Four or more attempts to get XP running

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support (More info?)

Can anyone throw any light on my computers startup problems?

1.6Athlon 512mg 20gig HDD rock?motherboard running legit XP Home with SP2.
HDD less than half full, defrag shows not necessary.

The computer starts ok but at some point in the process, it varies, it will
freeze/lock and will not unlock and has to be rebooted, which in itself may
not happen at the first or even second attempt.

This gosz on about four times, freezing at different points, and can even be
after I have successfully used the computer for 5 or 10 minutes. Eventually
it will boot up and run without a problem.

It is kept up to date with MS updates; has been reguarly scanned for spyware
etc, MS firewall running, connected to the interenet via a router; has a
virus checker. Swept it for viruses and spy/adware recently nothing found.

This problem has been going on for some time and is driving me potty.

One other, unconncted oddity, is that the boot up instruction for looking
at the BIOS [delete key] does not work [nor does F2] , simply cannot get it
open.

I'd very much like to receive your suggestions on eithe or both these
problems.

Thanks for reading this.
Phil

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support (More info?)

"Philip Wagstaff" <brushupnow@msn.com> wrote in message
news:%23b2GknUsFHA.2948@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
> Can anyone throw any light on my computers startup problems?
>
> 1.6Athlon 512mg 20gig HDD rock?motherboard running legit XP Home with SP2.
> HDD less than half full, defrag shows not necessary.
>
> The computer starts ok but at some point in the process, it varies, it
> will freeze/lock and will not unlock and has to be rebooted, which in
> itself may not happen at the first or even second attempt.
>
> This gosz on about four times, freezing at different points, and can even
> be after I have successfully used the computer for 5 or 10 minutes.
> Eventually it will boot up and run without a problem.
>
> It is kept up to date with MS updates; has been reguarly scanned for
> spyware etc, MS firewall running, connected to the interenet via a router;
> has a virus checker. Swept it for viruses and spy/adware recently nothing
> found.
>
> This problem has been going on for some time and is driving me potty.
>
> One other, unconncted oddity, is that the boot up instruction for looking
> at the BIOS [delete key] does not work [nor does F2] , simply cannot get
> it open.
>
> I'd very much like to receive your suggestions on eithe or both these
> problems.
>
> Thanks for reading this.
> Phil


Try removing as many pieces of hardware (soundcard, netwrok card, PCI modem
etc etc) as possible and see if the problem goes away. Then reinstall each
piece of kit one by one and test to see if the crash returns. Also if your
memory consists of 2 x 256 Mb sticks then remove one of the sticks of memory
and try the computer.

Regarding entering the BIOS some older BIOSs do not enable USB support in
time to allow a user to enter the BIOS; do you have a USB keyboard? If so
then try and borrow a PS2 keyboard; I had the same problem on my old system

Andy