help?

[Guest]

I've been running XP home for a long time now, pretty much without any
problems whatsoever. Recently (about three weeks ago) I began having internal
fault-type errors and occasionally, XP would automatically reboot istself
without any warning. I have formatted, reformatted, changed hard drives three
times, took out my DDR upgrade and went back to SDR memory with no avail. I
have scanned all three hard drives with McAfee AND AVG and have yet to find
anything. Stand-alone trojan scanners haven't found anything. After
reformatting I reinstalled SP1 - problems persisted. I have TRIED to install
SP2 TWICE(!!) and neither time has successfully completed due to "cannot copy
file, not found" errors. After uninstalling SP2 TWICE(!!) the system seems to
be as unstable as ever.

So... what gives? What would cause an extremely reliable OS to suddenly go
haywire all of a sudden? Why would SP2 not install. (space is not an issue)

Hardware:

AMD Athlon XP 2004
756mb SDR
HDD 1 - WD 30gb
HDD 2 - Maxtor 20gb
HDD 3 WD 120gb
"MSI brand" Nvidia Gforce2 MX400
SB Live!
VIA onboard LAN

(all drivers have been updated, but didn't work with either the new OR
original driver files)

THANKS!!!!


Brian

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi Brian,

I would suspect either overheating or piece of hardware beginning to fail.
Overheating can be caused by clogged vents for failing fans, paricularly the
cpu fan and heat sink. Most motherboards nowadays will reboot to protect the
system when the heat exceeds a certain level.

Have you opened the case yet? In addition to checking proper ventilation,
take a small flashlight and look for blown capacitors on the motherboard. If
they exist, it's time for a replacement.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org