System "Forgets".. Please help?

[Lokan]

I've come here before and you all always seem to know the answer, or at least point me in the right direction so that I can get some help, so once again I turn to the forums here for assistance.

I've built a computer for my friend and we're having the damndest time getting it stable. First off, we ran into a dead hard drive right from the start, I know, not a good omen, but we RMA'd it and got the system up and running using Win98SE. Everything installed correctly (or at least appeared to) and for about 3 days, no problems. Then, all of a sudden, when he turned on his PC one morning, the video card drivers were uninstalled, MS Office 2000 appeared to not be installed, and his game, Stronghold wasn't "there" either. The perplexing thing is that all the items WERE there, in their proper directories, installed and available. However, trying to run them would cause responses like "Please insert CD to play" and/or "You need to install Microsoft Office..."

I've built computers before and have experienced wierd anomolies, but this one is just frustrating. I've even reformatted and installed everything again, and this time, about 24-48 hours later, same thing. I thought at this point it might be a registry error, perhaps it's forgetting something? Then I figured that after the reformat, it wouldn't be that. All the items on the PC are new, so I don't know what could be causing this. Any and all suggestions would be more than appreciated at this point because I'm at a loss to explain this. I'm not a trained Tech, so anything would help. System specs are below.

AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.4ghz CPU
FIC AD11 Mainboard
256mb DDR Crucial Ram
VisionTek GeForce 2 MX400
CreativeLabs SoundBlaster Live! Value OEM
Linksys 10/100 NIC
NEC MultiSync xv15 Monitor (not new)
Western Digital 20gig EIDE ATA 100 7200rpm
3.5inch drive
350w PowerSupply w/ Antec case

That's all I can remember at this time. Thanks in advance!

 

[jacklutz]

The best thing I can think of--and this is rather sad--is that your friend has a secret admirer fooling around with his rig. Perhaps try ZoneAlarm, if nothing else?

 

[Lokan]

But it's happened twice, the exact same programs and driver revisions installed. No one has access to his PC but him and his cable modem is currently not working 100%.

Any other possibilities? I've never had this happen before

 

[RedShirt]

Ok,

This sounds like windows is restoring an old registry since it may think the current one is corrupted. This MAY be the case here.

Things that can cause this is an overclock (FSB), or some bad RAM. Or maybe even a bad hard drive, but since everything is there, I'm thinking the culprit MAY be the ram.

So, it is my opinion, that with the limited information that is availible here, that the greatest possibility of the problem would be bad ram causing windows to think its registry is corrupted and it reverts to its old registry automatically (it gives a message, once I think). It doesn't even ask the user if its ok to do so.

So, if you can, try a different stick of RAM, if you have one available somewhere. If not, try running the RAM at a lower speed (100 mhz FSB). This will underclock your processor, but run it for a while and see if it does it again. If not, then it's probably a RAM problem.

 

[Lokan]

The ram is new. The interesting thing is that it's a fresh format of the OS. Also, it's DDR ram so how would I go about slowing it down?

At least that helps me narrow it down to a hardware problem (if that's correct). The RAM is a single stick of Crucial 256mb DDR pc 2100 ram. The HD is a WD 20gig EIDIE HD 7200rpm.

One thing I failed to mention (well two actually) is that there's a Creative 52x CDrom in there too.

Also, nothing on the system is overclocked. The user this is for knows little about PCs so that would not benefit him.

Thanks for the ideas. How would I go about testing the ram to see if it's bad? Also, as for the HD, would a simple surface scan detect the correct anomolies to produce this problem?

 

[RedShirt]

Surface scan wouldn't hurt, however, I would think that the RAM is the culprit.

I had bad RAM before and it did the same thing, except A LOT more often. (I'm talking about reformating, having one or two reboots after installing drivers, and then back to nothing).

You can slow down the RAM by putting the FSB to 100 mhz instead of 133. This will run the processor at 1050 mhz, underclocking it, but it will make the RAM run at 100 mhz DDR instead of 133.........

You could try that and see if this fixes the problem. If it does, I'd say it's the RAM.

 

[Pederv]

A freind had the same problem.
It was a bad stick of RAM.
Lucky for him he had 2 sticks, so while one is being RMA'd he can keep ona runnin. And he hasn't had a problem since he pulled the bad stick.

 

[Lokan]

Thanks for the replies! I'm going to get the stick RMA'd after downclocking the FSB, it seems to perform stable enough. I'll update if that helps. Anyone know how Crucial's RMA process is?

 

[Pederv]

I'm just starting in the process myself. I called them and got the RMA number yesterday, took about 10 or 15 minutes. I haven't shipped the memory yet.
They give you the option of buying new while you ship and then crediting your account when they get the old stick.