Seeming that about 110% of people on this site work in IT I was hoping that some of the 'gurus' out there can help me with the computer trouble I've been having of late?!?

All of a sudden my computer has decided to play silly beggars with me, sometimes it will just hang in a game and I can Alt-Tab or Cntrl-Alt-Del out but what is really worrying is that it is just Cold Re-Booting on me!

It will happen at any time from just when XP is loading all the startup apps to when I'm playing a game or just using a program!The most common fault I have is that it will just hang and I have to reset via Mr Reset button! This will happen 50% off the time, the Cold Rebooting and needing to Alt-Tab out of an App are split about 25% of the time.

When I can Cntrl-Alt-Del out of the program I get a General Protection Fault with what seems a Video Memory Dump (all Pixel and Vertex Shaders etc), but its like a million lines long and I can't remember how to take a screen shot.

The problem has only started since I have installed my new Motherboard about two weeks ago. I first noticed it when playing Battlefield but it is also happening with monotonous regularity in Deus-EX and just when stuffing about, surfing, Winamping etc. I also installed a new Video Card at the same time.

The only thing I can think it is, is that I didn't remove all the old mobo/chipset drivers first and there is some conflict there. (The old mobo was a Soltek with NForce2 Chipset and the newone is a Gigabyte with the Via KT600 Chipset).

My Computer Specs are:

Motherboard: Gigabyte KT-600 P-L-1394

Chip: Athlon Barton XP 2500+@1980MHz (~XP2700)

RAM: OEM 512 DDR-400 (Single Chip)

Vid Card: Sparkle FX5200 w/ 128MB Ram

OS: Win XP with SP1 (Single Partition on 80GB HDD)

So does anybody know if I get unlazy and save all my stuff to disc and re-format my hard drive from the ground up with only new drivers etc that the problem will go away? or is there something I have to click off and all will be fine?less work on my end the better

Please, spare me the 'Get Linux/Get a Mac/Get a RISC system' diatribe I know you mean well and if I have to format I may put on a 10GB Linux Partition.

If someone can help it will be much appreciated.

Peace,

Lump <About to throw my computer.....again....)

AH HA!It just happened again and at least I could Cntrl-Alt-Del out and I got the Critical Error. This one was only two lines long and this is why I copied it, though generally they're like 8 lines long.

Critical Error:

General Protection Fault!

History: URender::SetupDynamics <-URender::OccludeFrame <-TickAllActors <-ULevel::Tick <-(NetMode=0) <-TickLevel <-UGameEngine::Tick <-XGameEngineExt::Tick <-UpdateWorld <-MainLoop

Can anybody make sense of that?

Thanks again.

Are sure you aint got a dose of the pox ,I heard there is a virus that does that

vik

Lumpy, l'm no guru but l have been rooted around by Windows for enough years to know tha when your computer gets corrupted to the stage yours is at now, there is only one option. Back up all your files and re-install the operating system and start fresh.

You will spend a lot more time diagnosing and patching problems than what you will doing a fresh install.

Probably got Sassar Worm.

http://www.microsoft.com/security/incident/sasser.asp

Take Mondie's advice... will save a lot of headaches in the long run...

Also, you probably should have done a fresh O/S install when you put the new motherboard in just to be safe.

If you're PC keeps playing funny buggers after you do a fresh install, make sure you are running solid drivers and all the relevant patches for all your hardware & O/S (do a readup on the web to find good ones). If you still have problems then (I'm fishing here) you may have some dinky hardware that was upset when you changed the motherboard (static electricity is not your PCs friend).

Finally, falchoon might be onto something... in general make sure you have some AV protection and you are completely up to date.

Computers are suppose to be an exact science... unfortunately the aren't...

Miyagi

Thanks for that link Falchoon...Im checking more into it. I like the fact that there a Three CRITICAL updates and one important update for Windows XP for APRIL, 2004!

God, if a car company released a car with this amounts of faults it would be something like the Lada BA Berline!

Arrrgggghhhhh, I can't even browse using Firefox! Have to use damn Internet Cancer!

I will probably have to go buy a spindle and borrow a Burner from somewhere (as my last one self-destructed).

I wonder if this worm is related to the fact that when it boots up I get a Norton Warning : Warning - C Drive Not Accesible

Well what do you expect when you run a "Mickey Mouse" operating System. Go with the flow man....and install Linux

Probably got Sassar Worm.

http://www.microsoft.com/security/incident/sasser.asp

I agree with hoon, sounds like you've got hit. Apply the patch in the link he posted, and then run a scan with this program from Symantec:

Download the FxSasser.exe file from: http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/FxSasser.exe. Note: Version 1.0.1 (As shown in removal tool dialog title bar) provides support for both W32.Sasser.B.Worm and W32.Sasser.Worm

If you do find the sasser worm on your system with the above program, reboot, then run it again to make sure the program has cleaned it properly.