm afraid the PC will crash while I type.

Sometimes it doesn't even boot, it never gets to the first screen. And when it does boot, it might crash within a few minutes.

It started a few days ago with just 1 crash while I was playing SC2. I thought it was because of overheating; I've had that problem before and I fixed it by dusting the whole PC. But right now I have crashes long before things start to heat up. I dusted my PC anyway and it made no difference.

It seems pretty random too: sometimes it won't boot, 2 minutes later it does.

I just ran WhoCrashed and it recognizes 2 recent crashes. Apparently "ntkrpamp.exe" is the criminal for these crashes. At the moment I cannot use Google to see what kind of program that is. I'll have to check that tomorrow, or if you want to check it for me that would be nice.

I have this feeling that it's a hardware problem, because most of the time it happens even before Windows starts.

Any idea what it can be? Any idea how I can find out (before bringing it to a store and pay)?? Thanks a lot. :)


Edit: recently I installed a USB headset of Creative. Maybe that has something to do with it? :confused: I think that's the only thing that has changed on my PC the last few weeks.

[magus113]

I'm going to edit this thread a lot because I'm afraid the PC will crash while I type.

Sometimes it doesn't even boot, it never gets to the first screen. And when it does boot, it might crash within a few minutes.

It started a few days ago with just 1 crash while I was playing SC2. I thought it was because of overheating; I've had that problem before and I fixed it by dusting the whole PC. But right now I have crashes long before things start to heat up. I dusted my PC anyway and it made no difference.

It seems pretty random too: sometimes it won't boot, 2 minutes later it does.

I just ran WhoCrashed and it recognizes 2 recent crashes. Apparently "ntkrpamp.exe" is the criminal for these crashes. At the moment I cannot use Google to see what kind of program that is. I'll have to check that tomorrow, or if you want to check it for me that would be nice.

I have this feeling that it's a hardware problem, because most of the time it happens even before Windows starts.

Any idea what it can be? Any idea how I can find out (before bringing it to a store and pay)?? Thanks a lot. :)


Edit: recently I installed a USB headset of Creative. Maybe that has something to do with it? :confused: I think that's the only thing that has changed on my PC the last few weeks.

How recently was it, what OS are you running, and have you tried uninstalling it? If you can't uninstall it before the computer crashes, try mashing F8 when you restart to boot into safe mode and try uninstalling it there. Let me know if that works, but I can keep looking.

[Angrist]

I think I installed the headset last week and the crashes started a few days later. I'll try unstalling it.

I'm running Vista, not sure if it's 32 or 64b (I'm on a different PC atm).

[magus113]

I think I installed the headset last week and the crashes started a few days later. I'll try unstalling it.

I'm running Vista, not sure if it's 32 or 64b (I'm on a different PC atm).

Give it a go with uninstalling it in safe mode, the issue could also be with your RAM as well. I think you can get a memory tester at memtest.org. You can burn it or you can make a bootable USB drive to run it off of. It passes data over all of the RAM in your computer and it's a pretty good test of seeing whether it's bad or not. You usually run it once with all your RAM sticks in it, and then run it again with each RAM stick by itself, so it can be a little lengthy depending on how many sticks of RAM you have in your computer. Best of luck!

Also get off Vista already! :p

[Vampyr]

Might want to try a system restore to a point before it started failing.

[magus113]

Might want to try a system restore to a point before it started failing.

Maybe, maybe not. I know system restore works better on Windows 7 than it did in the Windows XP days, but I'm not sure if it works well in Vista. Considering when it started happening was after the Creative stuff for the headset was installed, it'd be better if he tried uninstalling it in safe mode first.

[Angrist]

It seems so random. Today I tried to run the system analysis that I can choose before Windows starts (apparently by PC Doctor). It crashed during that.
Then I ran in safe mode, it didn't crash for an (idle) hour or so.
Then I booted normally... and it hasn't crashed since.

It all seems so similar to a problem I had a few months ago... I also ran all these tests but never found anything. All problems were solved when I dusted my PC... :confused:

[KillerGremlin]

Computer keeps crashing?

Don't let your computer drink and Drive (D:)

[Typhoid]

What I was initially going to ask was "What happens if you end the "ntkrpamp.exe" program itself from the (ctrl+alt+delete) window?", but then upon googling the program name, it appears to just be a malfunctioning windows process that other people have also questioned. So I no longer question your sanity.

I however have no solutions.

But this link may.

Edit:
Well....it won't let me link you to the link (uhhh), but if you (or someone else) is able to google the process/program name, a bunch of solutions will come up, and apparently all you have to do is download something. If you even just go to an MS/Windows site and type in the process' name, I'm sure it'd bring you to a downloadable fix-y thing.

I'm no compu-doctor, though.

[Angrist]

This is funny. I've been away for a few days, and now my PC has crashed 4 times so far. I'm starting to think it may be a warming up problem... why would it work fine for half a week and suddenly crash all the time?

Thanks, I'll try that.
Btw this time it was ntkrnlpa.exe that crashed. A 'bad_pool_caller'. o_O

[magus113]

This is funny. I've been away for a few days, and now my PC has crashed 4 times so far. I'm starting to think it may be a warming up problem... why would it work fine for half a week and suddenly crash all the time?

Thanks, I'll try that.
Btw this time it was ntkrnlpa.exe that crashed. A 'bad_pool_caller'. o_O

I say it could really be a RAM problem. Did you try using the memtest86 thing I recommended?

[Angrist]

Not yet. Will do it now.

I'm also starting to think it's a RAM problem, especially because my PC manages to crash before Windows even starts.
Oh and if it is a software problem: I realized I bought and installed a new MP3 player a few weeks ago. It has this fishy program running in the background, even when the player isn't plugged in. I wonder how I can get rid of it.

[Typhoid]

I wonder how I can get rid of it.

Well, you can just end the process. But you'd need to do that every time you start the computer up, so it's not really a long-term fix. That's what I do, though. It's not like it's time-consuming or anything, but my phone(mp3 player) also makes a process constantly run on my computer, it never gave me any ill-will mind you, but I always end it (and others) anyhow.

[Angrist]

Yeah I doubt that's the problem by the way.

This morning I tried to boot my PC and it crashed 8 times. 5 of those were before I even had a signal on my monitor. So there's no way it's caused by some new program, right?

I tested my ram yesterday, no problems found. Although I couldn't test the ram of the 3rd and 4th core, I tried but they never started. I was running 4x Memtest, but only the first 2 really ran..

So this afternoon I'm bringing it to the store. I'm out of options and it's driving me pretty crazy.

[magus113]

Try taking those last two pieces of RAM out and seeing if your machine still boots okay before you take it to the store and start spending money. If you can't test those RAM sticks because it doesn't start I think we might have found your problem.

[Angrist]

Hm.... I'd have to find them. At the moment I don't know what to look for in my physical machine... I'll try to find out, thanks. :)

[magus113]

Hm.... I'd have to find them. At the moment I don't know what to look for in my physical machine... I'll try to find out, thanks. :)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148346

RAM looks like that, it's usually lined up in pairs next to the heatsink and fan that covers the CPU. Just a heads up :)

[Angrist]

I went to the store. The guy seemed very pessimistic about the whole thing.

He advised me to reinstall Windows and see if the problem persists. I guess I'll try that after I've tried some other, smaller things.
Like I changed my firewall settings a few weeks ago, now I discovered Windows hasn't been able to update. So I'm going to change that and see if it makes a difference.
The firewall also blocks a lot of other stuff, I wonder if it is to blame...

[Angrist]

Ok, now I'm making backups. I'm pretty scared: this afternoon it took 2 hours before it even sent a signal to the monitor.
I tried unplugging all my hardware, even the internal things.
Oh, I also tried removing 2 of my 4 RAMs, but that didn't work at all.
In the end I started to suspect the HDD. It makes funny noises... :( So hence the backups.

[Angrist]

I wasn't able to start my PC for a whole day. :( The motherboard made weird beeping noises when I tried to.
Today I got the tip to look up the motherboard and what the noises mean. My brother did that for me.
What fixed my problem was...... unplugging my keyboard. :confused: Apparently it was blocking the motherboard from working. So now I'm using a USB keyboard that I had lying around.

I hope that was the root of the problem, but I fear I'm not done with this yet...

[Angrist]

Bump! ;)

First of all: last year the keyboard was the problem. I replaced it with a USB one and I had no problems since.

That is until now. I get these random crashes again. No crash dump files are created, so WhoCrashed can't tell me anything.
Just like last year, the crashes occur in the first 10 minutes after booting up. Once I get past that, my PC runs fine and I can do anything I like.

10 minutes ago I noticed AVG (anti virus) wasn't running. I started it manually... and immediately my PC crashed. So now I'm suspecting that. I'll try a re-install.

[Angrist]

This might be a problem:

My "Factory Image" (recovery partition D:\) is full. It's 8GB big and there's only 32MB left.

[manasecret]

This might be a problem:

My "Factory Image" (recovery partition D:\) is full. It's 8GB big and there's only 32MB left.

The factory image partition is supposed to be full/almost full. It's only meant to be used if you want to restore to factory defaults.

Your concern is like getting a photo developed, then being worried that there's not enough white border around it left for the photo to grow into.

Ok not so great analogy. :)

[Angrist]

Ok, so no worries there then.

Anyway, my PC is still a mess. I'm making backups of my pictures, just to be sure.