Problem for our Hardware Gurus
I've got an interesting problem with my current system. It's a franken-system built from random parts, but it's been a great little machine until now. Here are the specs:
Windows 2000 Professional on a FAT32 filesystem
250W Power Supply
Chaintech mainboard with an AMD Duron 766MHZ processor
256MB RAM
GeForce 2 MX
On-board AudioExcel Channel 6 sound
30GB HD
48x CD-ROM
Philips 40-10-12 CD-Burner
A few days ago, the system experienced a random reboot. It came right back up without problems, and we wrote it off as a one time event. Then we got another reboot...and another. They were coming a bit more frequently. Then we got a "kernel_trap" blue screen on one of the random reboots. Very strange. I immediately thought it might be a heat issue, but my father-in-law insisted that it was a Windows error. So I bought a new harddrive (not wanting to lose data on the old one) and hooked it up. During the setup, I got another random reboot. Ug. When it came back up, I got another blue screen. Then I suspected heat. The CPU fan appeared to be operating correctly, but the power-supply fan looked like it was getting a bit dusty. I thought that if the dust was causing any problems, the CPU fan might not be spinning at full power -- thus the heat problem. So I replaced the power supply with a brand new 250W power supply, and started up again. No problems during the install. (Cool!) I even got all the service packs installed without problems. Then I got a sudden freeze. It was a solid lockup -- it wouldn't accept keyboard commands or anything. I had to hard-boot. It came back up without problem, and I continued for a while. I was able to hook up the old harddrive and start transferring files. Things looked like they were working again. Then my wife tried to play a game of hers and we got another reboot. ARGGGHHH!!! It looked like the game was trying to access the CD-ROM, and I have had suspicions that the CD-ROM was going bad for awhile. Just now, I tried to disconnect the CD-ROM and try again, and Windows won't finish loading. Does anyone out there have any ideas why my system is driving me insane? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! I simply cannot stand hardware issues!