Troubleshooting ...

[FTLOSM]

I built this computer about 2 yrs ago,
base system is amd athlon 2100 (no overclocking) gigabyte 7axp ultra motherboard, 1 git of crucial ram, western digital 7200rpm 120 gig hd, running windows 2000 pro


It has worked great almost 2 years here till about a month ago, it got really buggy (no big changes to software or hardware), just started bsd'ing and also was having bigtime errors with IE6 and Firefox (browser closing with errors left and right).

I thought it was spyware and had norton fully updated and ran adaware se etc, but figured im ready for a fresh install anyways... so I reformatted and reinstalled windows 2000 pro, not even loading a single program it still errors out on IE6 & Firefox within 45 seconds or so after installs.

The install went fine, valid real OS disc, no errors or problems, the os seems stable even overall (a few bsds here and there), but everytime i go to use IE6 or Firefox it just errors out on me within a min or less.

At this point with a fresh formatting new os install no programs loaded, It really can't be a spyware thing can it? (I JUST reformatted and did not install a single program), i even tried doing JUST the windows updates, but even after that - same problem.

This is driving me batty, the bsd's i was getting most said they were ram related (mine is crucial ram btw) so i took them out reseated them and ran 9 hours of microsofts memory testing on full load (not a single error), so that might have just been dust or reseating heck I dunno...Device manager shows no conflicts, even after multiple complete format and reinstalls immediatly

I know there are probably a million things I can add here but in general are there any things I can check run or do to test why IE6 and Firefox keep closing on me?

Bill

 

[furballi]

Strip the motherboard. Connect only the hard drive, RAM, and optical drive. Make sure you wipe the hard drive, including the MBR. Clean install windows and run Memtest86 for one day. Install and verify that the firewall is working! DO NOT CONNECT to the internet without a working firewall. If okay, then connect to the internet and test IE/FF. DO NOT UPDATE at this time.

If problem persists, then you may want to retest with a new power supply.

 

[hemiram]

This sounds almost exactly like what my old pC started doing about a year ago. It was an Athlon 2000 a Biostar N7VIP mobo, 768 megs of ram, running XP. I got errors similar to you, it started out in high stress games, like Generals Zero Hour, and eventually got to the point it was crashing at random all the time. It had been hit by a surge that had knocked the modem out, and totally destroyed the UPS protecting it, so I thought that was it. I ran all kinds of torture software on the CPU, Mem and vid card, and it ALWAYS passed. Just before I ordered the parts to build this PC, I decided to reformat and, for a day, I thought I had it licked.

It was just screwing with me, the next day it went back to it's old habits and crashed constantly. I swapped ram with a friend and it didn't change. I swapped the sound card, and it was the same, CPU was swapped with a friend's 1900. Same thing. I bought a really low end video card and swapped it and that did nothing much, maybe a little better, but it was still crashing all the time.

It had been a great machine for two years. . I think the mobo has problems, like a cracked trace or something. I might gamble and grab a really cheapo mobo and see what happens. If it works, great, I have a spare PC in case this one gets messed up, and if not. I'll use the case OS, HD and DVD burner to make a new PC and solve it that way.

 

[FTLOSM]

yeah im close to just going with a new board myself here, i hate my video card anyways (ati 8500 dv) and i want to try a pent.processor this time vs my amd athlon, I have my thoughts too on it being the MB.... life is too short to jerk with it much longer, my base parts here are all pretty decent still specs wise so i think i will stick with my case that I love (antec 1080) and bo new board - hopefully this time with onboard video, new processor, use my ram and dvd burner, it will still be alot cheaper than a new pc will.

ughh..

Bill

 

[Mrvile]

Originally posted by: FTLOSM
yeah im close to just going with a new board myself here, i hate my video card anyways (ati 8500 dv) and i want to try a pent.processor this time vs my amd athlon, I have my thoughts too on it being the MB.... life is too short to jerk with it much longer, my base parts here are all pretty decent still specs wise so i think i will stick with my case that I love (antec 1080) and bo new board - hopefully this time with onboard video, new processor, use my ram and dvd burner, it will still be alot cheaper than a new pc will.

ughh..

Bill

What do you do with your comp? Maybe it's time for a new build?