This is a Windows XP SP 2 system. Some time ago it began having a problem, crashing and producing BSODs. Ran avast scan, ran MBAM scan, ran TDSSKiller–nothing. I ran lots of HW diagnostics–nothing. I checked the system error log–nvata.sys was throwning an error. I’m not sure exactly what that does but I believe it’s related to hard drive handling.
Today I went to remove as much as I could from the drive and found the system was just rebooting. Turn system on, let it sit, it would just reboot in from 1 to 10 minutes. That did not seem to happen in Safe Mode. I left the system on for several hours in Safe Mode–no problem.
It all felt suspiciously like malware to me. Before I remove the hard drive and try salvaging anything that hasn’t been backed up that way I thought that I’d ask help from someone who knew more than I do.
Hi I can see no sign of malware there, it may be that your video card is failing
Download Speedfan and install it.
Once it’s installed, run the program and post here the information it shows.
The information I want you to post is the stuff that is circled in the example picture I have attached.
If you are running on a vista machine, please go to where you installed the program and run the program as administrator.
It doesn’t show much. I interpret what I’m seeing as that it’s not able to read the fan speed.
Enclosed find a screen capture.
The fans all seem to be running properly. I think my only alternative at this point is to remove the hard drive from the computer and see what I can get off it. Thanks for the advice.
Is the video card a slot in one ? Do you also have a video driver on the motherboard … If so it might be worth removing the video card, or swapping it for a known good one to see if that stops the crashes
No, it’s onboard. If the problem is the video overheating even when idle, I suspect it would still cause a problem. I’ve got all of the files and programs moved over to a new system and I’ll decommission this one. All that’s left is checkout, filling in any details I’ve missed, and checkout.