Need help in diagnosing source of crashes

[Aerodwyer]

I'm running XP SP2 on an Athlon. Systems been stable for a long time until recently when I''ve been experiencing 1-4 crashes a day. I get no blue screeen and no message after restart, the system just goes into restart. After restart it's fine until the next crash. There's no pattern I can see. Sometiimes I'm working on it when it crashes but just as often it's just sitting there. The logs just show me stuff after the restart .

What I need help in is how I can narrow this down to something I can work on. The system has lots of stuff attached (firewire, USB SCSI), two displays on an 9600 etc. Where do I start?

Thanks in advance
Bill

[dl65]

 wdwyer ......Have you added any hardware to the system just prior to this issue starting ?

let us know

dl65  

[Aerodwyer]

A couple of things - a SCSI interface board, and a new 4 drive fiirewiire bay. Also had one crash bad enough to require an operating system repair which may have mucked up previously stable drivers

[pcdoc4christ]

WD:

If you remove the SCSI expansion card and the external FireWire bay and the crashes stop, then you will know the cause of the problem is related to one or the other device. If the crashes continue after removing the devices, then you will be able to rule out the hardware as the cause. Hence, i'd suggest starting there.

One more thing to check: Are both ends of the SCSI bus terminated? If the host adapter is at one end of the bus (with no internal device connected to it) then it must be properly terminated. The external SCSI device must also be terminated. The terminators are either external or internal (set by jumpers or switches). Failure to properly terminate both ends of the daisy chain will not only cause the system to crash but may also damage the host adapter and the SCSI device.

Regards,
Doc