Garybuller
My First Post !!
Posts: 1
(8/19/04 9:25 am)
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Problems with PC restarting at random & crashing XP
In June my 40G hard drive failed and I had it repaired and replaced with a new 80gig hard drive. I had Windows ME re-installed but I had so many problems after that, that I upgraded the operating system to Windows XP pro. Once this was done I had the problem of allocating drivers, most of them I obtained from the manufacturer’s web sites but there were quite a few pieces of hardware that Windows still couldn’t detect and I used Everest software to detect the best-fit drivers for them, and installed them.
Everything seemed fine, until (what I assume to be) the broadband connection started to mess up. I have a desktop cable modem from NTL that was attached via USB and when I was downloading something or accessing a web site or even doing nothing the PC would keep making the “di-dong” chiming noises that it usually makes when detecting and removing new hardware or plugging in or removing a pen drive, the connection would just cut off and not long after the PC would restart itself. I posted my problem on a forum and someone suggested installing an Ethernet card and using that for the broadband, so I’ve done this- XP has automatically detected and installed the correct driver for it. The internet has stopped cutting off, but the chiming noises and the abrupt restarting hasn’t.
I was also having problems with the video game Neverwinter Nights Gold, when I start the game up and click ‘play game’ a box would appear with;
“The last attempt to detect your system settings failed. This usually indicates some incompatibility between Neverwinter Nights and your current video drivers. Please check your video card manufacturer's website for the latest drivers for your video card.”
When I continued regardless the game was slow, blocky and quite unplayable so I tried various new drivers for my Nvidia TNT2 3D Graphics Card 32MB and this didn’t resolve the issue so I went out and bought a Geforce MX4000 graphics card. This came with a driver on a CDROM so I installed that. Starting the game again, the above box still appeared, but on continuing the game went a lot faster and the graphics were obviously better. However after 20 seconds gameplay the game would freeze. The mouse would move and on pressing ctrl alt delete the taskbar would appear with “Neverwinter nights not responding” ending the task/game takes ages and even altering the graphics and game quality to the lowest levels does not solve these problems. The only games that appear to work properly on my system are House of the Dead 2 and Championship manager, but even these are frequently interrupted by the chiming, and the computer restarting itself.
I am really at my wits end with my PC, I’ve tried forums, asking advice off ‘computer literate’ friends and hours of examining the computer myself but with no success. I’ve even tried system restore but this wont work either (and it isn’t disabled either)I have the feeling that the problems are driver related because these problems did not seem to occur before I installed the drivers for my hardware (I even did this one at a time to be cautious) but it really could be ANYTHING! Please could you advise me?
MY PC specs are;
Operating System: Windows XP
OS Service PacK: Service Pack 1
Internet Explorer: 6.0.2800.1106
Direct X 4..09.00.0904 (Direct X 9.0)
Motherboard: AMD Athlon-PECM 900 MHZ
Motherboard name: MSI MS-6191
Motherboard Chipset: AMD-750 Irongate
System Memory: 256MB
BIOS type: AMI (12/10/99)
Video Card: GEFORCE MX4000 128MB
Floppy Disk Drive
Disk Drive Maxtor 6Y080LO (80 GB)
Optical Drive: MATSHITA DVD-ROM SR-8585F
Optical Drive: MITSUMI CR-4804TE (4x/4x)
Ethernet card
351000 Cable Modem
The only software (besides drivers & stuff that comes with XP) that are installed on my PC include;
Zonealarm Firewall
Microsoft Office
Panda Titanium Antivirus 2004
Spybot
PC Tuneup
Championship manager 03/04
Sega House of the Dead 2
Neverwinter Nights
Everest home edition
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