Windows Xp Problem

Everytime my computer (I mean Windows XP) finds something wrong, usually w/ my cable modem... It gives me this MFing blue screen saying what happend and that I need to disable shadowing in my BIOS...

Why can't Windows XP just not tell me, or give me a dialog that says "Toshiba PCX1100U cable modem is not responding on USB port 2" or whatever...

It says it's preventing my computer from further damage but now I've lost everything in RAM... So I've got my Windows 2000 CD out ready for action if I can't get this fixed.

Does anyone have a clue as to what I can do?

#35206

Ok potentially one of two problems here A) you're not using uptodate drivers for it or 2) Something is wrong with the USB on your motherboard (Is it a VIA chipset? I've heard of huge numbers of problems with VIA chipsets and USB) to be brutally honest with you though I'd say just ditch the god damn USB cable modem, yech, and get a proper one which connects via Ethernet. Or you could try connecting it via a powered hub and see if that helps in any way.

http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/win20...000/t1016107681

There's a handy link for you to help regarding the shadowing problem, first link from google infact...

#35209

Umm since it says u need to disable BIOS shadowing......maybe you should try disabling BIOS shadowing.....

Siddharth

#35210

@sid: thanx, lol, I looked in my BIOS setup... And Shadowing is already disabed...

I am using up2date drivers from toshiba...

My USB is built in to my Trigem Cognac mother board, And I have AOL that my whole family shares in my room, so the router is out... AOL is not permissive, and my mom and sister think i screw up everything anyway. So now my Windows 2000 pro CD case is open, and I am backing up to a CD-RW, I am still open to suggestions on what to do, pleaes help!!

#35216

Keep going with the CD-RW backup, then rather than use the Win 2000 CD, use the XP one again!

You never know, it might help to reinstall windows. Then again it might not

#35225

@ludge: I am just going to use Windows 2000 because Windows XP gives me soooooooo many problems and is kind of unstable when it comes to devices. I was afraid Windows 2000 would be the same after I used it last year. But windows 2000 Pro is the best damn version of Windows, even though it isn't skinnable i love the Windows interface! But don't get me wrong, I love macs, I love the classic Macs and I love Mac OS X... In fact I'm running Mac OS 1.1g on my Macintosh Classic.

Installing Windows 2000 is my last resort, my backup is done!

#35284

Why not just get XP drivers? Im sure they exist. Thats where you stability problems are coming from.

#35285

All my drivers are up2date!! I got them from toshiba's website last month after i reinstaled XP from 98. And I still have this problem!

#35287

Waaait!!

Are you sure that you've ALL the WindowsUpdate patches???

If not, try to do this before installing a "discontinued" ms product.

Early, I'm also diffident with XP, but now I'm working on a 12630,66 hours XP installation without a blue screen (yeah, I can't believe it too, but it's truth). !!

#35288

hold on.... installed XP from 98??? you didn't do an upgrade installation did you???? Try a powered USB hub also and check the motherboard chipset and see who made it and then see if there are any updates for it.

#35290

Hey I also had this problem with a bluescreen (see my thread)

and now this blue screen have not appeared for about weeks!

I did the following:

My problem was that I disactivated the internal CD burning program (IMAPI Service) of Windows XP. But I didn't disactivate correctly, because when you

disactivate this service you have to disactivate it in the general folder (1st folder)and also in the second folder (application). When you dont do that, Windows will

try to connect a server which then leads to an error leading to this blue screen, telling you that you should update all your drivers and disactivate BIOS Cache

and so on.....

Since I disactivated the IMAPI service correctly, I have no problems!

Maybe its also your problem ? If not go to my thread and read other advice

that aquasoft users gave me! Maybe this helps you too!

greetings

starcatcher

Ps: I hope you understand my english

#35331

Well theres your problem in a nutshell. NEVER INSTALL XP AS AN UPGRADE! Always do a fresh intsall from he bootable CD. You are asking a pure 32bit operating system to install over a quasy 16-32 bit OS that was junk anyway.

XP has been trying to keep as much of your old programs working as hard as it can. All that extra junk that got left behind is mucking up everything. Listen I know what I am talking about here. I do this for a living. I work in a computer shop that does new system builds and repair/reinstallations and anytime you do an upgrade install over a previous version of Windows you are in for trouble unless its the same version of the OS. Meaning only do upgrade installs from Win98 to Win98 or Win ME to WIn ME. Never go from Win98 to Win XP. Trust me on this. Thats the main reason to have a bootable CD in the first place.

It also sounds to me like the drivers you got from Toshiba are not the newest build drivers you can get. Manufacturers are alway a whole 1 or 2 builds behind the hardware manufactureres. Case in point. You buy a video card based on the NVidia chip from PNY. Now PNY has newer drivers on there site than what came with your card. But if you go to NVidia's website most likely there drivers are next version. Its the same with Toshiba trust me on this. If your motherboard is based on the VIA chipset go to VIA's website and download the newest version of there 4in1 driver set. Via has intergrated all there drivers into a simgle package as NNVidia did 2 years ago. his should fix your problem. If it doesn't then I think you need to go into the bios and turn off the bios shadowing. Its not suposed to be on anyway. That is a carry-over from the old days that hasn't been removed yet. MaximunPC magazine did an article on tweaking the system and covered bios setting and they state to turn it off as well. The last resort is your USB cable modem adapter is faulty and needs to be replaced. I have seen this a few times as well. Just because it works from time to time or under another OS doesn't mean the hardware is working right. It could be faulty in which case you are going to have to live with this until you deside to try and replace it.

One last thing here. Its starting to sound like you are working on a laptop computer. Toshiba hasn't really sold any comsumer level desktops in a few years now. If it is a desktop from Toshiba it just may be to old to run XP properly in which case going back to Win98 or Win 2000 may be your last resort.

Sorry I can't be any more help but its hard to nail down a problem like this without having the machine in front of me or a more freely open conversation versus trying to give you tips through a forum. Good luck.

#35389

@starcatcher: to me your english was perfect, if english is not your native language you did a great job! I mean I don't get an A+ in english class, but it was awesome!

Anyway, There was nothing I could do... I mean like IMAPI was not my problem at all, I do in fact have an external CD-RW drive (Drivers are up2date!) but it works great!

I didn't upgrade! :rant: :smartass: lol i only have ver upgraded once or txice and that was right after I got Windows Xp from Best Buy, I thought the upgrade would ONLY upgrade.

#35396

This is the problem I was having with win2k on my computer, except it was happening at startup with the kernel. win2k would not boot up at all because of "bios shadowing" and there is no option to turn it off in my bios.

#35488

For the first time, one of my computers started giving the BSOD and would reboot ever so often. I tried a clean install and it would give me errors during installation. After 3 tries, I finally realized my RAM must have been giving out. I replaced the first SDRAM and tried to install XP again. It installed without problems. Now I am using it and it is stable as before. Bad memory chips are a pain and can hurt stability. Check yours.

#35602

If worse comes to worse, you can always re-format whole thing and completely re-install windows. Thats what everyone does when they are stuck on windows. Some problems really are just un-fixable. I had a problem with a Gateway computer once. I brought it to the technician and all he did was reformat and reinstall windows. Just like I say. I got it back and he said "All problems fixed!". I said how. He said he just reformatted the whole thing and dumped my files back on.

What do you know, even the technicians who are supossed to know how to deal with windows and fix it cant sometimes. (Windows lovers dont take this like I am dissing your mother or something, its just an operating system).

#35690

I don't understand how you can fail to get XP working flawlessly... Even my mom did it, and she has NO knowledge of computers. I've not even seen a BSOD on my XP systems (4 totally different systems) - ever! Oh, I better knock on wood, just to be safe... You're just one of the unlucky few...

#35760

I too don't see BSODs. But that's because I have setup XP to automatically reboot and not to show that screen. (%##§&%(##§#/"&%" Creative Soundblaster VS. ELite MB ...grumble...

BTW, if you would prefer to see Red SODs or Green SODs there are toosl to "skin" even the BSOD :wink:

Have fun,

McTrinsic

#35803

As a technician I can tell you we have better things to do than try to repair Microsoft’s OS troubles. If I can't get a system to clean up and fly right within the first half hour on the bench I start to back-up what I can and it gets formatted. This goes for all versions of Windows from 3.0 all the way to XP. Although XP is by far the best OS Microsoft puts out it still has its problems, mainly allowing itself to installed onto FAT32 partitions. There is nothing worse than Win2k or XP on a FAT32 partition.

If the system crashes or does one of those spontaneous reboots and you are running on FAT32 instead of NTFS you are almost guaranteed to have damaged files after reboot.

And Windows isn’t alone in this. The same thing can go wrong on a Mac. I have had a few people come in with very messed up installs of OS 8.x-9.x and OS X and the only thing that can be done was to back-up and reformat and reinstall and restore the backed up files. But I can say one thing in the Mac OS’ favor. Backing up and restoring the files is so much easier than it is on Windows any version. That is because Mac OS stores most if not all its programs in there own folders so if you pay attention you wont loose any files and the is no registry that can get corrupted. This is also a problem for Linux as well although my Linux experience is very limited. Just a few additional comments.

#35856

Originally posted by McTrinsic@Jun 26 2003, 05:24 AM

I too don't see BSODs. But that's because I have setup XP to automatically reboot and not to show that screen. (%##§&%(##§#/"&%" Creative Soundblaster VS. ELite MB ...grumble...

BTW, if you would prefer to see Red SODs or Green SODs there are toosl to "skin" even the BSOD :wink:

Have fun,

McTrinsic

That would be just great! Whenever you get BSOD you can look forward to a new color instead of the boring blue you are probably sick of seeing everyday!

Ya reformatting fixes all your problems and is usually the only way to go for major system crashes and stuff like that. My gateway box is running xp, and I have never seen BSOD either, but like McTrinsic said, its because it just reboots randomly like that, instead of giving the error message and then forcing you to manually reboot. Its a little nicer for the user. Instead of having to do anything at all, they are put right back at their desktop! Slightly more convienent, nevertheless, it would be nice if those things just went away all together. I dont know if I will live to see the day. Thank god for Apple, thats all I can say. (Y)

#35956

As an experienced Windows user, I've seen maybe a handful of BSOD (definetly under 10) in my 8+years on Windows. What I have found is that 99% of the time the problem lies with cheap hardware or UFU's.

UFU's are just plain trouble to every type of OS, and probably account for another 99% of Windows bad rep. Microsoft makes a quality OS, and most standard OEM's have an excellent reliability rating.

The best way to fix a BSOD is NOT to reformat. The best way to fix it is to start with your BSOD error code, find out what it is reffering to, and then start troubleshooting the system.

Jmitch: I have no idea why you're thankful for Apple. When an Apple OS crashes, 90% of the time the machine freezes, not even able to refer a user to what the problem might be. Oh, and of course Macs crash only 1/10th as much as PC's do - they only make up 10% of the computer market.

#35968

Thank BSD for OSXs stability, Apple did nothing for stability.

And I disagree with you DZ. On pre 2000 versions of Windows, I would get BSODs all the time. And I did go the decoding route. You know what I found, it was kernel bugs. That is not the hardwares fault. Though that does make up for some BSODs.

That, and that Windows system files would become curropted. Why? I dont really know, but that would cause a lot of BSODs as well. In these cases, a reformat helps.

Now in 2000/XP, the only BSODs ive seen have been crappy hardware or driver issues.

#35972

Leading cause of corrupted system files under pre-NT5 based OS: Bad drivers. This includes people installing the incorrect driver, interuppting a driver installation because under 95-Me everything pretty much went at a snails pace, or just a manufacturer issuing bad drivers.

Second leading cause of corrupted system files: Failing Hard drive.

Third cause of corrupt files; I/O Atapi errors.

The list goes on...it takes a few items before you actually get into Microsoft territory.

#35975

Really. Then explain this.

Why were BSODs EXTREMELY common (dont argue that, they didn't become famous for nothing) pre 2000, and now almost everyone agrees that they are a distant memory in 2000/XP?

The manufacturers haven't seriously changed their ways, and people are still buying crappily put together computers. And of course, Hard drives are the same.

The answer is that MS must have cleaned up their code.

#35981

Of course MS cleaned up the code with Win2000, however one of the main things they did was to make it more flexible for manufacturers.

Remember when Win2K came out and it took companies like HP literally months to update the driver base? Remember the advent of WHQL Certified drivers in Win2K? The reason MS did this is because they were getting the bad rap for other companies sloppy work.

The other reason for the massive code overhaul was to allow users to make the move into NTFS from FAT32. NTFS has always been MS's professional disk format, and where they've planned on steering the consumer market since DOS.

Really, is BSOD anymore famous than the tale of the user who thought his CD-Rom was a drink holder? BSOD is something that Windows users fear at first - that dark, evil place where all hope is lost and the checkbook comes out. Dark stories are whispered over breakroom coffee makers and (so as not seem so stupid) much of the blame is directed at the big bad MS.

Truth be told most of the computer users in any forum, or in the customization scene, learned through trial and error instead of going to classes and actually becoming certified. Trial and error means things were picked apart (like the time I started removing system files one at a time to see how well Win95 would hold up), errors were made, and unexplored territory was ventured into.

Yet as time passes BSOD to an experienced user that some godforsaken app or hardware item is going south, that something was introduced to the core OS that wasn't made correctly. To this day I can run Win98SE for well over a year without reformatting...because I know what it does and doesn't work well with. I wouldn't want to, but that's another story...

#36007