Michael Paul wrote:

I'm having a major issue with my system right now that just started a few
days ago. Basically, my computer (P IV, XP, 512 MB RAM) crashed a few times
for no apparent reason. I simply restarted and went about my business.
However, this AM, I was about to archive some data files onto CD when the
proverbial sh!t seemed to hit the fan.

I put in a new CD-RW a few weeks ago and everything worked fine with it. I
installed some SW from it, and burned several with my own information. This
morning, I put in a blank CD and closed the tray when WHAM! Crash. I let
the system restore itself and tried again. Same result. Thinking maybe
something was wrong with the CD, I took a CD that I previously had burned
with the burner and the same thing happened again. The weird thing is that
if I open and then close the CD tray without putting a CD in then nothing
bad happens.

This time though, during the re-boot process, the system would get partway
through the scandisk and it would crash again thus creating a seemingly
endless cycle of boot - start recovery - crash - reboot - start recovery -
crash - etc. etc. etc.

So, what coudl be the cause?

I don't think it's the OS (although with Microsoft anything is possible).
My initial though is that maybe something is jacked with a power managment
circuit on either the motherboard or CPU. I only was thinking this because
the crash seems to always occur when multiple power consumption tasks are in
process.

Any ideas? Some guidance would be nice before I head down to Fry's and blow
money I would rather spend on my bike on new hardware.

Thanks

Michael

Oh yeah, one more obligatory thing: wipe the drive clean and install FreeBSD.

--
J'm


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