PC He...OK, PC hot unpleasant place

[LMTC]

2-1/2 yo Athlon2200+ 512 RAM, pretty standard stuff. 40G western digital HD, win 2000 Pro. It was just getting a bit slow, needed more storage, wanted DVD burner for backup. Sent it to the PC doc (I've had work done here before, I feel very positive about the folks who do our PC work--this one just escapes us all), had a second HD installed (Maxtor 200G), upgraded to XP Pro, added DVD burner, and had them make a ghost of the whole setup (it is my experience that windows is well served by removing everything every 6 months or so and reinstalling). While they had it, it was put through numerous tests while being allowed to run for several days, and I was told that as far as the hardware can be tested, everyhthing was good (I had been concerned I might have a bad strip of RAM resulting in the slowdown).

Got it back and spent a day reinstalling what I use. Quickly began having lockups. Just BOOM!, out of the blue, lockup, no response to anything (other than the reset button /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif) Happens in many different applications. Happened as many as 8-10 times in a day for a week, so at the suggestion of the tech.....I wiped it, and restored. He suggested adding one program at a time, thinking there may be a software conflict. Added Office XP Pro and a minor program to run my USB adapter (for wireless modem-DSL). Back to locking up. Other weirdness I had noticed since it came back, and this is back too...the cursor will instantaneously move on the screen...i.e, it is in lower left and without seeing it move and in a nannosecond it is in the upper right (or where ever).

I have no idea if the event log has any bearing on this, but the event log shows lots of errors listed as "MrxSmb error Event 8003" and "Tcpip Warnings Event 4201"

"PSched error Event 14103" usually follows a Tcpip event, which is simply listed as information

Any of this strike a chord with any of you tech savvy folks? I would appreciate any positive suggestions. If I need to buy a new PC, then I shall...but this just seems bizarre to me.

 

[tawilson]

Maybe a videocard issue? What do you have and have you downloaded the latest drivers? On one of my computers the settings in the bios for the videocard have caused me some grief if I tried to force it to do too much. Might just check to make sure everything is in tight also(videocard, ram. cables, etc.). Maybe something loosened up when you brought it home.

 

[beagdog]

You stated that you had the OS "upgraded to XP Pro". If you didn't have a clean reload done, that is most likely the problem with your system. All the things that were causing it to slow down are still there, just buried deeper because of the upgrade. Contrary to popular belief there are few systems that will perform better once an upgrade is done. A clean reload is the only way to go. You have a system more than adequate for running XP Pro in a very efficient manner, it just needs to be loaded cleanly.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[LMTC]

My error on terminology. The original 40G drive, which remained "C", was formatted and XP Pro was done as a fresh installation. I misused the upgrade term, meaning that I had gone one OS newer. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[LMTC]

Thanks...cables and connections are tight. It could be a video issue, but it's not doing anything else, and I was told that nothing "tested" as problematic. Of course I realize that erratic or random failures or errors won't necessarily get picked up by testing. That's why I'm tossing it out there to see if it sounds like anything anyone else here has encountered...before I drop the $$$ on a new unit. I think the video is integrated on the motherboard on this PC.

 

[nobull1]

How about the power supply. Sometimes they slowly go bad and with all the new gear installed maybe put it over the edge. My computer guy is telling me you should have a new one every 1-2 years or so. The cost is cheap and seems to be something that fails early and can cause a lot of other problems.

 

[beagdog]

OK, thats cool. Sounds like you made the right move there. Here's a link to the Microsoft support page, it appears that some of the errors you're seeing are related to the network card and drivers. If you have an on-board NIC, I'd suggest disabling it and installing a PCI card with the appropriate drivers. Sometimes on-board NIC's (and video for that matter) can cause issues.

Nobull's advice about the power supply could be right on as well. A bad or failing power supply will cause suspected motherboard issues too.

Good luck.

Microsoft Support Page

 

[LMTC]

Thanks again for the input. Power supply was replaced about a year ago. Started sounding like.....well, I could tell the fan didn't sound right, so I replaced it. No way to know, I suppose, if the current one is glitching.

NIC---network card? I know I have a network card, because I am able to network our laptop with this desktop PC via our DSL modem.

 

[nobull1]

If you take the cover off the power supply sometimes you can see leaking or swelled capacitors.

 

[Soundguy]

Interesting. I just had to replace a pc at work.. was an athlon with 512mb ram as well.. had xp pro. Started locking up.. log also do list some core errors. Tech support had me reinstall our main business software.. then windows.. then a full wipe... same issues.. Time was critical so i had to hit a box store and pick up a pre-configured unit.. got a pentium 4 with 1 gig ram and xp media edition.. been fine since then.. though have notice dthat our brother multi function machine somehow looses its connection with the pc, and thus looses the first print job of the day.. every day every time. In the morning I now just send it a singe bogus print job just to wake it up.. after that it is fine... never did it ont he old machine... weird..

As for the old pc.. the tech and I figure it is a marginal component ont he mb.. be it ram or something on the processor...

Soundguy