Frequent crashes on Acer Aspire X1300

Would appreciate any read on this possible. It's my Uncle's slimline desktop that keeps crashing. He gets a White screen which hangs until he shuts it down.

Windows Update pushes through an NVidia 9200 GPU driver even though the PC has 8200 chip. I have tried rolling back to 8200 WHQL driver from 2009. There is now a newer Nvidia 331.82 Display driver recommended by Nvidia site GPU scan which I have just installed.

The NVIDIA chipset scan says it has the latest. I remedied missing co-Processor driver by browsing into the last chipset provided for this model then installed the rest of it detailed here in its ReadMe. It still seems pretty old.

This Vista 32-bit MCP78/72 nForce driver package consists of the following components:
Ethernet Driver (v67.76.1) WHQL
SataIDE Driver (v10.3.0.21) WHQL
RAID Driver (v10.3.0.21) WHQL
RAIDTOOL (v10.3.0.21)
SMBus (v4.64) WHQL
SMU (v1.39) WHQL
GPU Driver(v171.37) WHQL
Installer (v5.84)

Thanks!

what about doing a check for disk and or system errors using sfc /scannow and or dskchk /f? Would that be a viable option(s) at this point? Cause generally speaking a crash usually means something in windows system files themselves are possibly corrupted; and or possibly in this case; the gpu is on the fritz. And im thinking that might solve the issue(S).

That probably explains the last two entries in the log:

Code:

 
Event[21692]:
  Log Name: Application
  Source: Desktop Window Manager
  Date: 2013-12-25T19:03:47.000
  Event ID: 9010
  Task: N/A
  Level: Information
  Opcode: N/A
  Keyword: Classic
  User: N/A
  User Name: N/A
  Computer: Paul-Acer
  Description: 
A request to disable the Desktop Window Manager was made by process (2024)
Event[21693]:
  Log Name: Application
  Source: Desktop Window Manager
  Date: 2013-12-25T19:03:47.000
  Event ID: 9013
  Task: N/A
  Level: Information
  Opcode: N/A
  Keyword: Classic
  User: N/A
  User Name: N/A
  Computer: Paul-Acer
  Description: 
The Desktop Window Manager was unable to start because composition was disabled by a running application

The MSDL server is pitifully slow tonight for some reason. (Needed for dump symbols) It hasn't responded after several tries. I may have to call it a night. One of the other BSOD guys should be showing up soon. Sorry I couldn't help.

Well, this certainly doesn't look like good news. The only dump in the upload indicates a hardware error. More specifically, Processor L1 Cache. This error can be caused by over heating and sometimes the processor will recover. L1 cache sits right next to the processor core and can be the first to go on over heat conditions. The system event log ended too early so I couldn't check for throttling.

Code:

 
*******************************************************************************
*                                                                             *
*                        Bugcheck Analysis                                    *
*                                                                             *
*******************************************************************************
WHEA_UNCORRECTABLE_ERROR (124)
A fatal hardware error has occurred. Parameter 1 identifies the type of error
source that reported the error. Parameter 2 holds the address of the
WHEA_ERROR_RECORD structure that describes the error conditon.
Arguments:
Arg1: 00000000, Machine Check Exception
Arg2: 85f92024, Address of the WHEA_ERROR_RECORD structure.
Arg3: b2004000, High order 32-bits of the MCi_STATUS value.
Arg4: 64000175, Low order 32-bits of the MCi_STATUS value.
Debugging Details:
------------------

BUGCHECK_STR:  0x124_AuthenticAMD
CUSTOMER_CRASH_COUNT:  1
DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID:  VISTA_DRIVER_FAULT
PROCESS_NAME:  YahooMessenger
CURRENT_IRQL:  1f
STACK_TEXT:  
82b37d2c 82e34fcd 00000124 00000000 85f92024 nt!KeBugCheckEx+0x1e
82b37d68 82ae47ac 85f90821 85f92024 82a8a790 hal!HalBugCheckSystem+0xab
82b37d98 82e3527f 85f83438 82e42e40 00000000 nt!WheaReportHwError+0x230
82b37eac 82e35371 85f83438 85f83488 00000000 hal!HalpMcaReportError+0x3b
82b37ed0 82e355dd 00000000 85f83488 82b37ff0 hal!HalpMceHandler+0x8b
82b37ee0 82e2b5f5 00000000 00000000 00000000 hal!HalpHandleMachineCheck+0x3b
82b37ff0 82e28261 00000000 801dc000 00000000 hal!HalpMcaExceptionHandler+0x87
82b37ff0 00000000 00000000 801dc000 00000000 hal!HalpMcaExceptionHandlerWrapper+0x89

STACK_COMMAND:  kb
FOLLOWUP_NAME:  MachineOwner
MODULE_NAME: hardware
IMAGE_NAME:  hardware
DEBUG_FLR_IMAGE_TIMESTAMP:  0
FAILURE_BUCKET_ID:  0x124_AuthenticAMD_PROCESSOR_CACHE
BUCKET_ID:  0x124_AuthenticAMD_PROCESSOR_CACHE
Followup: MachineOwner
---------
0: kd> !errrec 85f92024
===============================================================================
Common Platform Error Record @ 85f92024
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Record Id     : 01cea1f3c3500041
Severity      : Fatal (1)
Length        : 928
Creator       : Microsoft
Notify Type   : Machine Check Exception
Timestamp     : 8/26/2013 0:48:56
Flags         : 0x00000000
===============================================================================
Section 0     : Processor Generic
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Descriptor    @ 85f920a4
Section       @ 85f9217c
Offset        : 344
Length        : 192
Flags         : 0x00000001 Primary
Severity      : Fatal
Proc. Type    : x86/x64
Instr. Set    : x86
Error Type    : Cache error
Operation     : Generic
Flags         : 0x00
Level         : 1
CPU Version   : 0x0000000000100f23
Processor ID  : 0x0000000000000000
===============================================================================
Section 1     : x86/x64 Processor Specific
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Descriptor    @ 85f920ec
Section       @ 85f9223c
Offset        : 536
Length        : 128
Flags         : 0x00000000
Severity      : Fatal
Local APIC Id : 0x0000000000000000
CPU Id        : 23 0f 10 00 00 08 02 00 - 09 20 80 00 ff fb 8b 17
                00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
                00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
Proc. Info 0  @ 85f9223c
===============================================================================
Section 2     : x86/x64 MCA
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Descriptor    @ 85f92134
Section       @ 85f922bc
Offset        : 664
Length        : 264
Flags         : 0x00000000
Severity      : Fatal
Error         : DCACHEL1_EVICT_ERR (Proc 0 Bank 0)
  Status      : 0xb200400064000175

Also - I did locate some info on Hal.dll related hardware errors.

1. It suggests checking for a BIOS update.
2. Set the BIOS back to default settings and clear CMOS memory. Clearing CMOS memory forces the BIOS to re-evaluate hardware and re-block CMOS.
3. Remove OS to BIOS software such as utilities from manufacturer's like Asus' AI Suite. Intel has one called Management Interface. Some of these may not be compatible with older BIOS versions.