Incorrect boot-up with XP Home Edn

[Kevin C.]

Hi,
I seem to be having terrible difficulty with my home PC
at the moment. It has been an infrequent problem even
before I installed the present O/S from scratch, but has
suddenly become MUCH more frequent of late. I have not
installed anything new or made any changes to the
computer recently!

It seems to be a boot-up problem, causing the PC to cut
out and reboot from outset several times until it decides
to settle down. This usually happens before Windows
loads, but can occur during and after the O/S has loaded.
Sometimes it would fail to correctly pick up the monitor
or modem and may hang, requiring a reset.


So far I have:

replaced Mcafee antivirus (notorious for conflicts) with
AVG,
loaded the setup boot configuration defaults in BIOS,
checked the connections inside the system unit's tower,
disconnected and rebooted everything except keyboard,
mouse and monitor,
ran Norton System Works 2003 on the PC,
carried out dskchk and sfc /scannow functions in XP 'DOS'
....all have made no difference whatsoever!


Technical information for my PC is:

Processor x86 Family 15 Model 0 Stepping 10 GenuineIntel
~1395 Mhz
System Bus Speed 400MHz
Cache RAM 256KB
BIOS Version/Date Intel Corp.
GB85010A.86A.0058.P12.0104021715, 02/04/2001
SMBIOS Version 2.3
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Windows XP Home Edition 5.1.2600 Service Pack 1
128MB RAM
HDD 37GB / NTFS

I would be most grateful if some one could shed any light
on this most frustrating problem I'm experiencing. Help,
please!!

Many thanks,
KC

 

[cimex]

XP is more demanding of hardware resources than your previous O/S. It is not
uncommon for preexisting hardware problems to become more noticeable after
the upgrade to XP.
Try Memtest, for starters:
"memtest86 from www.memtest86.com (need a floppy disk drive, since this
program boots and runs from floppy, well outside of Windows, DOS, or
anything else you'll have on the machine already). Takes a few hours to
fully test the RAM, so use it over night."(from a previous post)

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

First, be sure your antivirus software has the latest definitions and run a
virus scan.

If your system is clear of viruses, open Control Panel, open System, go to
the Advanced tab, click Settings under Startup and Recovery, remove the
check from "Automatically Restart" under System Failure. This will cause
the system to blue screen instead of restarting on errors and the
information on the blue screen may give a clue as to the source of the
issue.

Open Control Panel, open Administrative Tools, open Event Viewer, look for
errors corresponding to the crash, double click the error, the information
contained within may give a clue as to the
source of the problem.

Assuming you have an XP CD and not a recovery CD, place the XP CD in the
drive, when the setup screen appears, select "Check System Compatibility,"
the report it generates may point to problem hardware or software on your
system. If you do not have an XP CD, you can download this application
known as the Upgrade Advisor from the following site:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/howtobuy/upgrading/advisor.asp
Note: If you have access to a broadband connection it might be best to
download using that as this is a rather large download.

Check for the latest drivers for your hardware, especially your graphics
card and soundcard and all peripherals connected to your system. No not use
Windows Update for this, go to the device manufacturer's web sites and if
you install updated drivers, ignore the message about drivers being unsigned
by Microsoft.