PC restarting since win2000 SP4 installed...

aligator_am

I recently posted a message explaining how my machine keeps restarting itself since i upgraded the hard drive, here's the dilleo:

I got a new 250GB drive from Aldi and when I installed it and windows it seemed to be going fine, until I installed service pack 4 for windows 2000, from that point it started going a bit funny, then when I installed directX 9 the PC randomly resets itself, now it was suggested by some helpful folks here in the boards that it's most likely a PSU issue (it's not powerful enough) and in fairness that would explain it but what I can't fugure out is how come it only seems to start happening after I install SP4? my system setup is as follows:

250GB western digital HDD
Samsung writemaster DVD-RW/CD-RW
Gigabyte mainboard (can't remeber model)
Pentium III 800MHz CPU
Tevion TV card (Aldi special)
USB PCI card (4 port)
Realtek network card
USB ADSL modem (the generic crappy one that EsatBT give ye)
Sound blaster 4.1 card
I think the power supply is 200 watt, not certain though

Has anyone come across this before? what makes no sense to me is that how come the new HDD could use so much power? I used to have 2 seperate 8GB drives along with a CD-RW and I never had an issue with power so how come now with the 250GB drive and DVD-RW there's not enough power? can they really use that much more power?

Any help or suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks
Al

aligator_am

Just got a new PSU yesterday (annoyed cos i was gonna get a 400W so there could be no doubt, but sadly i could only find 300W ones)

anyway, i rigged the whole thing up and still the machine restarts randomly, AVG anti-virus is constantly telling me that the Win32/dllcache folder is infected with the @core exception (then some memory address) virus, now the thing is that when i try to heal/move/delete these files then it refuses to do so, and what's stranger is that when i run an entire system scan with AVG then no viruses are detected so i assume its some kinda TSR virus or something?? anyone?

I've installed symantec 2004 internet security suite and updated the bejaysus outta it, and it doesnt even detect any viruses, also tried, panda platinum, avast (avast ran a scan on bootup on all local drives, and didnt detect a thing) and kaspersky, all to no avail.

This is higly annoying as ive tried using the 200GB drive as a secondary along with my old HDDs set as primary and there have been no restarts whatsoever, which would surely disprove the power supply theory? I mean how could there not be enough power to run a machine with one HDD and a DVDRW and yet it can run the same machine with 3 HDDs and a DVDRW.

The only solution seems to be a totally fresh install of win2000, or XP (not too keen on XP as the machine is only a PIII 800, so dunno how well it'll handle it) along with Fdisking the partitions (would that remove any boot sector viruses? i mean is the boot sector unique to the physical hard drive OR to each logical partition created on the physical hard drive?)

Anyway, that was a fair auld rant i went on there! any help or guidance would be really appreciated

Thanks in advance

Al

monster_fighter

2000 and XP will restart themselves for loads of reasons.

Corrupt file system (to prevent further damage).
Driver conflicts (USB is a favourite).
etc, etc.

Best do a reinstall. Then use drive image or similar to keep a good working image.

aligator_am

Thanks monster_fighter, is drive image 3rd party software or is it built in to windows 2000/xp? to be honest i much rather using 2000 as i find it to be a lot more stable.

monster_fighter

aligator_am wrote:

Thanks monster_fighter, is drive image 3rd party software or is it built in to windows 2000/xp? to be honest i much rather using 2000 as i find it to be a lot more stable.

3rd party (but there are free alternatives, i just forget).
It means you don't have to reintall windows when she gets sick, just
takes five mins to stick on a fresh image.

I prefer 2000 too.

zod

Do a windows update : http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ there is about 20Mb of citical fixes since SP4 - also there may be a driver update in there.

Do a scan with both Ms products :

AntiSpyware beta : - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=321cd7a2-6a57-4c57-a8bd-dbf62eda9671&displaylang=en

Malicious Removal Tool : http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=321cd7a2-6a57-4c57-a8bd-dbf62eda9671&displaylang=en

Also Try Adaware, Hijack this and spybot.

Scan the event logs for a possible clue to the issue immediately before a reboot .. look the event up in http://www.eventid.net/

aligator_am

Thanks Zod,

I already ran spybot and ad-aware (both with the most up to date patches etc) and found nothing, also tried BitDefender (which i find to be an excellent utility) and that found zilch. I'll try hijack this and the MS utils too to see if they find anything.

I still think it's weird that the machine doesn't restart when the 250GB drive is set as slave, and I've noticed now that there are blue screen crashes (only stays on screen for a second, so i can't see what it says exactly) with what looks like a memory address! as far as i can remember that usually inicates a bandy ntkernerl file or else a gammi memory, although i could be wrong about this.

Can a virus wreck the kernel?

I'd switch to linux but i want to play neverwinter nights...doh!!!

zod

Did you do a windows update after SP4?
Did you check the event logs for events before the crash?

aligator_am

yeah updated windows after sp4 installed, I'll have a look at the system log and let you know what I find.