PC resetting at startup and blue screen of death

[dannyboy83]

Hello there, hopeing someone can help me.

Last week, my PC started resetting while loading windows - at the part that says windows XP, and there is a blue progress bar, just before it says "Welcome". It got to this stage, and just reset back to POST 9 times out of 10.

Eventually, I decided to format the C: drive and reinstall windows, as I was convinced it was a software problem. Now I have a near empty C drive with Windows XP Pro, and it is freezing or resetting randomly, and I have had a coupel of BSODs saying things about page files, and error codes.

Sorry I don't have exact quotes or error codes to hand.

I have:
Windows XP Pro
AMD Athlon 64 3000+
MSI Neo2 Platinum NForce3 mobo
4 x 512Mb Corsair XS RAM PC 3300 (2 x 1Gb matched pair bundle)
Sapphire ATI 9800Pro 128Mb AGP graphics card (heatpipe - no fans)
250Gb SATA Maxtor HD (C
200Gb SATA Maxtor HD (D
Samsung 16X Dual Layer DVD-RW (F
Lite-on CD-RW 48X (E

At first I thought it must be the power supply, but perhaps it's the graphics card. Hard disk seems ok after doing windows error check, and also used a RAM checker bootCD, which came up fine after a few passes.

This system is not overclocked.

Any pointers/help would be greatly appreciated.

[Splash]

Have you checked core temperatures? Even overclocked systems get hot. Also might be worth trying to get into Safe Mode, see if it'll consistently log you in there. Also what PSU do you have?

[dannyboy83]

Thermaltake SilentPower 480Watt

Most parts are new too...

I'll give safe mode a bash yeh. Temps seemed fine last week, have not reinstalled the MSI temp checkers since reinstall - you've just reminded me to do so!

[Dingo]

Might find that this page will be useful for those page file errors

http://aumha.org/win5/a/xpvm.htm

[siuron]

overheat is a likely issue

[dannyboy83]

I disabled the page file altogether, and thought that might have worked, but I still get random BSODs with the dump to file countdown (or up).

I'm narrowing it to hard disk, RAM or graphics card problems... will try without each of these if I have time... unless there's any more suggestions?

[dannyboy83]

CPU is only running between 40 and 45 according the the MSI software... unless the graphics card is overheating...

[funnelhead]

Have you tried running it with just one stick of ram in?

try booting with just the boot HD attached / then try swapping the ide channel over...

are your HD + cd jumpers set correctly ?

Are you using thermal grease or a thermal pad between cpu and mobo?

do you have a ****ty modem in ur system?

try disabling onboard sound / lan / sata paralell and serial ports....

see if there is a bios upgrade for your computer (dodgy to try if ur machine is randomly rebooting though)

reset the cmos / load default bios values

hope one of these helps....

[Dingo]

CPU is only running between 40 and 45 according the the MSI software... unless the graphics card is overheating...

Got a hungry looking machine there and you haven't indicated which psu you are using?......if you've done hdd and memory checking then it may be coming back to your psu and spikey supply on the rails.

Is the machine o\ce'd at all?

[dannyboy83]

Thermaltake SilentPower 480Watt

I did I did!

nah its a 200FSB with DDR3200 RAM.

I tried adding the /pcilock command tothe boot.ini, as I thought it might be an IRQ error.

It's crashed once in the last 18 hours or so, and I managed to play a game and a half of PES5 before crashing in the 2nd half!

Many thanks for replies guys, plenty of things to try out.