Over the last few days, my Compaq has become increasingly unstable, and now reboots occasionally in the middle of things. It can be anything - in the middle of AVG Antivirus 7.5 doing a virus scan, or my kids watching a DVD.
The very first time I noticed something strange was when I inserted my Sandisk Cruzer into the front USB port. Instead of taking a minute or so to transfer files, it told me that it would be something like 1200 hours. I rebooted the system, and next time I inserted the cruzer, the machine rebooted.
The only thing I've changed was about a week ago when I replaced an old DVD-ROM drive with a newer one. In the past, I've also had an additional hard drive in there, so I'm pretty sure it isn't the power supply - there is actually less power usage on it now than it had a month ago.
So, here are the testing steps I've taken:
1) reseat the memory, power and data cables
2) double checked master & slave settings on my IDE DVD burner & IDE DVD-ROM
3) checked all the capacitors on the motherboard for swelling
4) checked CPU temp - running at a very cool 89 degrees F - not surprising for a Sempron with HUGE heatsink
5) ran loads and loads of test utilities from Ultimate Boot CD on the RAM, CPU, motherboard, hard drive. One of the several tests I ran on the USB ports showed a possible problem, the rest did not.
6) I went in to safe mode, removed all USB related items, & rebooted
7) Loaded AVG Antivirus 7.5 & latest virus pattern to make sure this isn't virus related
8) since I've seen it lock up a couple of times using Realplayer 10.5 Gold, I completely uninstalled, then reinstalled. After uninstalling, there was one file left in the folder I couldn't delete until going back into safe mode.
Jury is still out on whether any of this made any difference.
I am wondering if any of you recognize either of these error messages that popped up on my screen. The first one:
http://aycu30.webshots.com/image/11589/2003212579827060620_rs.jpg
Shows what came up after a spontaneous reboot. I would get something about Windows recovering from a serious error, then click on details and get this. The strange thing is, I couldn't even find the described folders on my hard drive to look at the files for more information.
The second message:
http://aycu38.webshots.com/image/14077/2003906891350802289_rs.jpg
I first got while we were watching a RealVideo file. However, later I got it while AVG Antivirus was running, and another time we got it when I was doing something else completely unrelated to playing videos. It seemed to just pop up randomly, and I've never seen this sort of message before.
Anyone have any hints or ideas? Thanks!
P.S. - What really makes this a bitter pill is the fact that I've lost 3 motherboards over the past month and a half. All were ECS motherboards of the same vintage, and all died because of swollen or even burst capacitors. I lost my primary PC in our living room, the one in the basement that we used to watch videos when exercising, and the one I had to use as a backup for the one in our living room, about two weeks after replacing it. Now I'm having issues with the Compaq in our bedroom, even before I've gotten the one in our living room back up and working with new innards. Blegh! It just makes me want to go back to the analog age for a while.
The very first time I noticed something strange was when I inserted my Sandisk Cruzer into the front USB port. Instead of taking a minute or so to transfer files, it told me that it would be something like 1200 hours. I rebooted the system, and next time I inserted the cruzer, the machine rebooted.
The only thing I've changed was about a week ago when I replaced an old DVD-ROM drive with a newer one. In the past, I've also had an additional hard drive in there, so I'm pretty sure it isn't the power supply - there is actually less power usage on it now than it had a month ago.
So, here are the testing steps I've taken:
1) reseat the memory, power and data cables
2) double checked master & slave settings on my IDE DVD burner & IDE DVD-ROM
3) checked all the capacitors on the motherboard for swelling
4) checked CPU temp - running at a very cool 89 degrees F - not surprising for a Sempron with HUGE heatsink
5) ran loads and loads of test utilities from Ultimate Boot CD on the RAM, CPU, motherboard, hard drive. One of the several tests I ran on the USB ports showed a possible problem, the rest did not.
6) I went in to safe mode, removed all USB related items, & rebooted
7) Loaded AVG Antivirus 7.5 & latest virus pattern to make sure this isn't virus related
8) since I've seen it lock up a couple of times using Realplayer 10.5 Gold, I completely uninstalled, then reinstalled. After uninstalling, there was one file left in the folder I couldn't delete until going back into safe mode.
Jury is still out on whether any of this made any difference.
I am wondering if any of you recognize either of these error messages that popped up on my screen. The first one:
http://aycu30.webshots.com/image/11589/2003212579827060620_rs.jpg
Shows what came up after a spontaneous reboot. I would get something about Windows recovering from a serious error, then click on details and get this. The strange thing is, I couldn't even find the described folders on my hard drive to look at the files for more information.
The second message:
http://aycu38.webshots.com/image/14077/2003906891350802289_rs.jpg
I first got while we were watching a RealVideo file. However, later I got it while AVG Antivirus was running, and another time we got it when I was doing something else completely unrelated to playing videos. It seemed to just pop up randomly, and I've never seen this sort of message before.
Anyone have any hints or ideas? Thanks!
P.S. - What really makes this a bitter pill is the fact that I've lost 3 motherboards over the past month and a half. All were ECS motherboards of the same vintage, and all died because of swollen or even burst capacitors. I lost my primary PC in our living room, the one in the basement that we used to watch videos when exercising, and the one I had to use as a backup for the one in our living room, about two weeks after replacing it. Now I'm having issues with the Compaq in our bedroom, even before I've gotten the one in our living room back up and working with new innards. Blegh! It just makes me want to go back to the analog age for a while.
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