System problems.....

[Abe]

I'm actually not overclocking my system.. although I am posting here because you guys have always been a great help.. :)

System:

P4 1.5Ghz, Socket 478
Asus P4B, 1005 BIOS
512MB CAS2 SDRAM (two 256MB sticks)
Gainward GeForce 3 (have used MANY diff' Det. drivers)
A4 400W P4 PS
SB Live! Value
IBM 20GB 60GXP
Intel InBusiness 10/100 NIC
Pioneer 10/40x Slot DVD
Sony 8x CDRW
Windows XP Pro


Several months ago, I had NON STOP problems with my old Athlon system.. unsolvable.. (yes, I swear, my PC was F'in posessed). So I went out and bought a P4 CPU and Mobo, swapped them in and everything was hunky-dory.. that is until about last week when my system started to randomly blue screen, with different, random blue screen errors. I have changed NO hardware in the past 4-ish months. I've installed apps of course..

The reason I think it's hardware is because I blue screen and or LOCK UP while trying to run Windows XP (and 2000) setup, when booting off the Windows CDRom and getting to the first portion of Windows setup.. I usually blue screen when I try to run setup for Win2K, and it just plain locks up when I try to run setup for WinXP. Sometimes my machine will be up and running fine for a day.. then it'll start to blue screen.. if I boot to safe mode (which most times it blue screens or LOCKS up again!) and keep trying to reboot back and forth between Safe Mode and Normal mode, it will eventually boot into Windows and operate normally like nothing is wrong!

It's just strange that my system was up and working flawlessly for so many months, then all of a sudden, takes a big **** on itself when I've made no hardware changes at all..

Anyone have any ideas? Or perhaps does anyone know of any nice (free?) low level hardware testers I could run on my system?

I am guessing I'm going to see the gold old 'Bad memory' replies.. heh

[Abe]

Also.. when my system is actually up and running, it works great.. I can play stuff like Max Payne, Half Life, and other system intensive games with NO problems! The two times I actually encounter problems:

1) after my PC has been sitting for a while (hours or more). I've sat down and launched Internet Explorer - Blue Screens (sometimes).

or

2) I reboot.. this is when I start blue screening most often..

but if I can get it up and running, it seems to run perfect until one of the above scenarios..

Also, while trying to boot up after getting a bunch of blue screens, I find that XP will sometimes boot up with no mouse and keyboard detected! That happens often as well..

[Abe]

Hmm.. well.. I FDISK'd, formatted, and reinstalled, and it went off without a hitch.. perfect.

I wonder if my drive just got corrupted somehow.. silly IBM drives! ;)

Or maybe I had some kind of uber stealth virus? (I ran Mcafee last night on my system, no virii found).

::shrug::

[thefly]

hehe you've got one of those GXP drives eh?

Well, it's probably not the drive. But you could download the disk testing tools from ibm and see what it reports back.

Drive fitness test and smart defender.

[Kingslayer]

My guess is two things. If you are still having these problems.

1st. Check your power levels while the system is running. Don't use software for this if you can avoid it, use a multimeter. If your voltages are low your HDD might not perform properly.

My second guess is the ram. You have two sticks. Take one stick out and see if these problems continue. If they do, swap them. If it still continues replace them both.

If it still continues after a memory swap let me know.

My inkling is on the memory. That is usually what causes more problems on a 2000 or XP setup. It's also a big cause of IE blowouts. IE is a memory hog when you first start it, and if you have unstable memory, it takes a big hit at this point. Also rebooting. If you have unstable memory it may not be clearing itself properly and this will cause boot errors.

[KeyboardCowboy]

Originally posted by Abe
Hmm.. well.. I FDISK'd, formatted, and reinstalled, and it went off without a hitch.. perfect.

I wonder if my drive just got corrupted somehow.. silly IBM drives! ;)

Or maybe I had some kind of uber stealth virus? (I ran Mcafee last night on my system, no virii found).

::shrug::

are you using the latest updated virus definations????

i usually get the Norton updates every week or so, gotta stay on your toes you know

[Abe]

I blue screen agained last night.. couple times..

Page_fault_in_non_paged_area was the message.. sounds very memory or disk related, doesn't it?

I ran the IBM Drive Fitness test on my disk, and it tested OK. (ran the long test).

I was using the latest virus updates..

I plugged my system into an APC UPS in hopes to alleviate any screwed up power issues.. the UPS will pretty much "condition" the power, won't it? I still blue screened once after I did this.

I am swapping out DIMMS now..

I'll keep you guys posted, thanks for all the input thus far.

[Rezman5]

Could be bad RAM. Try taking out one of your sticks and see if it blue screens. Then try the other stick by itself. That might solve things...bad RAM can cause all sorts of trouble!!!

[Abe]

BTW, does anyone know of any utilities that will burn in/stress test memory? I found a system stress tester and ran it on my system (did the DOS boot disk thing) and everything in my system passed, except it only tested 1MB of my RAM!