[ox411]

my windows system suddenly stops working

yesterday for instance.....

the computer wouldnt get past the screen that says "windows XP" with the little blue bar moving across the bottom. it just restarts itself over and over again.

so i reinstall windows..... everything is fine.
i update... install a few well known programs (norton internet security, AOL, microsoft office, stuff like that)

my wife calls me that night at work to tell me the computer had a problem starting and she got this error message (more or less)

" one of the files in your registry has been corrupted. windows used an alternate copy. the repair was succesful"

she uses the computer after that everything seems fine

i get home last night the computer seems fine.....but this morning once windows starts up and goes through its little list of start programs, it automatically restarts itself. i let it do that for about 15 minutes hoping it wuld stop. but it didnt. so i try it a few more times, then i use the windows CD to try and repair the installation.

the repair works......and windows runs fine..... untill i turn it off for the first time
once i turn the computer back on, it freezes at the welcome screen and wont go any further.

this is the worst its ever been... but two other times in the 6 months since i built the computer this same thing has happened.... where windows will suddenly just not start up.

for some reason i got it in my head that the problem was with the raid array, so one of the times when windows was working, i dowloaded western digitals diagnostic software to test the drives...and they both passed.

ive checked for updated drivers for the raid controller but cant seem to find any.

i called the people at asus and they said to change the CMOS battery on the motherboard. i did that but it didnt help.

i cant see how windows could be corrupted so quickly. Can some kind of hardware problem cause this?

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This is for a trial version run everything through and see if it helps

Tune Up 2004 Trial


Click start then run then type sfc /scannow and it will start a check of the system files, when the blue bar has crossed the screen, it just goes off, presumably if nothing is wrong.

[Retired Tech]

This is for a trial version run everything through and see if it helps

Tune Up 2004 Trial


Click start then run then type sfc /scannow and it will start a check of the system files, when the blue bar has crossed the screen, it just goes off, presumably if nothing is wrong.

[ox411]

right now windows want start up at all.....
im on a different computer....

so youre saying i should reinstall windows and then scan the system files?

everything seems to be fine from when i install windows untill the first time i turn the computer off

[Retired Tech]

DO NOT RELOAD WINDOWS

Boot the PC, let it go as far as it wants to, put the XP CD in and reboot, it can get it to desktop so you can run sfc /scannow. Or, keep tapping F8 key after beep then select safe mode with networking and get the trial of tune up.

[ox411]

sure ill try it tonight when i get home........
im assuming that one or more of the files is bad....
but im wondering what casues this?

ive put windows on the computer so many times i feel that theres got to be a piece of bad hardware that keeps screwing with the files somehow.

ill try to run the program tonight and let you know what it says

someone else ive been talking to said that a problem with the RAM might cause the registry files in windows to become corrupted and he suggested a program called MEM TEST 86 to check the RAM out.

does that sound like a posibility to you?
thanks
-josh

[Retired Tech]

It could be, if you get it running Tune Up has a memory optimizer

[ox411]

i ran the 'scannow' program and the tune up.....
the windows installation doesnt work for more then a few hours at a time.

i figured that maybe something was going on with the Raid array so i bought a new hard drive, this time an IDE drive. I installed windows on it and now it seems that windows randomly restarts itself, and i cant download things off the windows website.

i ran that Mem Test 86 and both of my Ram modules passed. and since im having problems when im using either the SATA drives or the IDE drive i figure that its not a hard drive issue.

i think it must be a problem with the motherboard?

does anyone else have another suggestion?

[Doby]

Hi,

What are your temps and voltages?

How long did you let memtest run? Let it run for at least 3 passes and test each stick individually, if it makes it thru the 3 passes without error then let it run for 5 hours or so just to be sure.

If one stick passes and one does not try the good one for awhile to see how the computer is.

If the ram passes or the system reboots during memtest then I would try a different power supply.

You need to eliminate temps, psu and ram before moving on to the mobo or cpu.

Rick