Need help with computer crashing in windows

Alright, well I recently (January this year) bought the dv9000z before vista was released, so I thought I would upgrade when HP sent me the Vista disc. However, after I installed it I found that almost none of my software worked, and decided to go back to XP. I went through the whole recovery deal and got it back to factory, everything was great and I was able to use all of my programs again. Until it started crashing. It does not happen constantly, but it is pretty consistant, at least once a day my computer hard locks where i cant even use the power button to turn it off. I end up having to unplug it and take the battery out, which is obviously not the coolest thing. Sometimes though, it will just randomly restart on its own instead.

Now, before I upgraded to Vista, it NEVER did this. At first I thought it might be from the BIOS flash, because, well I do not know that much about this stuff but it was the only thing I could see that carried over from the Vista install. Flashed back to the version I had before, to no avail. Did a full system check with HP's software, if it is even helpful and nothing came up. I even reinstalled XP again with the same result. Also did a memory check but it said that passed. I really have no idea what is going on, everything else is fine with the system except it just randomly freezes or restarts. It is not really running hot, and I use a cooling pad almost all the time but it makes no difference to the crashing. Other than that, I have done virus scans and use virus protection software (from CA through sbc global).

So now I'm calling out to you guys for help! Please if you have any ideas I would really appreciate the help, this crashing makes taking notes in class very difficult, and is just plain annoying when I am at home surfing on the web.

Thanks for any help!

 

Anything in Event Viewer after it crashes?

 

See what Core Temp says your CPU temps get up to. Sometimes the CPU heatsink is installed incorrectly, and now that the weather's warmed up that may be causing overheating. Check the GPU temperature in the NVIDIA control panel too, it'll be considerably warmer than the CPU but it can handle it.

Heat probably isn't your problem but it's good to rule it out. I see you've already tested the memory.

 

In the nvidia control panel, it usually gets to the low 70s if I am playing a game without the cooling pad (which I usually never do) and is around 67 now while I am just surfing. Though now that I look at it I have never seen it that high when not doing that much before, so maybe I will run a game and see what it looks like to. Coretemp reports temp moving around in the 50s consistently.

As for event viewer, should I just export my log? I do not remember the exact times it has crashed, and I will have to wait, but I will check it next time it does. All I see on there is Userenv 1517 errors (seems to be pretty consistent in that though...) under applications and under system it says: Error date time Service Control Manager None 7034 N/A

That one seems to happen everyday, other than that I will have to wait for a crash.

Yeah I did memory check first because one time I bought faulty RAM and it made my computer act the same way as this one, but the memory check said it was ok, and plus this never happened before I migrated back from Vista.

Thanks for the replies and any ideas you might have, this has me totally lost.