Random Reboots in XP

[NichowA]

To start, I have not installed any new devices on this computer recently. I had just installed kotor2 (a game) and had been playing for a few hours when my computer rebooted. I was a little perturbed, but hoped it was an isolated incident. Well, it did the same thing when I rebooted and played for a few more minutes. I installed the program on my other hard drive (on reboot chkdsk ran a check on the disk the game was installed on and found a few errors). Well, now my computer crashed while I was installing the game. When it rebooted, it got to the screen where the blue bar scrolls across under the XP logo, and it rebooted from here, too. Overall, it has rebooted many times, every time in one of three situations:
1. Playing a game (I tried another game, too, and it rebooted from here, too.)
2. Installing software
3. While booting

I got a stop code on one crash -- 0X8E , along with a reference to win32k.sys

The computer seems to be perfectly stable when just using it for things like internet browsing, writing this post, and the like. At first, I thought the problem may be the power supply (turbolink 350w), but after reading other posts, memory seems to be tied to this issue. My build is about 8 months old, and I have 1 GB of Corsair XMS PC3200 ram. All the rest of my system specs are in a link in my signature.

Does anyone know anything about this error or what I could do to isolate the problem?

 

[globalcitizen]

try doing a memtest on your memory and see if you start getting crazy amounts of errors. Somehow I think that is the problem.

 

[fuzzynavel]

try playing a dfferent game

 

[NichowA]

As I said earlier, the problem occured in more than one game (specifically kotor2 and counter-strike). It also occured during a test of prime95.
I ran memtest86 and got 0 errors. At this point my system started slowing down considerably and running at high cpu usage when nothing was going on, and full load to run something like winamp. I decided to try a system restore, and it seems that things are back to normal. I've been able to run the game for a few more hours without any crashes, though every time it goes to a cutscene i cross my fingers. I'm a bit perplexed at what could've possibly been changed in that short amount of time to cause so many problems, but apprently the problem has been remedied.

 

[CorporationX]

is your hs/f seated properly and what are the temps?

 

[mechBgon]

Ok, your System Rig specs are missing a vital item: power supply brand & model Edit: ok, you mentioned you have a Turbolink 350W. I'd replace that with a quality brand in the 400W+ range, such as Enermax, Fortron or Antec if it were me.

Also, could you clarify which version of Corsair XMS 3200 you're using (C2, XL, etc) and what memory voltage you're feeding it.

 

[Nightfang]

This sounds very much like an overheating issue. I would make sure your HSF on your processor is working properly.

 

[drinkmorejava]

If you have XP sp2 and an athlon 64 your problem could be with Data Execution Protection (DEP). I had so many problems with it that I just disabled it. See here for more info
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/875352