Rock stable over a year; now flakey

[pheasant]

Soltek 75FRN2-RL
Athalon XP 2500+ Barton unlocked
Corsair XMS 3200 DDR matched 256mb sticks
Sparkle 400W power supply- both 12v and 5v rails are within normal limits
cpu runs about 40 degrees with FSB at 210 and multiplier 11
Win XP Home
Maxtor SATA HD
old SB PCI card
forget the video card model, think it was an nVidia 440MX 64MB or something
like that
linksys usb wireless adapter
system runs 24/7.

Was running webroot's Spysweeper, then ToniArt's easy cleaner and the
fireworks started. Reboot, then it said overclock fail and reverted to 100
FSB and 11 multiplier. OK. Didn't pick up the wireless adapter, usually a
reboot fixes that, so did a restart, and whammo BSOD, mini dump, repeat ad
nauseum.
Powered it down, left off for a couple minutes to clear power to RAM and it
gave me the failed to load screen, tried safe mode, locked up on the XP
splash screen kinda dimmed and fuzzy.
Tried to get it to load with each line needing to be answered, and it
continually locked up on windows/system.......mup.sys

Went to work, gave it to a buddy for a fresh idea, he fired it up, says he
can keep it stable when he let the bios choose it's own optimal settings 133
for FSB and didn't futz with multiplier.

Has powered down, up, down, and says as long as FSB is at 133 it's stable
again.

I want my speed back. WAAAAHHH!!!!

Anything I've missed; ideas appreciated. I have some ideas, but like the
community's input.
Thanks
Mark

 

[pheasant]

Soltek 75FRN2-RL
Athalon XP 2500+ Barton unlocked
Corsair XMS 3200 DDR matched 256mb sticks
Sparkle 400W power supply- both 12v and 5v rails are within normal limits
cpu runs about 40 degrees with FSB at 210 and multiplier 11

Forgot to say voltages on cpu and RAM was stock.

 

[rms]

clean it out thoroughly, including the cpu heatsink and the videocard fan
and northbridge fan (assuming these exist. Unplug all cards and use contact
cleaner on the fingers, same with all cables. And clean up windows, there
are lots of registry & spyware cleanup utilities.

rms

 

[Mxsmanic]

I want my speed back.

Spend more money on faster hardware. You get what you pay for.

 

[Forum User]

Check y'aint got a huge dustcake twixt your CPU sink and fan.

 

[johns]

That will be the Maxtor crapping out. Download
PowerMax, and see if it sees errors. If it does, ship
that drive under warrantee.

johns