Crashing from desktop

[moriati]

Hi all,
I've unwisely agreed to look at my brother in laws, brother's computer... now i had no history on this at all but what i have found out on my own so far is that it crashes just as it gets to the desktop.
all i know about the system spec is it's a 400mhz intel chip, 96mb of sdram installed, a 4GB hard disk running xp pro sp1.
Now i know you will all think it's destined for the skip however i thought because he only wants it for wordprocessing that it may be able to be repaired and will suit his needs.
any ideas anyone?
Ive already stripped out the hdd and put it in my machine and all seems ok with it but i'm far from being an expert in these things.

 

[chelseafc2005]

i dont think that the machine is powerful enough to run xp. 96mb ram is def not enough to run a mocern os like xp and that is probably why it is crashing in his system but when you boot into it on your computer it is fine

 

[Me__2001]

that machine as already said cannot run XP, 98 maybe but it would be better with 95 or linux

 

[moriati]

As i thought, i'll try to get a copy of windows 98 and see if that will run on it.