Stupid Dumb computer arghhhh

[catesja]

Ok, well, here goes; I am stumped....I have a system that behaves like so:

Runs great for hours sometimes. Sometimes not. It will either freeze, or behave like it has froze. It will allow me to use the mouse and click, but not repsond to the clicks. The keyboard works, but again no reponse to anything. Then it will quit responding to me clicking on anything, but the mouse will still move. I reinstalled XP but during setup, I got the following: AN unexpected error (769) occurred at line 5133 in d:\xpsp1\base\boot\setup\setup.c Press any key to continue.

I press a key and continue on with setup, everything goes smooth. I boot into windows and update everything, new drivers, reset my program settings, everything. But then I have this problem.

I have taken everything out and left just the video card, the ram , hdd, and cd drives. Get the same thing, same error if i try to reinstall. I then swapped out the hdd, and tried again, same. I swapped, video cards, same; swapped ram with another pc, same; swapped cd drive, same; swapped floppy, same; swapped PSU, same. Does this lead me to a failing motherboard or processor? This is a Celeron D 2.9GHz, 1GB Corsair RAM, 40 GB Seagate, 2 Sony CD burners (one DVD) Generic Floppy, ATI Radeon 9600, Creative SB Live!, USR 56k modem, ECS PT800CE-A motherboard. I have not been able to swap the board or CPU as I don't have extras of those. I have another motherboard, but it is a socket 775 and not 478, but I have no CPU for that. My install media is fine as I have tried 2 different disks, and installed using that media in another system.

I get that error after setup loads the fat and ntfs file systems, just before setup truelly begins and allows user interaction. But I have repartitioned and formatted to get the drive clean, and still same thing.

Thanks for any info!

BTW: All temps and voltages seem to be correct, according to the BIOS settings.

[SufferWell1396]

Does this lead me to a failing motherboard or processor?

a failing CPU is VERY rare, even with a celeron... Actually, it could have to do with your chipset, i know all about that... my compaq has an Intel 810e, one of the worst ever made, installing XP on it is a pain... but i got through setup and now it runs fine, so check the compatibility of your chipset with XP, like me, i should be stuck in Win 9x land, but ive cheated technology

If you try an MS-DOS based windows installation (Win Me, Win 98, Win 95) and if it works fine, then it could might as well be your chipset...

[azzey]

As SufferWell stated, CPU failures are quite rare unless you are overclocking. If you have swapped out everything other than the CPU and Motherboard, and PSU, then the problem must be one of those three. Everything I was going to suggest (XP disk, failing hard drive, etc) you have already done.

Has this ever worked properly?

I know it's a long shot, but have you cleared the CMOS? Try changing the battery too.

[david eaton]

Also, check the capacitors for leakage. See this post here http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=25482

[Sylvander]

Load and run Knoppix from a Knoppix Linux Live CD from here... or this alternative download site.

If Knoppix runs just fine, then your hardware is not faulty.

If you can get ANY Windows OS to run on the problem PC, run Windows XP Upgrade Advisor to produce a report to check out the hardware [and additional applications] for compatibility with XP.

The 40 GB Seagate HDD...
Is it SATA or PATA?
If SATA, does it need drivers loaded from a floppy before Windows Setup proper begins?