Bloody computers......broken again.......

[horace]

Hi folks

I don't have much luck with computers. My PC has developed a habit of suddenly rebooting itself at random intervals - usuallyjust as it gets to the end of the boot up process (ie just after the desktop screen appears).

The error pages brought up afterwards often say that the error message was corrupted, so the faultcouldn't be identified, or that the error was due to a hardware problem.

I don't think it's a virus - could it be a failing power supply or dodgy hard drive?

Is there any softwarethat will help diagnose the fault, or should I justreinstall windows and start again? I REALLY don't want to do that, as I have no idea what I'm doing. My pc (a compaq) has a partition on the hard drive for recovery purposes - I assume thisholds a copy ofXP, as it didn't come with a software disc? I dunno.

Last night it took about 20 attempts to get the feckin thing to work -kept rebooting halfway through the startup process and taking me to the black screen offering the'start in safe mode' or 'start windows normally' options. Whichever optionI chose resulted ina loop taking me back to that screen.

I'm thinking of opening the pc up and reseating the memory chips etc. Worth a try?

Grateful for your advice, as buying a new pooter is way down the budgetary priority list at the moment.....

Cheers

Martin

[AmDismal]

horace wrote:

should I justreinstall windows and start again?

Do try reseating all the cards and RAM first, but yeah.

Do you have anything that you *really* don't want to lose? If not, just insert the Windows disk and choose a clean install. No problem.

[Uncle Bob]

Martin

If you hit the F8 key just before XP starts to load you should get the advanced startup screen. One option on the menu is 'Disable automatic restart on failure' (or words to that effect). Use that option and instead of a reboot you should see a blue screen with white text giving details of the error - somewhere on screen you should see a STOP code, this will help in pinpointing the cause of your problem.

hth

UB

[horace]

Thanks chaps.

Iwill try Uncle Bob's suggestion before going for the fresh instal.

Wish me luck.....



Cheers



Martin

[Chumpy]

Good luck, but often the clean fresh re-install option is best.

I have had one fantastic Sony Vaio desktop XP m/c for 6 years, and another bollox 2001 top-of-range bespoke purpose-built cack.

Iffy 2 yr old Vista lappie was resurrected last week with 1st MS OS re-install - should have done it 2 years ago.

Use of previous MS OS 3 - Win95-Win 98 m/cs all benefitted from regular reformatting/reinstall ...

October 22nd for OS7 ...

[AmDismal]

Chumpy wrote:

October 22nd for OS7 ...

Which begs the question: when would you actually install it on a machine you need to work? Before or after the Olympics?

[Chumpy]

It is quite likely that MS OS7 2009-10-22 will be very good from day 01, unlike Vista 2007-01-31.

IMO MS XP was very good also from day 01 back about October 25th 2001.

I advise for computers that are not very good spending time trying clean reinstall.

It is possible that for many users not wishing to run certain programmes that non-MS OS is good choice.

I know nothing about Macs, apart from a former Amiga-type Motorola connection.

I would sooner beg/receive the answer.