Indeed...I fully expect receipt of an E-mail bomb at any moment

My isp''s server took a dump. Give me a day or two to catch up ...and I''ll get back to you with a clever response



[Message Edited]

...uh...oh....

Ha Ha

Hey Gary, hope you see this...here''s the story...

So I got the new hard drive, installed it, my Mobo recognized it fine, I try installing XP, everything is going ok...then I get a blue screen. Something about IRQL_LESS_OR_NOT_EQUAL something like that. So I try it again, crashes again. One more time...I made it as far as reformatting the disk...then it just froze. Well, atleast we know it''s not the HD. So what else can it be? It''s obviously some other hardware...but what? I just moved into my new apartment so money is a little tight...so I sure hope it''s not a CPU problem. Any ideas? I''m stuck with no PC for atleast 2 weeks...I''m gonna go crazy man!!!!

I''m posting this from work...but if anyone has any ideas as to what piece of hardware will cause your PC to crash at random...I''d be glad to know.
[Message Edited]

Ram will do it....[random crashes].

As for 'breaking XP'....it's made up of a Kernel and a Shell...and last I heard if you had both of those you had a 'nut' and they can certainly be broken [cracked]...

Jafo you have mail and Hus, I have to upgrade all the time too so don't feel bad

I'm thinkin you have bad ram, I work on comps alot of the time and that sounds like the issue in this case...

Jafo, how sure are you that it's RAM? I really cant afford to buy new RAM only to find out it's something else. I REALLY hope it is the RAM, as it would be the cheapest fix!

Yeah I worked on one not too long ago where the ram was bad to the point that the computer would completely freeze up when the poor guy tried to play solitaire, and it had a 120 gig hard drive, so that would be the first thing i would try

Ok, so that's 2 votes for RAM...I myself was thinking it's ram. I'll see if anyone else responds by the end of the day...if RAM gets the vote...I'll order it tonight.

you could probably find some as cheap as 15$ go to http://www.tigerdirect.com/ or http://www.overstock.com/

Hus....no-one can ever be totally sure about anything when it comes to computers....there's just too many variables.

A faulty ram 'address' being accessed can cause odd crashes...as can a system component overheating.

With ram...if there is more than one stick...try removing one or swapping positions...see if the behaviour changes.

In the bad old days it was common to come across faulty ram...and/or faulty mobo banks, but it seems less common these days.

My most recent BSOD [in XP] was initiated when accessing/updating a fairly large database...and my 'theory' was that 256meg wasn't enough to cope....and If I'd stuck in another stick it might solve it....but so much of this 'odd' problem solving is down to trial and error....[I haven't got a spare stick to try it....yet]...

BTW...for hardware problem solving my vote would go to yrag....he never gets it wrong [although I expect China may beg to differ....sick him, girlie]....

Ok, thanks for the responses guys, much appreciated. I'll order the RAM, and worst comes to worst...I'll just end up with a bad PC and new ram...hehe.

Thanks again.