Hardware fault?

[Eden]

Friends PC is having major issues right now, so I thought I'd post, see if anyone's got a clue what the actual problem is. The PC is pretty ancient but it's only used for surfing and word so it's fine what the users needs

Everything was running perfectly, turned on the PC a few days ago and got an error message stating windows couldn't boot because there was a system32 file missing. I looked the problem up to figure out how to fix it, got that sorted using windows recovery console and everything was okay.

Next day the same thing happens only with a different error, this time it was a problem with pci.sys. Thinking it was a software problem we decided to reinstall windows, but had trouble getting past the 'setup is detecting your hardware' screen. I had to take all the pci cards out before it'd go past that.

Reinstall was fine, put the pci cards back in worked fine for a few days, then the same pci.sys error. Took the pci cards out and it booted fine again. So I assumed it was one of them causing the error. Didn't have time to figure out which one as I was in a bit of a hurry, so I just left them both out.

Today I get a phone call saying it's now not booting again, and giving this error:

windows could not start because of an error in the software
Please report this problem as:
load needed DLLS for kernal.


Microsofts solution is a repair install, but I assume since it's a brand new windows installation that the problem isn't software related, but the problem is being caused by faulty hardware.

My question being, what piece of hardware is likely to be causing these continued errors? And since I don't have spares to test what works fine and what doesn't, how do I figure out what, if anything is faulty?

Thanks in advance.

[GoNz0]

memory, psu, dust bunnies, i would clean and reseat everything 1st

[Eden]

memory, psu, dust bunnies, i would clean and reseat everything 1st

Thanks for the reply, cleaning everything and reseating everything was the first thing I did.

[GoNz0]

try a memtest86 and get the hard drive utility and test that next then m8

[Eden]

try a memtest86 and get the hard drive utility and test that next then m8

Thanks, will give those a go, need to get the thing up and running again first lol.

[GoNz0]

memtest and the hd diagnostic come on bootable cd;s m8

[Eden]

memtest and the hd diagnostic come on bootable cd;s m8

Thanks. Any specific HD test you'd recommend?

[GoNz0]

best bets finding out what make the drive is then going to there support site, they should have a diagnostic iso for you to download and burn.