my computer reboots by itself

[lorenafavario]

Hi!! my name is Lorena and Im from Argentina.
My system is a AMD Athlon 1.10 Ghz with 512 RAM memory.
Matrox Graphic Millenium G200 AGP and Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum.
Motherboard seems to be a K7T Turbo2. Has Win XP Pro with SP1, AVAST Antivirus, Zone Alarm Pro, Spyboot Search and Destroy and Easy Cleaner to keep it running smooth.
But it reboots by itself when running antivirus, playing online or something. The pc has the hard drive partitioned in C: and D: (previously I had win2000 pro) so when I upgraded to XP I only formated C:
I had this problem since I had win 2000 and seems like the upgrade and the C: format didnt fix the problem. Now I can run antivirus for C: drive but when is checking D: it reboots by itself.
I tested my hard drive and is 62º celcius, is overheated? I dont know how to check if partitions are ok or not, maybe is a hard drive problem, who knows?
Is this a virus? a trojan? a hardware issue? a software issue?
Please help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[rjfvillarosa]

Bienvenidos a PC Mech.
Do you know the make and model of your harddrive? if there are bad clusters in the "D" partition then they could be causing data read problems. This can be checked using the harddrive manufacturers diagnostic tool which you can download from the manufacturers website if you know the make of your harddrive.

[glc]

The first thing you need to do is disable restart on error, so you can read the bluescreen when whatever it is crashes the system. Then you can research the specific error, what you need to search on is in the first few lines of the bluescreen.

Control panel, system, advanced, startup and recovery.

[lorenafavario]

Ok Amigo:
I downloaded the powermax software from MAXTOR website to check my HD and it said my HD is great and without any problem.
By the way, I'll try the suggestion from GLC so I already disabled restart on error. We will see what I get now.

[rjfvillarosa]

Glad to see your harddrive checked out ok, let me know as soon as you can get any information from a "Blue Screen of Death" as it is known.

[lorenafavario]

ok well I run the antivirus and...... The bluescreen said: (this a the important part I think)

MACHINE_CHECK_EXCEPTION
Technical information:
xxx stop: 0x0000009c (0x00000002, 0x8053F0F0, 0xF6002000, 0x00000017A)

The suggestion the blue screen gave me are:
desable BIOS memory options like CACHE or monitoring (it said vigilancia cause it was in spanish but i think monitoring is ok)
No idea what to do now any suggestions?

[rjfvillarosa]

According to microsoft this is a hardware or hardware driver issue,
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d...0Msgs/1252.asp
Have you installed any new hardware recently?

[lorenafavario]

No new hardware, just drivers when I upgraded from win2000 pro to the win XP pro with SP1.
Of course drivers were for win XP not for win 2000 and most of them were from cds that came with the cards and hardware.
Didnt upgraded to SP2 because everybody is saying its terrible, so I'll wait until SP3 is available I think.
But something made me think when I read the article you gave me...
I made the partitions on my HD when I was preparing my pc to run a WIN 2000 PRO, then I formated just the C: and upgraded to the WIN XP PRO leaving the D: partition like it was. Maybe thats why its having problems now. Maybe I should have to delete all the partitions, create them again and format each one again.
But Im not sure if there is any suggestion that works better and is less work.
IM READY FOR SUGGESTIONS.....

[rjfvillarosa]

I am sure that maybe you don't want to hear this, but is a format and reinstall out of the question? will you lose too much personal stuff like music and photographs??

[Marke522]

You can format the D: while you are inside of Windows XP.
Right click on the disk and format. You might want to reasign it to NTSF since you are running XP.

Drag any important documents or picutres to the C: first, then you won't have to backup anything.

I wouldn't back up any folders, they might have hidden files that could create the problem again in the C: partition.

[lorenafavario]

Yes I have some stuff on D: that would like to keep but I want this system to work properly at the same time. So if I have to lose something its ok, the price to pay.
At the same time Im thinking about setting up linux in this computer too so I need it to be clean and healthy.
Well, Well, Well I think thats all folks. If anybody has a suggestion better than this let me know during the day tomoroow will work on it

[rjfvillarosa]

I have just replied to your email, have a read and post that picture you sent me.