Boot up problem

Here is my 2 cents:
Since the computer work fine in 1.5 month, the problem is not in the CPU, memory, motherboard, or VGA card. I don?t know why the system sometime boots ok and sometime doesn?t. However, the first thing I would do is put the hard drive into another system, back up all the data, then go to IBM website and download Drive Fitness Test software and test out the hard drive.

Good luck,

I would try to determined if it's that exe file that's the cause or just a random system problem.

After you manage to boot your machine okay, don't use that file for a week, and make a note of what's happening. Does the machine still hang randomly or not?

It sounds to me like the exe file is the problem. It might not be a virus, but to have your system working for 1.5 months, then as soon as you start working with this exe file it freezes, logic does point more to the file itself than to the system.

Each time you use the exe file the system has problems,so I would suggest that you scan the folder or file with NAV to check to see if it is actually a virus,also run Search ,Find-Files and Folders to see if their are associated files that are unusually large.

Check the file thru Properties to see if the file is a 16 or 32 bit Windows Application

The BSOD will give details what application ordriver is causing the problem by looking at the lines in the dettails,you could then determine what is causing the problem

This executable file that keeps crashing your system doesn't necessarily have to have a virus in it. It could be poorly programmed and have some conflict with something else running in your system. Are you sure it is WinXP compatible?

"This exe file is a fiction complied using WebCompiler." Not sure what this exe file is ??? You might want to check back into where you downloaded this from and see if anyone else has problems with it (some download sites post users' opinions of downloadable software).

Reading your posting, it definitely sounds as if the exe file is what is causing your system to crash. Every time you try to run it, the system has a problem.

I'd suggest you redo your system, not run or touch the exe file in question for a while and see if the system crashes without using the exe. If the system appears to be fine, and the download site appears to not have problems, then I'd suggest you re-download this file and try again.

As the others have said, the problem seems to be with the EXE that you downloaded. I would reformat the drive again. If you have Ghost, make an image of the drive while it's working. I would not run that program again. If you do, look at the associated files that may install with it. Does it have any .dll files? Those could overwrite system files and make it unstable. Check the task manager. What tasks run before installation and what tasks run after. I had a user that got the sobig virus before the virus checker was updated. When I found the program running in memory, I looked for the file and deleted it. You may want to use an uninstall program that will track the files you are loading.
Good Luck.

I am on the side that this file is a virus.
Just because you are running Norton, and have updated anti-virus defintions, does NOT mean that you will be protected.
Here is the deal. Symantec releases anti-virus definitions (microDEFs) in 2 different ways: Intelligent Updater and LiveUpdate.
Intelligent Updater is a manual process you can run DAILY. Every day, when new anti-virus definitions are made for new viruses, they are made available with Intelligent Updater. You would then run the Intelligent Updater process on the new daily file, and that will give you the absolute latest definitions.
Now, I don't think most people do that. Instead, I think most people rely on LiveUpdate. LiveUpdate is the scheduled service that installs with Norton anti-virus. You can set it up to run daily to look for new defintions (but the default is for LiveUpdate to run weekly).
Now, the anti-virus definitions are updated WEEKLY, not daily! So, even if you check LiveUpdate every day, you are only gonna get updated microdefs once a week!
Here is an example.
The W32.HLLW.Oror.C@mm worm was discovered on January 22, 2003. Now, according to the write-up on this worm, Virus Definitions (Intelligent Updater) were ready on January 23, 2003; the Virus Definitions (LiveUpdate?) were ready on January 29, 2003.

So, if you ran LiveUpdate every day, you COULD have been infected by this virus from Jan 22 (its release date) up until the LiveUpdate on your system ran on Jan 29th.

My two cents worth. I don't have XP experience so this may not work as it is DOS.
Klez can actually control a Windows Virus Scanner. I would download a trial of a DOS Virus Scanner, such as noddosen.exe from Nod32. It is only 1,345kb so will fit on a Floppy disk. The download creates a directory DOS32 in the same location that the file is located, so copy it to C:\ before extracting in DOS. Good luck.

Boot computer and when the Startup screen appears press the designated key to enter Setup,look at the configuration setting to see if Anti-Virus detection is enabled,if so select to disable,save changes and exit.
Reboot

Here's what I would do:
- Check to see if you have the lastest BIOS and update if you don't have the lastest version.
- Get some DOS ram tester utilities and test memory out.
- Also, if you can, plug the hard drive into another system and check to see if there is any problem with the hard drive. Also, try CHKDSK /F

You can buy a power supply tester for around $20 at CompUSA - you can try that to make sure the power supply isn't flakey. If that checks out okay or if you tried another power supply and it still happens I would also try different memory, if you have different memory laying around. On boot up problems, I usually do this - I take EVERYTHING that you don't need in the machine completely out. Take the sound card (if you have one)out, modem (if applicable), network card (if applicable) everything but the video card and test your boot ups at that point. Does it boot 5 times properly in a row, etc. and then add each card in one by one to see if you can find a culprit that route. It's painfully tedious but you can rule out hardware problemsthat way. Do you have the latest rom bios installed on the motherboard? ECS will have updates from their web site. You may have a bad processor too, make sure your proc. fan is running and cooling your proc. properly. Sometimes heat issues can manifest themselves in strange ways. Good luck on this one, it's not an easy one!

Cheers,

Krunch

Try booting to recovery console and running scandisk. I've had 2 occurences similar on W2K where the PC would reboot just before the login screen in all modes.

Also, do you have any boot managers installed (BootMagic etc.)? - I've experienced some strange problems relating to this and fixed them using a disk editor.

Okay, my 2 cents worth!

Every time you touch this downloaded executable, it reeks havoc with your system.

Wipe your hard-drive; Conduct a clean installation of all your software, and DON'T reload the executable.

Hoo boy,

I also got similar problems (inconsistent behaviour) on one particular PC in my office. Things that solved it were:

(a). Ran the boot process in "step" mode and reinstalled part of windoze.

(b). System must have enough free space to boot up also. This isn't only got tt be OK once booted.

(c) Again, load dependent. (inconsistent). Sppeds of clock, bus etc. Are they synchronised and optimised?

Hope it helps.

End of mail.

ECS P4VXASD2+ motherboard doesn't support DDR 333.
This might be the problem. Anyway, ECS motherboards are very weak, I suggest you try another branch.