BleepingComputer.com: Frequent crashing Vista Ultimate

I upgraded from XP Pro to Windows Vista about 10 days ago. Initially it was all sweetness & light. The installation was on my HP XW6400 Workstation (twin dual-core Zeons, 4gb RAM, 1.5tb on the HD, and a standard video card that came with the box).

The installation went flawlessly and then on Day 5 the computer began relentlessly rebooting, but never starting. I spent almost six hours on the phone with MS Vista Support (a surprising pleasant experience). It was necessary to do a fresh installation of Vista. This was not quite as bad as it sounds, my data resides on the D: and E: drives and is backed-up off site and I had accumulated a vast number of programs that needed to be disposed of). I also installed a beefier Video Card (nVidia GeForce 8400 GS). The frequency of crashes went from continuous to every 90 or 120 minutes.

Using the Event Viewer I was able to determine the most frequent cause of the crashes. About half occurred immediately after Google Updater, GUpdate, and Google Earth Add-in would attempt a function. I removed all three items and the crash-frequency was reduced to every two to three hours.

The only new culprit identified was Outlook 2007 (an absolutely essential program which cannot be deleted), There were an enormous number of crashes where the Event Viewer did not appear to have noted any noticeable (to me) reason for the crashes.

When it deigns to work, Vista Ultimate is a significant improvement over XP Pro. It's imperative that I get the crashing fixed before it undermines my confidence in Vista. The zip attached to this post includes a number of items that appeared in the Event Viewer that appeared to have some impact and some Event Log copies.

I really need some advice and I appreciate any suggestions.

Ivan (IWHalperin)

A couple of stupid questions. Did you upgrade include SP1? If so, did you go to Windows update after your installation and get all the updates from SP1 until now? (If the answer to that is no, i would just download SP2 and run it, THEN check for updates). There has been this month at least one if not 2 updates specifically addressing issues with Outlook 2007, so make sure you have those updates.

How much RAM do you have?

SP1 was included in the install. I installed SP2 about three days ago. I have 4gb of RAM; memory testing indicates it's OK.

Ivan

my brother had a problem like this! It crashed most of the time while playing games though. Well you can try getting a whole new vista program because some might not worl as well as others.

Another thing is your sound could be part of the problem. If you have been doing things with sound it could effect it. Go to your sound icon in bottom right corner double click it so it opens up. Then set everything to half way or a little bit lower. then go to the main volume and set it 1/4 of the way up. This should help if you have been doing something with sound because then, it won't put so much pressure on the pc. Because my brother has a pressure guage on his and it went high on every sound. He changed the sound settings and it was fine. He has XP now though because it crashed from something. You only have to do this if you were doing something with sound!

Do you have any event codes for your crashes? You can find them in the event log.

Click Start> Control Panel> Administrative Tools> Event Viwer> Custom Views> Administrative Events.

There you will find a list of Critical event, warnings ect......... more than likely you will see a few that are re-occuring. Look for the number and either google the Event ID or post it back here.