Computer boot problems, resolved?

[longrawker]

(this thread is also posted in General Software, as i have no idea what the problem could be, and it involves hardware and software... by all means move this thread if you think it's in the wrong place...)

Hello once again.

Serious problems again with our computer. It's a Dell Dimension 8200.

The problem this time is beyond my skill to fix. The computer would begain to boot, but it would say that the system crashed, and give you the choice to boot in safe mode with command prompt, safe mode with ethernet controler, or safe mode, last good system settings, or boot normally. No matter what choice was made, it would boot past the "Windows xp home" with the little scrolling colored bar, to a blue screen that said "windows xp" in the corner, and it would give our system info. It would say Microsoft Windows build 5.2 (not sure if that's the right #), service pack 2, single processor, 265 mg RAM. And that's all, it would not respond to anything aside from holding the power button for five seconds to turn off. No options were given or anything...

I checked the bios, and the AGP aperature (i think that's what it was called) was set at 256mg, and our Computer Architecture teacher had told us that it should be set at half of the RAM mg, so it should be 128mg. I set it to 128mg, and the problem stayed the same. It would boot untill it came to agpcpq.sys and then freeze. (i have changed the startup so that in stead of the scrolling bar, you actually see what's going on. It was a PcMech tip a while ago... it worked fine for a long time, so i dont think that was the problem.) After it froze, absolutely nothing would happen... it would sit there for hours frozen.

I did a cold boot, and it froze at the same place. I sat there for a while, then I decided to leave it. Came back five minutes later, and it had loaded fully. However, it took about 10 minutes longer than it should have...

I tried to log into my account, but the log in screen was frozen as well.

Help??

(All apologies for the long story... i'm trying to give as much background as possible.)

[pam123]

I think you need to run a disk diagnostic on your hard drive.
You should be able to download the one you need on to a floppy from the hdd maker's web site or from the Dell support page.

[longrawker]

Originally Posted by pam123 I think you need to run a disk diagnostic on your hard drive. You should be able to download the one you need on to a floppy from the hdd maker's web site or from the Dell support page.

Yeah, i did that, and it came back normal.

Parents called Dell support, and they had no idea, so i fixed it.

Somehow, a few of our components' clock speeds had been changed... Could this've been a virus??

For example, the APG aperature was clocked double, the CPU speed was set as "Compatable", rather than "normal". This was causing the computer to freeze during boot. I fixed all of them that i saw, and now our computer runs normally.

Downloaded AVG free, ran a scan, found seven trojans, and the worm.

Took care of them, and now all is well... but any ideas what happened to my system?

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by longrawker Took care of them, and now all is well... but any ideas what happened to my system?

Gremlins.

Cricket

[pam123]

You want to know what drives me crazy?
Stuff like this.
Oh well, as long an everything is working.
At a guess (and nothing more), we're all missing something about restore/repair.