computer doesn't boot/ computer restarts

Jokerswild · December 6th, 2003, 08:06 PM

Okay, I'm stuck...Hail Mary Time

I have a GW2K Pent 2 233mhz dino PC that my mom uses for Email purposes. One day she turns it on and nothing happens...NOTHING. Any Ideas?

So I reset the CMOS jumper to clear the settings and that had no affect. So then I figure I will replace her PC with the one that I built a couple years ago. This one has been working fine but now I will turn it on and every now and then it just restarts out of nowhere...with out warning and it is really starting to irritate me. I have reason to believe it maybe a RAM problem because something similar happened a while ago. But anyway, I formatted the HD becasue it needed it anyway, reinstalled the OS (windows XP) and thought I was in the clear and then bam! it restarts....a message pops up when rebooted "this system has recovered from a serious error" and it says something about the NTFS.sys file...I don't know XP into depth but my file system is FAT and I can't understand the problem? HELP!!! I'm running out of PC's!!!

elmers · December 6th, 2003, 11:13 PM

What are the system specs ?

Jokerswild · December 6th, 2003, 11:19 PM

MSI KT3 Ultra 2 Series mobo w/ via kt333 chipset
Athlon XP2000
DDR pc2100 256 mb
40 gb western digital 7200 rpm
ge force 2 64mb

I adjusted a setting in the CMOS that allowed 2.6 volts to go to the RAM and changed another setting to boot to OS/2 and that seems to have corrected it FOR NOW. I'm leaving it run all night and making it play a movie just to be sure.

elmers · December 10th, 2003, 12:55 AM

Is it working ok under os/2 ? What id do is check that everything is snapped in properly like ram, vid card, etc... Heres a question you mention having a dual boot so 2 hd in case + cdrom + vid + sound maybe a power supply problem. Had one blow up on me a couple of months ago, showing the same symptoms before it went, when I added another cd and hd. Just guessing really tho.

Another thought... have you looked at the mobo when you set up the pc. Heard about peoples capacitors leaking and "bulgeing".

jmichna · December 10th, 2003, 10:22 AM

Besides bulging capacitors, couple other things to investigate:
- Make sure CPU's HS is making good contact; clean out any dust bunnies
- Failing (or marginal) power supply (use MBM to check line voltages)
- Most ram can take +0.2v, even +0.3v over-volting. I run all my ram at 2.80vdimm just for stability's sake.
- Reseat HD's IDE cables at both HD and mobo