Brand New PC crashes to blue screen!!

[forbesman]

Hi all

I have only had my Dell PC for 1 week and yet it keeps crashing all the time. Its very frustrating and in fact im typing this as fast as my fingers will let me in case it happens any second!!

It crashes to a blue screen which contains lots of text. I thought I should take a note of some of the "Stop" codes. The last three which have occured are as follows:

0x00000044 (0x88F08238, 0x00000D62, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)
0x00000044 (0x88F0A8C8, 0x00000D62, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)
0x00000044 (0x88FC9C8, 0x00000D62, 0x00000000, 0x00000000)

It seems to be saying something about video device, and the windows error reporting says something about something being on a "loop"

I would be very grateful for any help..

Thanks in advance

Lee

[ShawnCplus]

Below the hex codes there should be a file listed as the cause of the error if not, sorry to say but WHEN it happens again and if it like you say it will, try to write down everything on the screen down with exception of the memory dump counter.

Now on to first steps, Does the video work fine?
Write down what you are doing when the crash happens, perhaps it is one incident that is causing it.

If there was perhaps an answer I could give you now it seems like a memory error or incompatible video.

[texruss]

You can temporarily stop the automatic reboot. If the My Computer icon is not on your Desktop get a shortcut for it by clicking on Start button and then right button click on My Computer and select Show on Desktop.

Now back at the Desktop right button click on My Computer and select Properties and then the Advanced tab. Click on the Settings button in the Startup and Recovery section and in the next screen deselect the checkbox for Automatically restart.

Look for the Dell service tag number on the back on bottom of your PC and write it down. It may also be visible in your Start/All Programs area under Dell.

Now go to www.support.dell.com and input your Service Tag number and for 2. Select a Tool select Original System Configuration.

Print the resulting page for future reference. Now see what video card shipped with your PC by looking through your Dell specs on that page. Write that down. Go back to the first screen where you input the Service Tag number. In Select a Tool pick Drivers & Downloads. Download the newest driver for your video card. JUst because your Dell is new doesn't mean it has the latest drivers. You can also check later for new Audio drivers, etc..

Install the new driver and see if your problem is solved. If not let me know. Did it ever work correctly? If so System Restore may be able to bring it back to shipping status and not lose any data.

HTH,

Texruss

[forbesman]

Cheers for your advice peeps. Well I took some of it and did a system restore then tried to download the latest drivers for my sound card and video card.

But then I thought.. "ok this is a brand new pc, youre back at system restore and the only hardware you've added since new is the cable modem" which got me to thinking could it be that. Well I tried to download the latest driver for that but no luck. So I had the bright idea to disable the internal modem with the pc - in case my computer was trying to read from both modems simultaneously - and I also swapped the USB cable from the modem to pc for an Ethernet cable (cos i read it somewhere!) and....

...so far so good!!

Im not counting my chickens yet cos its only been 3 hours (which is the longest its been without crashing to the blue screen). Im thinking of leaving it switched on overnight cos the time it most seemed to crash was when the pc was un-attended.

Thanks again all - Ill keep you posted. If it works at least I can pass this info on to others on here and help them.

Cheers

Lee

[bigozone]

the previos poster is correct about a new pc NOT having the newest drivers... when i last bought a DELL 8250 there were many newer drivers at the dell support page.

i'd recomend downloading and updating all the drivers and also check to see if there is a BIOS update. if there is, updating the BIOS could help resolve your problems.

[Roebuc]

how can I find out if i need to update my bios, never done that. Where can I find new bios?

[texruss]

how can I find out if i need to update my bios, never done that. Where can I find new bios?

Go to the website for your PC manufacturer and see if they have a BIOS update. In the old days we needed to boot to DOS with a floppy and then run the flash file. Now it is Windows-based and usually requires a reboot.

For Dell PCs go to www.support.dell.com and select Drivers and Downloads.

HTH,

Texruss