XP Instability

[Dracula]

I have intersesting issues with XP.

 

It seems to get more and more unstable before finally it crashes so badly that reformat and reinstallation is the only way out. And that's XP Pro. In two years of owning XP Pro (installed on a self-built machine), I had to reformat and reinstall twice.

 

On another machine running XP Home, I get all kinds of strange driver errors and when I check - all the drivers are OK. The computer has a built-in multi flash card reader but no way can I get it to recognise the XD card slot - even thogh the light comes on when an XD card is in the slot. Not only that but data mysteriously vanishes although there are no viruses, no unauthorised software, nobody else using the computer and I know I didn't delete the data. The whole computer has been checked for faults so the only thing left is XP taht's at fault. The first thing to vanish was 7 months of email. I backed it up and the backup (to CD) worked (I checked - the CD was reaqdable). Three days later the email vanished and the CD woudln't read. Bang - lost all that. Now that's not the only instance. A couple fo months before, all my wife's tax data also vanished and couldn't be found - even using Norton File Recover.

 

XP currently gives alternate black screen startup, BSOD startup claiming driver errors, warnings that the bios shouldn't be reverse-engineered and freezes. It'll also start just fine.

 

Given that my experience of XP being bad has been on several machines, I suspect that I'm encountering busg that haven't really been addressed by Mirosoft.

 

Is OSX more stable and reliable? I hope so and await with interest the Intel iBook. Any idea when that'll be out? I want a 12" Intel iBook.

[thrunner]

I checked - the CD was reaqdable ... Is OSX more stable and reliable?

You should do a data verify after writing for important data (check the verify checkbox under Nero for example). It does sound like you have hardware problem(s) and not WinXP. Everyone who knows and maintains WinXP realizes that it is one of the most stable and hardware compatible OS out there despite a torrent of malware directed against it.

OSX86 may look promising but it will likely never be as hardware friendly as WinXP. However, after all that, it may not be a bad idea to spend a few grand for a complete system, hardware and software, from single source, if you believe that will cure your headache.

[Dracula]

You should do a data verify after writing for important data (check the verify checkbox under Nero for example). It does sound like you have hardware problem(s) and not WinXP. Everyone who knows and maintains WinXP realizes that it is one of the most stable and hardware compatible OS out there despite a torrent of malware directed against it.

OSX86 may look promising but it will likely never be as hardware friendly as WinXP. However, after all that, it may not be a bad idea to spend a few grand for a complete system, hardware and software, from single source, if you believe that will cure your headache.

 

I did verify. It was fine. A few days later though, XP wouldn't touch it. This smacks of an instability in XP's CD creation software. I've had this before on different windows installations on different machines (XP, 98, ME). It's endemic to Windows.

[slipstream]

my first pc was before the days of hard drives... My buisness has been build repairing and installing windows based systems. I cannot tell what your exact issue is from what you say It may very well be a hardware issue such as ram or simply software as in a bad driver or poor combo of software and hardware parts but I can tell you this that OSX on a Mac and Linux on x86 is way more stable than windows XP.

After years of fixing these things I tried a powerbook out about 12 months for general use but also for a audio recording studio.. In that 12 months of hard use I think I have had to reboot once because of a system crash/lockup Any time (which I have found extremely rarely ie once a month of 4 hours a day usage), that an app crashes everytime and I mean everytime I just load the app again.. no logout or reboot and it acts like there never was a crash. Now try that on XP. 99% of the time the system is unstable or the app simply will crash again and inevitibly you have to reboot.

I just recently loading a new system for myself with XP. Nothing was installed apart from 2 apps which are industry standard. in the 10 days I have use it even lightly it has crashed or needed a reboot at least once a day and every time it needed a reboot to get it up and running again.

So what I am saying is the comment that everyone knows that XP is one of the most stable OS's out there should be qualified by saying one of the most stable versions of windows OS out there.. which in my opinion is ok as in 5-6 out of 10 I would give OSX for PPC a 9 and the same for most versions of Linux which i have used extensively and found rock solid as well.

Sure some people have little trouble but app crashes are par for the course.. You get use to it.. well i did and thought this was normal or average , it wasn't untill I gave Linux and then OSX PPC a go over quite a few months that I realised that it was only a normal Windows issue. If XP was as stable and bug free as OSX I would be simply out of business... a whole computer industry would start to collapse as the call outs would drop drastically for a number of reasons..

[Eggman]

I'm just throwing in my two cents, but...

 

On my old computer, I had a strange setup. My C: drive ran Win98 and had the boot file, and the D: drive ran WinXP. This one time, there was a power outage as my computer was writing to the boot file.

 

Next time the computer booted up, S.M.A.R.T. monitoring said that the hard drive was corrupt. After that, it started an obnoxious clicking sound, and slowly the data became RAW. Fortunately, the BIOS read RAW data and could still boot to XP.

 

The whole point of this story is that you may have that spreading corrupt thingy I had. But, yeah, this sounds hardware-related!

[thrunner]

I did verify. It was fine. A few days later though, XP wouldn't touch it.

I think you mean that your problem WinXP setup wouldn't touch it. I am sure if you verifed your CD, you data should still be intact and could be restored on another WinXP system.

[Dracula]

Not even a Win 98 system would touch my CD.

[kday]

I have intersesting issues with XP.

 

It seems to get more and more unstable before finally it crashes so badly that reformat and reinstallation is the only way out. And that's XP Pro. In two years of owning XP Pro (installed on a self-built machine), I had to reformat and reinstall twice.

 

It sounds like you have a malware problem or you are installing problematic software on your machine. Also load msconfig and uncheck all the things you don't want to run at startup.

 

To protect yourself against malware, I suggest disabling the Windows XP firewall and installing Sygate Personal Firewall Pro 5.5. Do not use another version of Sygate (newer or older). Version 5.5 is proven to be 100% stable and in my opinion, is the best, most secure, and most feature-ful software firewall to date. I have tried most of them. Don't use firewalls such as ZoneAlarm, as it's unstable, slow and insecure.

 

To protect yourself against viruses, I recommend using Nod32. It catches all the viruses out there and is proven to be the best antivirus solution available. It also doesn't use very much resources, and you won't feel a speed difference when it's enabled. Don't use Norton or McAfee as your antivirus solution as it is bloatware, only catches about 60% of viruses, and can slow down your machine to a crawl.

 

To ensure your computer is as secure as possible, turn on automatic updates. The new automatic updates is unobtrusive, and you won't even realize it's running.

 

Finally, don't use IE unless ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. IE is an outdated piece of {censored} with thousands of security holes. I never use IE. If a website is incompatible with alternative browsers, I just don't go to them. In fact, I canceled a bank account I had (Frost Bank) since it wasn't totally compatible with Firefox. As your web browser, I recommend using either Firefox or Opera. I prefer Firefox.

 

And your other computer with the "driver errors" and such, this sounds like a hardware problem, or a bad hard drive. Verify all the components that seem to be giving errors, and try replacing them with new ones.

Edited December 5, 2005 by kday

[froSTed]

The key issue is hardware.

XP is more stable then people give it credit for, the fact that it runs on almost any PC hardware is a great, but that means the low cost hardware may, and often will cause problems.

I had an issue where a PC kept rebooting unexpectedly. It turned out that the PC had a bad IDE cable, the power supply had a bad MOLEX connector and the drive had a defective SMART system. It was easily fixed by swapping out the cable, using a different molex connector and disabling SMART in the bios. I tested the PC for 6 days and it was stable.

On a side note, the whole "OSX is more secure because fewer people use it" argument is {censored}. There are many flaws on OSX that the good hackers don't care about, but they are just as bad if not worse then that old IE flaw.

[cyrana]

I find XP very stable, and I don't even particularly like it as an OS. The only crashes I ever have are due to falty hardware, overclocking, etc. (or drivers from Creative labs. HEHEHE).

 

I'm talking about OS BSODS and the sort though.

Edited December 14, 2005 by cyrana

[miranda363]

If you disable SMART and DX/NX then it's ok and will serve you well if you maintain it. thats just my 2 cents by the way