Windows XP versus Vista

Hi,

Since 2008, I have an Amilo Pro V3505 with Vista Business installed.

From more than one year, I have a Ksod every day, corrupt files running SFC and a few Bsods running in Safe Mode or with any bootable CD rom.

Most of these issues were insolved even tough I received help and support for a few technical forums.

Moreover, my last update drivers dated from 2008 and even sooner: checked with the Fujitsu-Siemens site.

I only have 1Gb of Ram memory and I don't plan to buy an extra one.

I can also add that 6 months ago I formatted my HDD with low-level format and this, couldn't fix these Ksods.

All in all, I plan to format again and install, windows XP SP3.

Is WinXP SP3 more stable than Vista ? Which are the cons and pros of XP SP3 versus Vista ?

I'd like to have an wise advice.

Thanks in advance !

 

Personally, what little I have used vista, there were less bsod than xp, although that is not many either.

My experience has been bsod are usually driver related. Firewall and soundcard are main culprits in my history.

Troubleshoot the issue by going into bios and disabling hardware one at a time. Includes nic, audio, any ports, etc. If that doesn't fix, go into device manager and disable devices that are not listed in bios. If that doesn't fix, uninstall software.

Best fix would be to make an image of system, then format and reinstall. Disable in bios hardware not essential. Use for awhile, see if bsod disappear. If they do, then enable hardware one at a time. Find the hardware and/or driver responsible.

Vista is slow IMO, but should not bsod every day.

Sul.

 

I don't know why you'd be getting so many bsod's unless there is some sort of driver or hardware issue, so I'd do as Sully says and see what you find.

Also, I agree that Vista was and is very slow compared to both XP and 7 based on my experience. I bought a machine with Vista preinstalled, and am very glad I upgraded to 7, as it's much quicker and better overall. I think you might do well with XP, especially since you've only got 1 gig of ram. I remember XP having it's bsod's now and then also, but it's definitely lighter than Vista...

 

i havent had much experience with vista and went straight to windows 7. i am not entirely certain but vista probably needs more ram than xp, so maybe vista has found a problem with faulty memory that wouldnt show up as often in xp. i would run a memory diagnostic program overnight or longer and see if any errors appear.

 

Thanks Sully for your advise,

I will try to check my Bios, to see what's happening.

My bios version Phoenix Bios interface is so limited, with no advanced settings. Disable the driver on the bios, doesn't mean that I need to reinstall the driver on Vista again, don't you ?

The only drivers I can disable on the Bios are : USB, Wireless and Bluetooth. I can't disable NIC and Audio in the Bios as it doesn't appear.

Maybe, Win7 will be more stable as I hear that is faster than Vista and I think the requirements are more similars or even the same to those for a Vista installation.

 

Install a Linux OS.

 

No, don't install Linux yet. If this is a hardware issue that will just make things harder for you.

You should probably take a look at the Windows event log viewer. That might have something interesting in it.

Also, having seen all kinds of problems stemming from hard disk failures, I would recommend running gsmartcontrol at some point. Just download the zipped version, unpack it somewhere in your home folder, and run it as admin; if your drive supports SMART and is having problems, gsmartcontrol will probably complain about it.

 

Vista's not a bad OS. In some ways I like it better than XP but in other ways I like XP better. The bottom line though is the 1GB RAM. I doubt Vista would run with that. It needs at least 2GB. I don't know about 7 but I think it probably needs more than 1GB.

 

The idea is to use the BIOS to "disable" the hardware. The OS does not "see" it because it is disabled. This is different than going into device manager and "disabling" a device, in which case the OS ignores it although it is visible.

The BIOS method is better because the OS doesn't see it, although the difference is probably mute in this case.

Either way, the idea is to not have the hardware and drivers in the picture. If BSODs disappear, then you enable things one at a time until you find the issue.

As I said, I would look to firewalls and soundcards first. I had one computer a long time ago that would BSOD all the time. It ended up being the audio driver and video driver not playing well together. After trying a few different drivers, I found the combo that worked and rarely had a BSOD after that. To find the issue I did as I suggested, and found the audio the culprit. However, I also uninstalled the video driver on a hunch and found the audio driver was fine without the video driver. Sleuthing is an acquired skill but makes trouble shooting much easier once you get the idea.

Good luck.

Sul.

 

Sully,

I disabled USB, Wireles and Bluetooth via the Bios settings and nothing change.

Afterwards, I disabled Pcmcia card, motorola modem card, DVD/CD driver and Anti-malware drivers and nothing change from Device Manager.

I tried at the end, disable audio and graphic card from Device Manager and nothing change.

I always have a black screen when closin a user/admin account and from one to another account. Something is wrong.

On regard of my graphic and audio card, I have the latest one. Anyway, I disabled both drivers and Ksod is always present.
The point is that I can't disable audio and/or graphic card through my Bios.

I doubt that maybe the manufacturer Recovery DVD is faulty, who knows ?

 

Boot into safe mode and see if problem is gone. Most all drivers are skipped in safe mode, so this can help. If problem exists in safe mode, then suspect physical hardware (like ram and sometimes even very rarely cpu cache) or the OS itself.

Sul.

 

You mean, disabled again the different drivers to see in Safe Mode.

In Safe Mode, without disabled the drivers, I can tell you that the black screen is alive also.

 

check event viewer logs for error as already suggested. Also run chkdsk and check the drive

 

This what I have :

On Fri 10/08/2012 19:26:34 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\Minidump\Mini081012-01.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntoskrnl.exe (nt+0xBB89F)
Bugcheck code: 0xC000021A (0xFFFFFFFF894AE100, 0x0, 0xFFFFFFFFC0000001, 0x1003AC)
Error: STATUS_SYSTEM_PROCESS_TERMINATED
file path: C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
product: Microsoft® Windows® Operating System
company: Microsoft Corporation
description: NT Kernel & System
Bug check description: This means that an error has occurred in a crucial user-mode subsystem.
There is a possibility this problem was caused by a virus or other malware.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver which cannot be identified at this time.

On Fri 10/08/2012 19:26:34 GMT your computer crashed
crash dump file: C:\Windows\memory.dmp
This was probably caused by the following module: ntkrnlmp.exe (nt!KeBugCheckEx+0x1E)
Bugcheck code: 0xC000021A (0xFFFFFFFF894AE100, 0x0, 0xFFFFFFFFC0000001, 0x1003AC)
Error: STATUS_SYSTEM_PROCESS_TERMINATED
Bug check description: This means that an error has occurred in a crucial user-mode subsystem.
There is a possibility this problem was caused by a virus or other malware.
The crash took place in the Windows kernel. Possibly this problem is caused by another driver which cannot be identified at this time.

I ran chkdsk /f /r and it didn't found bad clusters.

 

Likely bad RAM though possibly bad drivers as has already been mentioned. More likely a hardware problem. Make sure your machine is clean and dust free. You may try to take out the RAM modules and clean the contacts with a pencil eraser. I have had that trick fix a machine that was getting BSODs multiple times a day. Do so at your own risk, I am not responsible if you break something.

 

I'd suggest that you grab a copy of ultimate Boot CD or Hiren's Boot CD (the legal version) and run the various hardware diagnostics from there.

Bad RAM or a failing hard disk can give you errors like you're experiencing.My experience with Fujitsu laptops has been the hard drives failing quite often.

Regarding Vista,I found the original version to be extremely heavy and buggy,but with SP2 it seemed a lot lighter and more stable,for me anyway.

 

Or clean with alcohol.

I don't know what pencil eraser are you talking ?

 

The last time I used Hiren's Boot CD, it appeared that I had bad clusters unrepaired on the HDD.

I ran Spinrite for a few hours and it could repaired my HDD.

 

I've found that in a lot of Fujitsu laptops the hard drives run at a high temperature and I've personally had a lot of them fail.Even though Spinrite repaired the bad sectors it could still be ready to fail.

 

Time to replace the hd.

 

Sounds like you need a hard drive but to answer this, just a standard pencil eraser on the top end of a pencil. Alcohol will do almost nothing to remove oxidation. Electronics stores will also have cleaning solutions for electronic parts that work quite well. This works on the contacts of graphics cards as well.

 

The only time I ever got BSOD's in XP was after first installing OpenVPN. It was something with the Tap32 adapter. It was the first BSOD I'd ever gotten in XP after 7 years of use. And it's another reason I only use OpenVPN when I feel anonymity is essential.

I can't speak on Vista because I've never used it. From people who have, I didn't get good impressions, but granted these people didn't belong near a computer in the first place, so not a fair sample.

I'd go with XP on account of you having 1 GB of RAM and having no plans to change that. XP Pro SP3 to be precise...

 

Would looking at crash dumps Help any.

 

I'm still using XP and Vista. Vista is more stable and secure than XP by design. Speed depends on hardware, XP is fast even with weak machines whereas Vista needs at least 2GB of RAM to function properly (Win 7 can function with 1 GB, in that sense Win7 is more versatile than Vista).

As far as bluescreens, it is not easy to troubleshoot. I used to have at least a bluescreen a week for several months, it turned out that there was a conflict between Look'n'Stop firewall and some other application, uninstalling the firewall instantly stopped the problem. You could try uninstalling all security and re-install it one by one to check for conflicts, alas time consuming.

Many people didn't like Vista when it was first introduced, but with SP2 it works really well now, the only negative aspect with it is that it needs reasonably recent hardware and at least 2GB of RAM.

 

For contacts that are very dull a glass-fibre pen will bring them up good-as-new.