XP SP1 problems: slow response, hangs, reboots

[7h95g]

I have a homebuilt P4 2.8ghz with 1gb ram, multiple hard drives and a
pagefile of 1500-3000MB on drive F.

Security is Zonealarm firewall, Norton antivirus and Ad-aware and Spybot
S&D for worms, trojans etc. All the windows updates have been installed.

The computer worked just fine with all of the present hardware but has
developed serious problems; it often responds very slowly and there's a
lot of unexplained hd accessing going on.

Occasionally there's BSOD's and crashes. I unchecked "automatically
restart" in the System failure values hoping to be able to read the BSOD
but to no avail - it displays for half a second and then it reboots.

I looked through Event viewer logs for Application and System (there's
nothing there under Security) but don't see anything that points to the
problems - but maybe that's my ignorance not knowiung what to look for.

Today I disconnected the two optical disc drives and the primary slave
and secondary master hard drives and things seem to be back to normal.

What should I do to isolate the problem and correct it?

Any suggestions would be gratefully received.

Thanks

 

[7h95g]

......> Today I disconnected the two optical disc drives and the primary

slave and secondary master hard drives and things seem to be back to
normal.

I spoke/wrote too soon. No crashes yet but something is still making the pc
run/respond slow.

 

[Malke]

I have a homebuilt P4 2.8ghz with 1gb ram, multiple hard drives and a
pagefile of 1500-3000MB on drive F.

Security is Zonealarm firewall, Norton antivirus and Ad-aware and
Spybot
S&D for worms, trojans etc. All the windows updates have been
installed.

The computer worked just fine with all of the present hardware but has
developed serious problems; it often responds very slowly and there's
a lot of unexplained hd accessing going on.

Occasionally there's BSOD's and crashes. I unchecked "automatically
restart" in the System failure values hoping to be able to read the
BSOD but to no avail - it displays for half a second and then it
reboots.

I looked through Event viewer logs for Application and System (there's
nothing there under Security) but don't see anything that points to
the problems - but maybe that's my ignorance not knowiung what to look
for.

Today I disconnected the two optical disc drives and the primary slave
and secondary master hard drives and things seem to be back to normal.

What should I do to isolate the problem and correct it?

Any suggestions would be gratefully received.

Thanks

Sounds like a faulty power supply or another hardware problem. Maybe
overheating, maybe RAM. Here are general hardware troubleshooting
steps. You should always make only one change at a time and test after
each change.

1) Open the computer and run it open, cleaning out all dust bunnies and
observing all fans (overheating will cause system freezing). Obviously
you can't do this with a laptop, but you can hear if the fan is running
and feel if the laptop is getting too hot.

2) Test the RAM - I like Memtest86+ from www.memtest.org. Obviously, you
have to get the program from a working machine. You will either
download the precompiled Windows binary to make a bootable floppy or
the .iso to make a bootable cd. If you want to use the latter, you'll
need to have third-party burning software on the machine where you
download the file - XP's built-in burning capability won't do the job.
In either case, boot with the media you made. The test will run
immediately. Let the test run for an hour or two - unless errors are
seen immediately. If you get any errors, replace the RAM.

3) Test the hard drive with a diagnostic utility from the mftr. Download
the file and make a bootable floppy or cd with it. Boot with the media
and do a thorough test. If the drive has physical errors, replace it.

4) The power supply may be going bad or be inadequate for the devices
you have in the system. The adequacy issue doesn't really apply to a
laptop, although of course the power supply can be faulty.

Malke