Problems With Installing Xp

[Ace630]

My girlfriends brother got a computer second hand about 5 months ago and recently it has been giving a lot of problems.
It kept coming up with the blue screen all the time everytime he tried to go onto the internet so instead of trying to search for a solution I decided to just format it and reinstall windows.
I booted up with the the windows xp cd and when the screen comes up with setup is loading files sometimes setup will just stop on one of them. Its not the same one each time it stops on so Im not sure how to figure it out.
Sometimes though if i restart about 3 times it will load them all up fine and I can get through all the other screens fune until it has completed formatting and then the blue screen comes up with the error being the ntfs.sys
I have tried removing everything apart from the basics. I removed anything that was put in it after he got it and still didnt make a difference.
I tried the hard drive in another computer and got upto the format screen and it ran through everythin perfectly.
All I know about the computer is its a 1.70 ghz with originally 256mb of ram.

 

[alphnumeric]

Sounds like bad ram or maybe a hard drive thats going bad. memtest is a good utility for checking ram. If you go to your drive makers web site you should be able to download a free utility to check the hard drive for errors. My bets on bad ram.

 

[Ace630]

Well I tested the hard drive already and its fine and there is another ram that was bought for the computer not long after the computer was bought and the computer has the same problem

 

[alphnumeric]

I would still run memtest just to rule out bad ram. If it just one stick of ram try it in a different slot.

 

[Ace630]

I cant run the memtest though because i cant even get windows loaded
Everytime i try to install windows it will stop midway through at random times

 

[Spyder_1386]

hey there.... if u have more than one stick of RAM, pull it out and run the system on the remaining chip/s. Do this for all the chips to see which one is faulty... definately sounds like a problem with your RAM though.... if you only have one stick of RAM, you might have to take your pc in and have it checked for errors.

Spyder_1386

 

[Fragrant Coit]

MemTest runs in DOS, don't need Windows to run it.

Create a bootable Floppy or CD, let it run for a few passes {give it at least 2 hours}

 

[Tedster]

1. running xp with less than 512mb is extremely slow.
2. test your ram with memtest86+ for at least 7 passes. Boot off a floppy or CD rom.
3. Test your PSU with a tester AND a multimeter. If bad, replace with a QUALITY PSU. A $40 PSU is NOT quality. Go to tomshardware.com at look at their 2005/2006 PSU torture tests of 27 PSUs. Price also does not guarantee quality, however cheap PSUs tend to perform worse.

 

[Ace630]

Well now I have another problem
I gave him one of my old computers to use while i was trying to figure out what was wrong with his
and I put his hard drive in the old one
and i put my old hard drive back in it yesterday and now its not loading windows
It will get upto the point of the loading screen then i see the blue screen for about 1 second and then it will restart
Also I have tried reinstalling windows but i have the same problem now that i have with his one and then i tried the repair but that didnt do anything either

 

[God Of Mana]

Omg your Ram is corrupt, this calls for something other than looking on the internet to solve your problems cheaply and quickly.
You need to see a professional.
SORRY!

 

[SNGX1275]

You can't swap hard drives with preexisting windows installations unless the hardware is very similar or identical.

You really have to run memtest to rule out RAM problems. Go here and download an iso, burn that, then boot from it. You do not need Windows to run memtest.

 

[Ace630]

Well ive took out other hard drives and replaced them with ones that were already in the computer
Anyway I will run the memtest on the computer thx for the advice

 

[Ace630]

Oh never mind about the second problem now
I took the batterry out and put it back in and it worked fine after that

 

[Ace630]

Well i ran the mem test and it just stopped about 17 seconds in

Edit: I restarted and this time it stopped at 28 seconds and restarted aagain and stopped at 17 seconds again

 

[SNGX1275]

What do you mean stopped? afaik memtest does not stop for any reasons, it just keeps going even if it sees errors. So if memtest is stopping because of errors you have some messed up RAM and you are going to have to replace that before anything else can be done. If its rebooting, you've got more serious problems.

 

[Ace630]

yeah its just freezing like when i try to install xp
its the whole computer thats crashing because nothing works on it

 

[SNGX1275]

Then what does this mean?

Well i ran the mem test and it just stopped about 17 seconds in

Edit: I restarted and this time it stopped at 28 seconds and restarted aagain and stopped at 17 seconds again

If you got any errors at all in memtest, and you can't get Windows to install then you can blame RAM or motherboard. It is FAR more common to have bad RAM than a bad motherboard. Bad RAM would explain exactly the problems you are having.

 

[Ace630]

Oh sorry when i said restarting i meant i was restarting the computer
And its freezing at a random palce everytime i restart the computer
so i'm guessing its bad ram
just dont understand how an older stick of ram that came with it and a new one that was bought for it can both be bad

 

[SNGX1275]

Why were you restarting the computer? What was memtest reporting?

You aren't supposed to mix old and new ram, alphnumeric said early on to test with just 1 stick of RAM. Do that, there is a chance both work fine individually.

 

[Ace630]

ok i will have a go at that
i was restarting because the test was freezing
i left it for about half an hour and i came back and it was still at the same point

 

[SNGX1275]

Just test it with the new ram, or just with the old. Because we already know the results with both sets.

 

[Ace630]

Well i tried with both of them seperate and the same results happened
It just kept freezing
It looked like the older one seemed to be working better though because it the pattern was changing on it but it still frooze

Edit: I tried it again with the newer one and it does change the pattern but it still freezes

So i'm guessing there is a problem with the motherboard

Edit Edit: ok i took the motherboard out and realised that the cpu fan wasnt fully in contact with the cpu chip so i made sure it was properly connected and now the memtest runs fine. But i also have the hdd disconnected so im not sure what the problem was right now

Well the memtest works but the xp installation still doesnt work
Ill post the findings of the memtest when its done

 

[Ace630]

Well I'm not sure but I think both ram sticks have errors
The older one just stopped the memtest about 4 minutes in and came up with an error message
The new ram got past that time and came up with the list thing at the bottom and a lot of it was red which im guessing is not good
I dont think i have any other ram to test it with
Ive found the motherboard make which is a p4vmm2
Also when i try to install windows now it doesnt freeze but instead comes up with the error message of /i386/ntkrnlmp cannot be loaded error code 7